Apple’s obsession with ads is destroying the iPhone

Disappointing news for iPhone and iPad owners last week, as it emerged that Apple will start showing more ads in App Store searches from early March. You might feel that searching for “Into the Breach” should bring up the game “Into the Breach” instead of “Hero Wars: Alliance RPG,” but Apple seems to disagree.

Now you might say I’m stretching the term “news” a bit, as we’ve had ads in App Store searches since 2016, and even this latest extension of the program, which created multiple paid slots per search, first launched last month. But you’d be wrong, because we just learned two new nuggets of knowledge: the time frame and the markets that will get the extra ads first (the UK, followed by Japan, followed by everyone else). So there.

Either way, the topic lends itself to small updates rather than blockbuster announcements, because Apple’s love affair with in-software advertising is one long process of gradual expansion. The thin end of the wedge is slowly being replaced by the thick end of the reduced user experience.

Initially it was a single ad at the top of every search. Then those ads spread to other parts of the App Store. And Apple News. And shares. And iMovie. And, in another 2026 development, Apple Maps. The company is constantly pushing for more intrusive advertising. When users push back hard enough (such as ads for gambling apps appearing in the “You might also like” section), Apple typically takes a step back; if they don’t, Apple will take another step forward. And this is the latest.

It’s easy to see why Apple would want to add more and more ad spaces to its software platforms: money. You don’t reach a $4 trillion market cap without considering revenue opportunities. But it’s not free money. It is at the expense of user confidence.

The whole thing about Apple is that it’s different from other tech companies. It makes the hardware And the software. The hardware is there to bring in the revenue, and the software is there to make the hardware as attractive as possible. This should be the company you go to when you’re tired of having your data collected, of being a product instead of a customer. Apple fans pay a premium up front and in return they get to inhabit a safe space: the famous walled garden. And they have a right to expect Apple to weed out and throw out all the traveling salesmen.

Why, a customer might reasonably ask, do I see advertisements? Was the $999 I spent on my iPhone not enough for you? And if you’re going to do the same things as Google, what’s to stop me from saving money and buying an Android phone?

This may sound like a minor annoyance: the equivalent of someone complaining about ads on the cheaper tiers of their streaming service of choice. (There are inevitably promotional moments before shows on Apple TV, as well as widespread product placement.) But this goes much deeper.

Search ads are specifically poison to a healthy ecosystem because they focus solely on steering consumers away from the product they asked for and toward the product the platform owner was paid to recommend. Ads are labeled, of course, but if no one clicks on them, no one would pay for them. They direct traffic. They shape the market. They make it more likely that an Apple Maps user will walk past the hidden gem gastropub that the company desperately needs and to the subpar restaurant chain that paid for an ad.

So Apple needs to think about the app ecosystem it wants to run. Does it want to reward innovation, encourage small developers to flourish, help customers navigate millions of apps and find the app that suits them best? Or does it want to favor bigger developers and help copycats trick consumers into downloading the wrong app? I’d like to think it’s the former. But any expansion of its in-software advertising business makes me doubt it even more.

Welcome to our weekly Apple Breakfast column, which brings all the Apple news you missed last week into a handy, bite-sized overview. We call it Apple Breakfast because we think it goes wonderfully with a cup of coffee or tea on a Monday morning, but it’s also nice if you want to read it during lunch or dinner.

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