Apple recently opted for new ad placements in the iPhone App Store. This opened the main line Today tab.the “You might like it too” section and also a few other places on the app store to ad placements.
However, users were soon bombarded with ads for various gambling apps. Along with users, even developers took to Twitter to show their outrage at the move.
I’ve just visited the product page for Runestone, one of my apps, 10 times. 3/10 times the product page showed an online gambling ad. pic.twitter.com/bNAJsasqwB
— Simon B. Støvring (@simonbs) October 25, 2022
As noted by Arment, Apple offers advertisers the ability to show their ad in app categories other than their own app’s category, allowing gambling ads to appear in listings for unrelated apps like podcast app Overcast.
– MacRumors
Now my app’s product page is showing gambling ads that I really disagree with.
Apple shouldn’t agree with that either.
The App Store corrupted such a great company so deeply. They make so much from gambling and manipulative IAPs that they don’t even see the problem anymore. https://t.co/MnNlf7k0kT
— Marco Arment (@marcoarment) October 25, 2022
Finally, after all the visible outrage, the Cupertino Giant has paused the listing of gambling apps on the Apple App Store. In a response to MacRumors, Apple stated: “We have paused ads related to gambling and some other categories on App Store product pages.“.
The keyword in the statement is ‘stopped‘, and Apple certainly isn’t pulling the plug on the very lucrative gambling and sports betting industry. The company will likely try to moderate it better in the future, perhaps by limiting gambling ads to a few categories on the App Store.
The market is also focused on Apple’s service revenue prospects, which are valued because they tend to be less volatile and more profitable than hardware sales. Services revenue has outpaced growth overall for the past three quarters, and this trend is expected to continue in the fourth quarter, with services revenue up 9.6% year over year
– Apple Q4 Earnings Expectations, Investopedia
Many Silicon Valley companies are finally feeling the heat of the recent global economic headwinds. Even a company like Apple has had to order production cuts across its entire line of iPhones. And in such global conditions, the company would certainly pay more attention to its ads and services businesses to maintain reasonable growth.
