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Advertising On Apple's App Store Could Look This Bad

App-dicted
June 21, 2016

Earlier this month, Apple announced plans for paid App Store ads. Now that the first iOS 10 beta is out, we’re beginning to get our first look at just how crummy those ads could be when they arrive later this year.

Tweetbot’s Paul Haddad recently took to Twitter to complain about what happens in the first iOS 10 beta when someone searches for his app on the App Store. As you can see below, a search for “Tweetbot,” shows an ad for Twitterrific 5 for Twitter.

 

What’s the big deal? According to Haddad, this wasn’t a targeted ad. “Just to be clear that wasn’t a specifically target ad. Apple’s algorithm chose that placement,” he explains.

Craig Hockenberry from Twitterrific agrees, noting, “I don’t like that this happens just by opting-in to search ads with relevant keywords, even if it is only a beta.”

Is this wrong? For consumers, putting two of the most popular Twitter clients side-by-side during a search makes sense. However, this probably isn’t what most app developers were expecting by opting-in to the new search ads.

We’ll almost certainly hear more about Apple’s new search ads in the coming weeks as we get closer to the September release of iOS 10. Until then, we expect Apple to tweak the system during the iOS 10 beta process.

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