Buckle up, you will get more ads served by Apple
While complicating it for third parties to track you for that same purpose. How Ironic
Besides selling you iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, AirPods, Apple services, and more, Apple is not done doing business with you. Yes, the products are over-the-line top-notch and they also come with a hefty price tag.
But Apple is seeing more dollar signs and we shouldn’t blame them. The main goal for any profit-seeking company is to, well… make a profit.
But it’s a bit ironic (I’m not using the word hypocritical) how Apple is willing to fill their cash register.
Let me explain.
A while back
With the launch of iOS 14.5, we all got the option to prevent apps from NOT tracking our activities. This is also known as the App Tracking Transparency feature. And I’m certain that you’ve encountered this message at least once in the past year.
And It works as follows.
You download a new App from the App Store, you open it and the very first prompt you get is the one that’s made by Apple that asks you whether or not you want to prevent that App from Cross Tracking your activity.
Most likely you’ve chosen to NOT have it track your activity.
Most likely you’ve chosen to NOT have it track your activity.
What is Cross App Tracking?
But what in the world is Cross App Tracking, you may ask.
Well, Cross App Tracking happens when you opt out of an App on your iPhone (Or Android device) and that App is still monitoring your activities. This means that if you’ve allowed the App to cross track you, it knows what websites you visit, the locations you navigate to, the podcasts you listen to, etc.
it knows what websites you visit, the locations you navigate to, the podcasts you listen to, etc.
So yeah, you can already feel it coming: most of us don’t like this kind of monitoring behavior and thus we almost always choose the option of not being tracked.
And this little decision, that Apple allows us to make every time we download a new app, hurts big (and small) companies big time.
But why am I even mentioning all of this?
But why am I even talking about this stuff? Well, that’s because Apple is now doubling down on advertising across other apps. The very thing they prevent third-party apps from doing (or at least give us the option to not let that happen).
This means that Apple now, more than ever, collects your data when you navigate to a certain place or order a certain item. They then digest that data and serve you ads based on your personal preferences.
And how does Apple’s ads serving campaign work currently?
Normally, you get to see ad banners once you open random apps such as Apple News, Apple TV, Apple Stocks, etc. But also when you’re about to download a new App. The very first one that you get after you search for one is the one that’s been promoted by Apple.
What’s the big deal?
So you might be thinking, what’s the big deal here? Everywhere on the internet I get to see Ad banners popping up left and right.
Well, that’s fine when it comes to reading articles from free news websites. At the end of the day, they only get paid by showing you those advertisements.
But in the Apple ecosystem, you already have paid for a lot. Think of the many services you’ve paid for and not to mention the actual device you just paid a thousand bucks (if not more) for.
And now there are even using your data that they have collected on other devices you might be using inside the Apple ecosystem. Think of the iPad, MacBook, and Apple Watch you also might be using besides your iPhone.
So yeah, it basically comes down to this: Apple did a great job by giving us the option to not get tracked by third-party apps, and now they do that very same thing. Maybe this was their intention all along. I don’t know. But what I do know is that flooding customers with ads totally goes against Steve Job’s philosophy.
Thanks for reading until the end : )
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