[oneplane]

Not even close. If you go to iCloud (a tiered service with one free offering and only paid options beyond that), you get product messaging about iCloud. Not "how to write confidently in this other unrelated product that you don't have but you can buy from us".

[everdrive]

It’s not in the same ballpark, and shouldn’t be compared. It is pretty annoying on its own, though.

[busymom0]

The iOS settings app shows a “Apple Arcade for free for 3 months” ad at the very top of the home page. That’s definitely an ad.

EDIT: screenshot:

https://i.imgur.com/64sP9yh.jpg

[oneplane]

Not showing up for me at any time, perhaps this is that complementary thing you get for new iCloud accounts and new Apple devices? (Or was that the one free year thing?)

While it is probably advertising for a service, it's not a generic place for arbitrary advertisements. I believe the difference between "there will be random ads here" and "you bought a thing, this is what you get with it for free if you want it, or you can remove it and never see it again as a normal option" is pretty big.

[busymom0]

I updated my comment with a screenshot:

https://i.imgur.com/64sP9yh.jpg

My iCloud account isn't new. It's many years old. The device I have is old but only 3 months old. I bought it from someone else and it's still under warranty so maybe that's why.

> I believe the difference between "there will be random ads here" and "you bought a thing, this is what you get with it for free if you want it, or you can remove it and never see it again as a normal option" is pretty big.

That's a fair point. I do notice Apple going in the wrong direction though. Even the "search" tab in the App Store now shows ads for random apps (before doing a search). That's fairly odd.

[oneplane]

For the store I sort-of understand it, it's a store after all, the only purpose is to extract money from customers (in exchange for services/goods), and with a non-physical store the only real distinction you can make is how high at the top of a list your product sits. That said, I don't really use it that often anymore as I already have all the apps I want or need. Perhaps also why I tried the arcade a while back but didn't really end up using much of it for long.

[vulcan01]

> Even the "search" tab in the App Store now shows ads for random apps (before doing a search). That's fairly odd.

The random searches I've seen always have to do with my previous searches in that box. I think this is probably a case of Apple not having a good App Store search suggestion engine. (This happens in the Podcasts app as well.)

[oneplane]

Maybe they screwed themselves over like having:

  - normal search for the list of apps that exist
  - paid search positioning on top of that
  - previous searches you made
  - suggested results just for you

and then somehow blending that into a bad list of search results. (this is just a crappy guess on my part)

On one hand I don't care all that much, on the other hand I know there are people that do go browsing the store looking for new stuff to try out, and using search seems to be the only reasonable way to go looking for things with so many apps being available.

[everdrive]

I haven’t seen that ad, but I’m also using a Pihole, so maybe it has just been blocked. Agreed, though, advertising is unwelcome.

[busymom0]

I don’t think PiHole will block this ad. I think it may only show for new phones or something:

https://i.imgur.com/64sP9yh.jpg

[oneplane]

After combining that with your other post, perhaps the formula they are using is iCloud account on a 'difference' device where it calculates if the new device is 'better' than the old one, thus was a device upgrade and therefore you may want to try the arcade. Personally I don't care for the arcade, but it does seem to be some sort of one-off notification when something in your device/account mix changes.

Reminds me of the Office365 trial tile in Windows that doesn't actually do anything but when you open the start menu it is always there in accounts that are newly signed in to a computer. It's not really in the way, but it is always in your face until you remove it (but then it does stay away).

[oneplane]

It's definitely annoying indeed. I do wonder how this could be done better because after asking around for a bit there do seem to be a lot of people that aren't aware of any free trials yet are definitely interested in trying it out.