[dlivingston]

No, not quite. "Content previews", not "ads". A distinction with a difference.

When you 'hover' over an app on an Apple's tvOS, the app populates that preview section with whatever content it wants. In the linked article's screenshot, the Apple TV app is being hovered over, so the 'preview' section is populated with content from Apple TV.

If the user swiped right, to hover over the Arcade app, that preview would change to show some Arcade game. Hover over Netflix, Max, Hulu, Spotify apps, and you'll get content previews from them.

So yes, they are "ads", in a hyper-literal sense, but not strictly, not facilitated by the operating system, and not in any way that matters.

[redczar]

Product placement in movies and tv shows are ads. Product placement on Apple TV are ads. Previews for new movies at a movie theater are ads. We live in a society where filling up your car with gas subjects you to ads. They are everywhere. We are so inundated with ads that people think what Apple does are not ads.

[reissbaker]

Okay, to fit this definition of content previews for an app when hovering on that specific app as an ad: I like that my Apple TV does not show ads for apps I don't explicitly select in the UI, unlike almost every competing device which shows intrusive ads for unrelated stuff that I haven't selected in the UI, and may not even have installed or subscribed to. (I also like that it's the lowest latency streaming box.)

Apple TV is AFAIK the best device in its category.

I also think your definition is overly broad and doesn't reflect what an "ad" is. For example, if Apple cut the feature from iOS that allowed you to control your music from your lock screen, Spotify would also be willing to pay Apple to be able to control specifically Spotify from your lock screen. Does that mean "being able to control music from your lock screen" is an ad for Spotify? No. Does iOS allowing app-specific widgets on the homescreen count as ads, since if it didn't exist, companies would be willing to pay to be on people's homescreens? No, widgets are not by definition ads (even if some widgets may be ads!). Similarly, the Apple TV OS providing the ability for installed apps to show interactive app-specific UI on hover (i.e. the user has chosen to interact with this app, or has chosen it as their primary app in the OS), does not mean the OS itself has ads.

[dlivingston]

No, dude. What Apple is doing is providing an API [0] that app developers can do whatever the hell they want with. Apple is delivering ads in the same way that your web browser is (giving other people a blank canvas to draw on).

[0]: https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guideline...

[redczar]

Apple is delivering ads

We agree then that the Apple TV has ads in it.

[dlivingston]

I get the crux of what you're saying -- the Apple TV homepage has a giant ad banner at the top; just another billboard in a world covered by them.

What I dislike about internet discussions is that we've gone back and forth over pedantic definitions of what "ads" are, rather than discussing your more interesting meta-point.

[redczar]

People say Apple has not innovated much lately but they’ve innovated in the advertising space. They have just enough services and products to make it worthwhile for them to covertly advertise them to their customers. They don’t feel like ads and it seems natural the way they do it. To me it is quite clever. I never noticed it until it was pointed out to me.

[reissbaker]

The OS does not have ads. Some apps can contain ads. This is in stark contrast to other streaming box OSes, which contain ads built into the OS and have apps that have ads in them.