Apple and AI: Imperfect together

Ads. They are the disgusting fuel that makes the world go ‘round.

You thought it was angular momentum. Nope.

Business Insider raises the prospect of more ads on Apple products.

“Apple has begun testing an AI-powered ad product similar to Google’s Performance Max as it looks to supercharge its $7 billion ad business”

While Apple’s new tool appears to be limited to placements within the App Store, mobile-advertising experts said it could logically follow that Apple would eventually expand it to other properties.

Huge, if true. Hugely gross, the Macalope means. But is it? People who identify as “mobile advertising experts” are likely to not see any kind of problem with paving the entire world in ads, so are not likely to have any familiarity with good taste.

Commentators have previously speculated that Apple would soon bring ads to Maps, Apple TV+, and its Books app.

Speculation that Apple will add an ad-supported tier to TV+ is rampant after the company hired Joseph Cady, former EVP of advanced advertising and partnerships at NBCUniversal. As every other major streaming service already has an ad-supported tier, this seems like an obvious move to make. The Macalope looks forward to TV+ maturing into the kind of grown-up streaming service that regularly cancels shows you love after two seasons and just flat-out refuses to air things that are already in the can because the tax write-off is more lucrative than the money they’d make showing it. Only then will it have arrived.

Before we dip a bucket into the “Steve Jobs would never” well (which is full of bugs, algae, and maybe an old tire), we should look at Jobs’ track record on ads. Sure, he seemed pretty proud of the fact that TV shows purchased on iTunes were ad-free when he announced iTunes 6 in 2005. But he was also the one to enthusiastically note that a popular format for monetizing apps would be ads when the App Store was announced. While the Macalope doubts he’d want them festooning Apple products like Intel stickers, he wasn’t completely opposed to them.

That said, the Macalope thinks the over-ad-ification of Apple products is one of the biggest threats to the company’s reputation for a premium user experience. When you search for something in the App Store, the first thing you see is always an ad, which is rather minimally identified as such. This obviously does not serve the user and it is a real pain point for the developer of whatever you were actually searching for. Not to contradict Tim Cook’s assertion that the App Store is “a trusted place where developers and users could come together in a two-sided transaction”.

Not only is Apple the unmentioned third party in that transaction, but if the customer had to search for the app, it’s there again as an ad seller and the developer’s competition is there as well, jumping up and down trying to distract the customer.

AI’s “value add” here is purported to be in targeting the ads toward the right groups. You know, “left-handed people who recently ate but would be willing to split a dessert and are not Mennonites but are curious about the lifestyle.” These are notorious Wink drinkers.

In general, the Macalope is somewhat leery of AI in this ad context. Well, okay, he’s leery of it in a lot of contexts, but this one as well. Someday we’re going to reach the point where ads are sold targeting AIs, trying to influence them to influence us on our buying decisions.

Joke’s on them, though, because the Macalope already outsourced all of his buying decisions to an Al. Al Henster, his financial advisor. And Al doesn’t have a computer. Just business cards that read “The Analog Advisor”.

Game, set, and match.