Apple adds persistent promotional prompts to iOS Settings, users revolt
iPhone users discovered Apple is displaying ads for iCloud+, Apple Music, and other services in Settings with no easy dismiss option.
What to know
- Apple is showing promotional prompts for its own services (iCloud+, Apple Music, Apple TV, AppleCare+) in the iOS Settings app with no straightforward dismiss option, forcing users to either wait weeks for them to expire or purchase the service.
- The move contradicts Apple's long-standing premium brand image and has sparked rapid user backlash on social media, with many citing the recent iPhone Duo and iPhone 18 Pro price hikes as adding insult to injury.
- Apple's escalating emphasis on services revenue reflects limited growth in smartphone sales, but the on-device promotion strategy is widely perceived as cheap and antithetical to the user experience Apple has historically championed.
“Infuriatingly for iOS users, the only way to disable these promos is to either let them expire — which in many cases could take weeks or even months, leaving a persistent notification badge on the Settings app in the meantime — or pay for the service being offered.”
TechRadar, Tech publication · TechRadar
Apple Tech company
How it unfolded 2 developments, newest first · click a bar or a number to jump articlesposts
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iOS users express widespread frustration on social media
Users vent complaints across social platforms and Reddit about the persistent ads. Many compare the practice to Microsoft's Start menu ads and criticize Apple for nickeling-and-diming premium customers who just paid high prices for new iPhone models.
“I'm feeling like this is nearly on-par with the ens***ification that Microsoft introduced with Start menu ads.”
— User (unnamed) -
first by HN Best, 1d ago · also HN Frontpage
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first by Mastodon, 1d ago
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🥸 iPhone users are flooding social media with complaints — Apple’s latest iOS move is adding persistent ‘ads’ that can’t be dismissed to users’ devices ｢ iOS users are seeing ‘ads’ for other Apple products on their iPhones The banners promote services like iCloud+, Apple Music and AppleCare+ The messages often can’t be dismissed and stick around…
2 more of the top 3 · 49 posts in this stretch
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My daughter recently left me with her old M1 Macbook Air when she went to college. I decided to give Fedora Asahi Remix a try. It was great seeing that the install process was a simple "pipe curl to sh" from a domain I suppose I have to trust anyway. The most technical part of the install was making sure I waited long enough for the machine to…
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I don’t know if that’s effective. I’ve had all those toggles off since having my iPhone and still got those settings “ads.”
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Apple deploys promotional prompts in iOS Settings
Promotional messages for Apple services appear in the iOS Settings app, positioned near the top of the display. The ads promote iCloud+ storage, free trials for Apple Music and Apple TV, and AppleCare+ extended warranty. Many users report the prompts cannot be dismissed and persist for weeks or months.
What people are saying 21 voices from 1 site · best of 49 · verbatim
- Yesterday
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iOS has essentially been nagware for a long time now. I switched to android because everything iOS does is to continually put focus on iOS. So many nagging prompts, so much broken/misleading configuration. iOS is now the hellstew du jour. Android is with the exception of Gemini, a peaceful computing platform.Also developing for iOS which I did for…
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Meh. Apple ads in settings is a nothing burger. Ads anywhere else is degenerate and another matter.But I don’t get to finish the article for all the ads on the website. 1/3 of my phone was filled with a banner at the bottom. 1/8 video player, and then a sign-up screen covered all.Enshitification world order will lead me to use the phone less. So…
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Everyone is sticking ads everywhere now.I swapped supermarkets the other day because Tesco’s search now has several sponsors at the top of every search - and they’re weird keyword matching that doesn’t even work so you get nonsense products.Search for ‘mint’ and you get 2 rows of toothpaste. Who searches for toothpaste by typing ‘mint’? Of course…
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I love the "Apple that had some taste and discernment in the past" description, for those of us that remember the Apple that almost went bankrupt.There are enough examples until the NeXT reverse acquisition, bringing Jobs back, that prove it wasn't always like that.
- Sep 22
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A year or two ago my iPhone started showing ads for Kentucky Friend Chicken on the home screen. I've never been to this store, installed anything related to it, or even visited their website.Apparently this is triggered by walking near a venue of theirs. Apple doesn't classify this as an app, it's a "suggestion". The huge sign at the mall that…
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Search on the app store sucks too. I haven't been able to find either a way to search for only apps that charge for downloads (I don't want to watch an ad for features, or nickel and dimed on IAP), or some kind of "minimum price" slider I can use.That feels like a bog-standard search feature on a marketplace. I can only assume the omission is…
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GrapheneOS + Neo Store + FFUpdater + Aurora Store do not eyerape you with ads. Just some food for thought and consideration.OSMAnd~ for maps, SimpleX + Orbot (and VPN for calls) for secure telecommunication, JRPN 15C & 16C for calculator, Collabora Office for spreadsheets, BravePipe (or NewPipe) for YouTube client, Silence for automatic call…
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“iAd offers advertisers the emotion of TV with the interactivity of the web, and offers users a new way to explore ads without being hijacked out of their favorite apps,” said Steve Jobs, Apple’s CEO. “iAds will reach millions of iPhone and iPod touch users—a highly desirable demographic for advertisers—and provide developers a new way to earn…
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I'll never forget when an employee at Samsung asked on their internal chat why the built in Weather app has ads, and they turned them off.
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Whenever I see an ad in Apple Maps, I leave a bad review for the advertiser, specifically giving them a thumbs-down in customer service. They are making the service worse for me, the customer. I can dream that this would become common practice such that these ads get the reputation of providing negative value to the companies who buy them.
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It's lousy that you can't turn off the badge notifications for the Settings app, which is where they push this garbage. I'm still on iOS 18, and I just have to live with a red '1' on my Settings app because I haven't updated my OS. It also pokes me every week or two to update.It's not Microsoft-level annoyance, but it's not the way Apple used to…
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The title had me thinking they had actual adverts open to advertisers. It's not, just someone winging about apple advertising icloud+ and some other stuff in their settings app where you can directly enable it. Come on you lot, this is fine, it's like the least ad driven mainstream commercial platform.
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Exactly, the enshitificaton of Apple proves that Greed can never be satisfied: even a trillion dollar company, with a fanatic consumer base (that is ironically paying premium $ for the best USER experience) and THE tightest ecosystem grip that yields huge App-Store tax revenues, even such a company is not 'satisfied' and still can't escape…
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> Looks like Tim Cook, John Ternus and Eddy Cue really enjoy being swamped with ads in their products. Will there soon be a time when Apple executives start carrying some other brand’s devices with them to avoid having a rotten experience?There's no chance these guys don't already have the full suite of Apple services (whether or not they use…
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I really don’t get this. Apple is trying to sell you 2 or 3 addons that are really beneficial and great products that make sense.I don’t need them, I don’t buy them.But I really appreciate there being a button at a place that logically makes sense and that gives you the opportunity to make more out of your device.AFAIK you can click them away.It’s…
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Imagine spending $2k on a phone only to be presented with ads. Quick way to lose your luxury and loyal customers IMO.On the flip side, imagine having another product made for people who can afford $2k phones... Well you'd probably pay a lot to advertise to that market.I think trying to balance between these 2 is going to be tough, and your luxury…
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I doubt John Ternus will change direction anytime soon, since it will look like he’s reversing the plethora of eyesore ads that Tim Cook added over his tenure.But the Apple with ads is not the Apple that had some taste and discernment in the past. For a long time I’ve visited the App Store’s app update page directly (tap and hold on App Store icon…
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Relatedly, Apple finally kicked me off the quick update bandwagon with macOS/iOS 26, and I was surprised to learn that no, Apple does not let you just say no to updates. You get a permanent red badge that you can only dismiss by fully turning off system notifications, you get nagged literally thousands of times, and if any of those times you don’t…
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Yep, after being a huge Apple Maps advocate for years to family and friends, I have quit it completely after I got a pop up introducing new ads.Mostly just using CoMaps now, or Google Maps if I need to look up business hours or get traffic info.If Apple has ads too then I might as well just use Google for that stuff since at least it’s probably…
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My flip phone is a completely ad-free experience. I would recommend it for just that reason (among many, many other benefits).With no channel for ads in your life, when you step into public spaces, you realize how much of our linguistic and visual spectrums are polluted by ads. The ad is always the same message too: "Buy this!" it screams as loud…
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I have been a long time Android fan because of the tinkering you could do more easily than Apple. Then I started appreciating some of the design decisions behind especially iPhone, and it's been almost 7 years of iPhone usage.Recently I am starting to question some of the design decisions. Most native apps are bloated with functionalities, most of…