Apple will show more ads on your iPhone and Mac. How surprising!

What a news, isn’t it?


App Tracking Transparency (ATT) has always been a “privacy-washing” move, rather than a genuine attempt at improving user experience.

The idea is that ATT stops apps from tracking user’s activity across OTHER apps. Which means that they can still track you across apps by the same developer.

For example, Facebook won’t track you when you watch videos on the YouTube App, but it will when you browse Instagram. The same way, Apple does track you when you browse Apple apps, or simply when you use an iPhone outside of third-party apps.

This is an extremely important detail.

Why? 🤔 Because now that ATT caused billion-dollar losses to rivals like Meta and Snap Inc., Apple will double down on online advertising. How surprising :)

How? 🤔 By adding new ad placements across its properties like the App Store, the Today Tab, Apple Maps, Apple Books, Podcast, AppleTV+, and more.

Currently only in the News & Stocks apps, as well as in the App Store, online ads generate $4bln in annual revenue. The company wants to increase that to the double digits.

CEO Tim Cook is on board, calling the opportunity “great” in his latest earnings call. To be honest, this is great also for online advertising professionals like myself.

But it sounds ironic to anybody else.