App Store Search Results to Show More Ads Next Year, Says Apple

Apple will next year introduce more ads in the App Store "to increase opportunity" in search results, the company has announced.

Liquid Glass App Store Feature
According to an update to Apple's Ads website, additional ads will appear across search queries, appearing at the top as well as further down in App Store results, and existing campaigns won't need to do anything to be eligible.

Search is the way most people find and download apps on the App Store, with nearly 65 percent of downloads happening directly after a search. To help give advertisers more opportunities to drive downloads from search results, Apple Ads will introduce additional ads across search queries. You don't need to change your campaign in order to be eligible for any new positions. Your ad will run in either the existing position — at the top of search results — or further down in search results. If you have a search results campaign running, your ad will be automatically eligible for all available positions, but you can't select or bid for a particular one.

Apple explains that the ad format will remain the same – a default or custom product page, and an optional deep link. Advertisers and developers won't see a change in their billing, which will remain based on Apple's cost-per-tap model, so developers only pay when a user taps on an ad. Apple displays ads based on a combination of bid amount and an app's relevance to the search query, with ad matching done automatically.

The new App Store ads will appear on devices running iOS 26.2 and later from the beginning of 2026. For further details, check out Apple's Ads website.

(Via 9to5Mac.)

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Top Rated Comments

9 weeks ago
******tification, full steam ahead !
Score: 66 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Quasselstripper Avatar
9 weeks ago
I don’t think that’s a very smart idea from Apple.

You can really feel that this is a financially driven decision and is not trying to help improve the App Store experience at all.

They are already so many scam apps with weekly subscriptions that I am super tired of opening the App Store.


Where is the Apple that is trying to build great products for end users and not great products to increase shareholder value for themselves and for VC funded startups?
Score: 37 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Big_D Avatar
9 weeks ago
99% of the time when I search, I search for a specific app. Even if I enter the 100% correct name, 95% of the time, the app I specifically want is not the first app listed...

I ca understand putting in ads, if I search for "dating app", or "platform game" or something, but if I specifically enter, "Microsoft Teams", then I definitely want Microsoft Teams, not Google Meet or Zoom, for example.

I'm fine with ads for generic searches, but when I'm looking for a specific app with a 100% name match, that should always be the first app that is listed.
Score: 36 Votes (Like | Disagree)
9 weeks ago
Must be hard times for Apple when they need to advertise to their own customers in order to make a few extra pennies.
Score: 26 Votes (Like | Disagree)
attila Avatar
9 weeks ago
Yeah because the App Store search was just so good before...
Score: 24 Votes (Like | Disagree)
9 weeks ago
Ah, another incentive to not move off IOS 18.....
Score: 22 Votes (Like | Disagree)