Apple has crossed a line with iMovie ads

The other night I decided to work on some home videos while watching TV. I launched iMovie on my Mac and on the Projects screen, I saw something I had not seen before: a banner ad, like the ones you see on this site. This ad was for Apple’s Final Cut Pro.

I sat there for a moment, staring at the ad–I wasn’t considering Apple’s recommendation, I was considering the imposition of the ad. You know that feeling when someone’s at your front door and you open it and immediately realize that a pitch you don’t want to hear is coming? That feeling.

Apple placing ads in its software isn’t a new thing. The App Store has had them for years, and promotions appear before every Apple TV+ show and the TV app (not to mention the forced feeling of Apple product placement in its TV+ shows, but that’s a different topic). A recent Axios report says that Apple has started selling its own ads in Apple News as well.

Some may find the ads in these apps and services annoying, but those particular adverts don’t bother me that much because the apps they appear in involve commerce of some type. I’m buying an app, a show, news, and information, so pitching me on other products doesn’t seem out of place.

But an ad in iMovie? That’s inappropriate. I understand Apple’s reasoning: “Oh, hey, we noticed you use iMovie a lot, you can benefit from using Final Cut Pro, a much more robust tool.” The ad is an attempt to be helpful to the user.

The difference is that iMovie’s primary purpose is as a production tool and a free benefit for buying a Mac at that. When I launch iMovie, Pages, GarageBand, or Photos, I’m in a mindset to get something done, tap into the creative side of my brain, and use these tools to see what I can make. That ad is disruptive, imposing, and uncomfortably shifts me out of my mindset. I wasn’t even sure what to do with it. Do I click the X in the corner to close it, acknowledging to Apple that I saw the ad? Do I just ignore it and run the risk of it appearing again? I ended up quitting iMovie and launching it again (after taking the screenshot above) because I wanted to see if it would appear again. It didn’t and hasn’t. So far.

Does this mean we’re going to soon see Logic Pro ads in GarageBand? (Maybe they’re already there and I haven’t encountered them yet.) A Final Cut Camera ad in the iPhone’s Camera app? A Pixelmator ad in Photos? Perhaps, you, the reader, are okay with this and find it useful, but what if that iMovie ad started to promote iCloud storage upgrades? Would you be okay with it then?

Apple is always investing in new revenue streams and advertising is a major part of the push, so we’re going to keep seeing them. That’s fine so long as Apple is constantly considering the appropriateness of ad placement, unlike other big tech companies. Apple’s success is based on the belief that the user experience is the main priority, and it seems that this belief is going to be put to the test. Hopefully, it will prevail.