9to5Mac reported in February that Apple was testing a new ad slot in the iOS 14.5 beta. Pictured above, the ad appears on the main page of the App Store’s Search tab, before the user has entered a search query. This joins existing App Store ads that appear alongside search results, relevant to the user’s search terms.
The Financial Times says that this new ad slot has completed testing and Apple will be rolling it out publicly by the end of the month. The timing comes as third-party ad networks are set to be disrupted by iOS 14.5’s App Tracking Transparency changes, which require a permission dialog to be shown before an app can display user-targeted advertising.
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