Uncanny! New iOS Safari Feature Hides All Website "Distractions" Except The Ads That Pay Apple's News Competitors

CUPERTINO, CA — Users of Apple's Safari browser were creeped out this week after a new feature that removes "distractions" from websites left only the ads that fund Apple's news competitors.

"It's so eerie, but I can't quite put my finger on it," said Dan Balthis, software engineer and beta tester for iOS 18. "Safari's new Distraction Control hides pop-ups, suggested videos, sidebars, comment sections, calls-to-action, and notification requests — just not any of the ads. All that remains of any website are the articles and the magical ads that fund Apple's competitors such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and Yahoo."

While Balthis was not really into articles written by Apple's MSM competitors anyway, he did start missing the other sites he would occasionally visit. "The Bee, for instance, has been decimated," he said. "I don't even like their ads, but they're gone too. Same with blogs and gaming sites. They're all gone but for the news sites that can't survive without their own ads that — weirdly enough — have not been hidden by the new Distraction Control feature."

Apple developers claim it is just a coincidence that their primary competitors are untouched by the rollout of Distraction Control and that the way the feature whitelists only ads that pay Apple from within the Safari browser is "complicated and confusing marketing talk."

"Our competitors are thriving because they are skilled and nimble, not because our advanced 'Read Mode' Protocol System (RPS) specifically removes every ad company except the ones that started with us six years ago," said Apple's software engineering VP Craig Federighi.

At publishing time, hesitation to re-enable comments had left sites like The Babylon Bee and Breitbart News dead past their prime despite their unfair advantage in the market thanks to Apple's nearly $1T monopoly.