Apple is testing a new design in the App Store search results that makes ads look much more like organic results, with a cleaner integration (and also difficult to distinguish at a glance). The change points to a clear idea: to integrate advertising more seamlessly into the platform to increase interaction and, incidentally, Apple's advertising business. A redesign that better "camouflages" ads. The new feature is appearing on some iPhones with iOS 26.3, where Apple has reportedly begun testing a visual variant for searching ads within the App Store. The most striking detail: the blue background that previously framed the sponsored result has disappeared, so the ad blends in much more with the other results. In practice, the only truly visible signal to differentiate an ad from a regular result is a small "Ad" label next to the app icon. This sounds like a typical A/B test (it appears for some, not for others), which fits with how Apple usually tests changes before rolling them out to everyone. And yes: the previous design was more obvious, more visually "honest," because the blue background served as an immediate indicator of "this is advertising." With the new look, if you're scrolling quickly, it's easier to mistake an ad for the first "legitimate" result.

Why Apple Wants to Integrate More Advertising into the App Store

This test didn't come out of nowhere: Apple had already announced in December that it plans to include more than one sponsored result for the same search within the App Store. Until now, the typical format was a single ad at the top, but the expansion includes new spaces "further down" in the results list. Apple explains this as a way to "increase the opportunity" within search results, meaning: more advertising inventory where there wasn't any before.

Furthermore, Apple made it clear that advertisers won't be able to manually choose the exact position in which these ads appear:The system can display them higher or lower depending on the auction results (bids and ranking), and that position can even vary within the same campaign.It also indicated that existing campaigns will automatically be eligible for these new spaces when they are activated, without the advertiser having to do anything. In that context, removing the blue background makes perfect sense (if the goal is for the ads not to disrupt the experience): if you're going to include more ads, the last thing you want is for it to look like a board full of highlighted blocks. Simply put: more ads, more integrated, less friction.