Apple Is Placing Popup Ads for the iPhone 6S in the App Store ⇥ appleinsider.com

Roger Fingas, AppleInsider:

The ad presents a graphic with the slogan “ridiculously powerful,” and highlighted options to “learn more” or “upgrade now,” according to posts on sites like Twitter and Reddit. An option to skip to the regular App Store interface is found in the upper-right corner of the screen.

The pop-ups appear to be targeted at people using an iPhone 5s or earlier, and may have been enabled with Tuesday’s release of iOS 9.2.

Interstitial advertising is obnoxious, and Apple is already too keen on self-promotion in iOS for my liking — you can’t hide the Watch app if you don’t own an Apple Watch, for example. But, at least, the Watch app’s presence doesn’t interfere with the functionality of the phone. This ad does. It’s gross.