{"id":50656,"date":"2026-01-07T15:44:30","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T20:44:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/?p=50656"},"modified":"2026-01-08T17:58:57","modified_gmt":"2026-01-08T22:58:57","slug":"duolingo-dynamic-island-ads","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2026\/01\/07\/duolingo-dynamic-island-ads\/","title":{"rendered":"Duolingo Dynamic Island Ads"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2026\/01\/02\/duolingo-dynamic-island-ad\/\">Juli Clover<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/www.macrumors.com\/2026\/01\/02\/duolingo-dynamic-island-ad\/\">\n<p>Language learning app Duolingo has apparently been using the iPhone&rsquo;s Live Activity feature to display ads on the Lock Screen and the Dynamic Island, which violates Apple&rsquo;s design guidelines.<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/iphone\/comments\/1q0zdea\/duolingo_uses_dynamic_island_as_advertising\/\">multiple reports on Reddit<\/a>, the Duolingo app has been displaying an ad for a &ldquo;Super offer,&rdquo; which is Duolingo&rsquo;s paid subscription option.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<p>Just like with notifications, another guideline that Apple doesn&rsquo;t enforce. You have to fill out a <a href=\"https:\/\/developer.apple.com\/documentation\/bundleresources\/app-privacy-configuration\/nsprivacyaccessedapitypes\/nsprivacyaccessedapitypereasons\">privacy manifest<\/a> to justify reading your own preferences file or displaying a timestamp to a user, but there are no such restrictions on Live Activities or notifications, nor even an API to tag them with a type so that users could choose to filter out ads and promotions.<\/p>\n\n<p>Previously:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/06\/24\/10-off-at-fandango\/\">$10 Off at Fandango<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/14\/app-review-never-change\/\">App Review, Never Change<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2023\/12\/07\/privacy-manifests-update\/\">Privacy Manifests Update<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2020\/02\/17\/the-paywalled-garden-ios-is-adware\/\">The Paywalled Garden: iOS Is Adware<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2020\/03\/05\/new-app-store-guidelines-for-push-notifications-and-more\/\">New App Store Guidelines for Push Notifications and More<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/2018\/12\/19\/more-push-notification-spam-from-apple\/\">More Push Notification Spam From Apple<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n<p id=\"duolingo-dynamic-island-ads-update-2026-01-08\">Update (<a href=\"#duolingo-dynamic-island-ads-update-2026-01-08\">2026-01-08<\/a>): <a href=\"https:\/\/pxlnv.com\/linklog\/duolingo-live-activity-ads\/\">Nick Heer<\/a>:<\/p>\n<blockquote cite=\"https:\/\/pxlnv.com\/linklog\/duolingo-live-activity-ads\/\">\n<p>I <a href=\"https:\/\/c.im\/@nickheer\/115807009790000467\">saw this<\/a>, too.<\/p>\n<p>[&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p>But the HIG is not the <a href=\"https:\/\/developer.apple.com\/app-store\/review\/guidelines\/#4.5.4\">App Store Guidelines<\/a>, and there is nothing in there expressly prohibiting this behaviour, as far as I can see.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Juli Clover: Language learning app Duolingo has apparently been using the iPhone&rsquo;s Live Activity feature to display ads on the Lock Screen and the Dynamic Island, which violates Apple&rsquo;s design guidelines. According to multiple reports on Reddit, the Duolingo app has been displaying an ad for a &ldquo;Super offer,&rdquo; which is Duolingo&rsquo;s paid subscription option. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"apple_news_api_created_at":"2026-01-07T20:44:33Z","apple_news_api_id":"85c16f45-9eed-45f2-816e-56e5eebb4f0e","apple_news_api_modified_at":"2026-01-08T22:59:00Z","apple_news_api_revision":"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA==","apple_news_api_share_url":"https:\/\/apple.news\/AhcFvRZ7tRfKBblbl7rtPDg","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_is_hidden":false,"apple_news_is_paid":false,"apple_news_is_preview":false,"apple_news_is_sponsored":false,"apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":"\"\"","apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[354,1846,91,1107,31,2741,26,2217,1074],"class_list":["post-50656","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology","tag-advertising","tag-app-review","tag-appstore","tag-duolingo","tag-ios","tag-ios-26","tag-iosapp","tag-live-activities","tag-push-notifications"],"apple_news_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50656","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=50656"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50656\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50670,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50656\/revisions\/50670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=50656"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=50656"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mjtsai.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=50656"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}