Remember the iAd App Network?

At WWDC 2020, Apple introduced SKOverlay, an easy to use class that lets developers recommend other apps1. When the SKOverlay is displayed it looks like this:

SKOverlay Example

Compare that to the App Store’s recently introduced Search tab ad unit:

SKOverlay Example

They are only differentiated by two things:

  • the App Store logo being replaced by the “Ad” disclaimer; and,
  • A developer has to decide which app to present in an SKOverlay

Seeing a WWDC announcement where an SKAdOverlay is offered up to developers is not a huge stretch of the imagination.

  1. Or an App Clip’s corresponding full app. ↩︎