iOS 27

Apple Is Putting Ads in Your iPhone’s Settings. Here’s How to Deal With Them.

Jakob Steinschaden23. September 2026, 23:29

Apple's Siri on iPhone. © omid armin auf Unsplash

If you use an iPhone running iOS 27, you have probably seen them already: promotions for Apple’s own subscriptions now appear at the very top of the Settings app. They advertise iCloud+, free trials of Apple Music and Apple TV, and the AppleCare+ extended warranty. The catch is that many of these banners can’t be dismissed for good, and iPhone users are furious about it, as TechRadar reports.

The Banners Stay Until You Pay or Wait

According to the report, there are only two ways to get rid of the promotions: wait until the offer expires, which can take weeks or even months, or sign up for the subscription being advertised. A dismiss button isn’t always there, and where it is, some users say it doesn’t work reliably. On top of that, a red badge sits on the Settings icon until the promotion ends.

Complaints are piling up in German-speaking countries as well. According to iphone-ticker.de, tapping “Not Now” often buys only a short break before the banner returns. In one especially odd case, users are being pitched more iCloud storage even though they already pay for the 2 TB plan and don’t come close to filling it.

‘The Least Jobs Thing’

Reactions on forums and social media have been harsh. “I wish Apple would just stop that crap,” one user told TechRadar. Others compare the banners to the ads Microsoft built into the Windows Start menu. What bothers many people most is that the ads show up on devices they just paid record prices for.

Developer and blogger Michael Tsai has collected the criticism on his blog. Among others, he quotes Max Oakland, who called the practice “the least Jobs thing” imaginable, saying it feels cheap and signals that the user experience is no longer the priority. Apple has not issued an official statement so far.

Services Drive Apple’s Growth

Apple’s self-promotion isn’t entirely new. Subscription prompts in Settings and expanded ad placements in the App Store have been around for years. With iOS 27, though, the ads feel far more intrusive. The reason is simple: subscriptions such as iCloud, Apple Music and Apple TV are a key growth engine for Apple while iPhone sales grow only slowly. Every user who turns a free trial into a paid plan counts.

How to Get Rid of the Banners

Apple doesn’t offer an official way to turn off the subscription prompts entirely. These steps may help:

Dismiss banners one by one: Where a “Not Now” option or an X appears, tapping it is still worth a try. For some users the prompts disappear, for others they come back.
Turn off personalized ads: Under Settings > Privacy & Security > Apple Advertising, you can switch off “Personalized Ads.” As Dr. Web points out, this affects Apple’s ad targeting but won’t necessarily remove the subscription prompts in Settings.
Sign out of your Apple Account and back in: Commenters report that stubborn badges disappear after signing out of the Apple Account (not iCloud) under Settings > Media & Purchases, waiting a moment and signing back in. There is no guarantee this works permanently.
Let the offer expire: The most reliable fix, if also the most annoying one. Most banners vanish once the promotion ends.

Anyone who finds the banners annoying can also tell Apple directly, for example through its feedback form. Whether Apple will respond to the backlash remains to be seen.