Apple is apparently not yet done degrading its products in the name of making even more money. The $3.7 trillion company needs more services revenue, and so the next core user experience to get ruined by ads is going to be Apple Maps.
It was reported last year that Apple was working on plans to bring ads to Maps, and now a new Bloomberg report says the introduction of ads could come as soon as this month. Ads in Apple Maps are said to function similarly to those in Google Maps. Companies can bid to occupy ad slots for certain search queries and will be shown over and alongside natural search results. Search for “best sushi near me,” for example, and you’ll get a list of results topped by any sushi restaurants that paid to be there.
This isn’t new, but it is disappointing. The high volume and preferential treatment of paid search results make using Yelp utterly frustrating, and the same goes for finding something on Google Maps (though at least Google still excels at showing you where things are and how to get there).
Corrupting natural content with ads has degraded the internet as a whole, and other Apple products in particular. The App Store has become cluttered with paid placement and scores boosted by fake reviews. The TV app has occupied prime real estate on the first screen with an entire row of F1 content for weeks on end, even if the user has shown no interest in the sport or sports in general. The company even abused push notifications for the Wallet app to flog movie tickets for F1: The Movie. A couple of years ago, Apple began selling ad spots in Apple News as well.
It’s hard to see the good in this for Apple users. Nobody likes ads, of course, but they help pay for free products and services (such as this website). At a minimum, ads should clearly be ads through a banner or box that is separate from the other content. An interruption in your video content to show a different video selling a product. Selling search result ads is the most egregious form, as it corrupts the basic function of search. Your results will include, and are usually led by, results that paid to be there. Worse, most “clearly marked” ads aren’t very clearly marked, and the visual ad designation tends to be made harder and harder to spot over time.
It’s especially egregious when you consider that Apple is one of the wealthiest companies in the world. It’s worth about $3.7 trillion, has of $66 billion in cash on hand, and spends around $25 billion every quarter on stock buybacks. This is not a company that needs to corrupt your Maps search results with ads. But services revenue must grow, and now it seems Maps experience is just the latest in a long line of Apple services to be made worse with ads.
