Ads already appear in some Apple apps, including the App Store, Apple News, and some live sports on Apple TV. Now there’s a new app to add to the list, as Apple has confirmed that ads will soon be coming to the Apple Maps app, too.
Ads are coming to Apple Maps
Apple has confirmed that ads will soon be coming to Apple Maps. Starting in summer 2026 in the US and Canada, ads will appear in the Maps app when people use the search feature. Promoted businesses may appear in these results and may also appear in a new Suggested Places feature that will include recommendations for nearby businesses.
Apple has stated that it will maintain user privacy by ensuring that all personal data stays on the users’ devices and won’t be shared with Apple or any third parties. Your location won’t be disclosed to any businesses, and none of the ads you interact with will be linked to your Apple Account.
Being ad-free was the best Apple Maps feature
It’s lost its main advantage over Google Maps
Apple Maps has gotten a lot better over the years, although for some people, it’s never really managed to shift its reputation as a poor imitation of Google Maps. For many iPhone users, Google Maps is still their navigation app of choice.
For a long time, Apple Maps has had one key benefit that Google Maps couldn’t match, and that’s the lack of ads. Google Maps didn’t start out with ads when it launched in 2005, but eventually, Google started allowing businesses to pay for a better position in the search results. In 2016, Google introduced Promoted Pins, which let companies pay to show their logos on the map interface instead of the standard pin icon.
Ads in Google Maps have become ever more targeted. You can now see personalized suggestions based on your journey history, or promotions for businesses that are located along your current journey. All of these ads require accessing a lot of your data, such as your journey history and location history, which isn’t great for privacy.
Until now, as an iPhone user who wanted to maintain privacy, you could always use Apple Maps instead. The app may not have been as good as Google Maps in the early days, but at least it was ad-free.
Apple Maps wasn’t great when it launched, but it’s improved a lot, and currently, it’s a perfectly adequate replacement for Google Maps if you don’t want to be bombarded with ads. Unfortunately, Apple Maps is about to lose one of the best things that it had going for it and add Google Maps’ worst feature of all.
Apple’s focus on ads is not a good sign
Hardware may not be making enough money
The fact that Apple will be including ads in Apple Maps is not a good sign. 10 years ago, hardware was the biggest driver of Apple’s profits, with services making up only a relatively small fraction of revenue. That share has consistently grown, while the share of revenue from hardware has fallen.
It’s possible that the high margins from Apple’s current services aren’t enough to make up the shortfall from the drop in hardware revenue, particularly with the increasing costs of components such as memory. Unable to rely on hardware sales like it used to, it may be that Apple is being forced to try to wring even more money out of services.
If this is the case, it isn’t a great sign for Apple. Introducing ads to services isn’t something consumers are likely to be enormously happy about, so for Apple to make this move would seem to indicate that things aren’t going as well as they could on the hardware side. It may be that Apple will be forced to look for further ways to gain revenue, and ads may find their way into other parts of the Apple ecosystem.
It’s not just Apple that’s doing this
Ads are appearing in paid services
Apple is far from the only company that’s turning to ads to increase revenue. There are plenty of other companies that are resorting to the same tactic, to the detriment of their users. The trend isn’t limited to navigation apps.
Streaming services are one example. In some cases, even when you pay for a subscription, such as with Amazon Prime or HBO Max, you’ll still see ads in the standard tiers. If you want a truly ad-free experience, you have to pay an additional premium on top of your standard subscription price.
This type of enshittification is a sad fact of life. As companies strive to make more money, it’s the user who ends up suffering. It’s reaching the point where we’re now paying companies for the privilege of being shown ads. Once again, one of the major benefits of streaming is being eroded, and streaming is becoming more and more like the cable TV it was supposed to replace.
- Subscription with ads
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Yes, via Prime membership or $9/month
- Simultaneous streams
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3
Prime Video has a large volume of content to watch. The other Amazon perks are a bonus as well.
Ads are becoming a fact of life
Ads are an easy way for companies to generate extra revenue from their services. The margins are huge, and the only downside is that the end user gets a much worse experience. Sadly, it seems that’s become less and less of a consideration for many companies.
Stephan is the sports journalist for the Maple Grove Report.
