Apple Announces Ads Are Coming to Apple Maps

[Sophisticatednut]

Certainly they can, the question is why they should. While it makes sense for a government to subsidise arts and services and critical sectors of the economy, to a certain extent, for a private company I don't necessarily see a compelling reason to do so. In any case, their primary objective is to maximise profits, I don't why so many of you forget or neglect this crucial fact. When, if, their commercial strategies will negatively impact revenues, they will change course.

Because compared to the government giving services subsidies. Apple and 100% of companies aren’t subsidizing any of their services. It’s all driven from their profit generating products.

If Apple Maps aren’t profitable, aka it costs more money than it generates back directly or indirectly by value generation and other goods generating higher profits as a result.

Otherwise Apple should stop providing maps. What negative consequences are there? Going to Google who is a billion times worse?

I don't like to be cannon fodder for data profiling either, that's why I quit all social media. I'd rather prefer than every website, including this, were free of any advertising (which of course is as targeted as it can be, based on the typical users and the cookies stored on their browsers), and the same for Maps. But nothing is free, and if Apple at any point explicitly said that Maps is included in the price of iPhones or Macs, well... they have changed their mind.

Apple Maps has been included in iOS since 2012. Apple comps, weather, safari, wallet, shortcuts, Translate, Siri, photos( and all its features), HomeKit, Findmy, health, iOS updates, iMessage/ FaceTime services etc.

It’s all included in the cost of buying the hardware and purchasing goods in their store. Heck even appleTV is fully payed as a premium content subscription.

I agree with almost everything you wrote, but just wanted to flag that your phone is absolutely not listening to you. It’s technically infeasible at scale and would be breaking wiretapping laws all over the world that would lead to the end of Apple/Google as companies. We’re talking corporate-extinction-level litigation and personal criminal exposure for executives. There is no universe where they are entertaining that.

There have been multiple studies by security researchers, journalists, even government agencies. Some of them even found sketchy stuff the companies were doing! But not one found any evidence that the phones were listening to conversations. Nobody has ever produced a reproducible experiment showing that phones secretly record speech for ads. No whistleblowers have come forward to allege it either.

And that’s before we get to the fact that it’s technically infeasible at scale. We’re talking about continuous speech-to-text transcription plus semantic understanding to distinguish, just using your example, “Mars bar” from: “Mars the planet”, “Mars, the Roman god of war”, “Mars rover”,“barre”, “going to a bar”, “bar exam”, “behind bars” etc. etc. etc. times literally every sentence you and those around you speak, running 24/7 on billions of devices in dozens, if not hundreds, of languages around the world. That’s an insane amount of compute and storage, with processor use and battery drain (if on device) and network traffic and data center build out (if off device) that security researchers and governments would have caught years ago and at a cost that couldn’t be hidden.

The fact if the matter is companies don’t NEED to listen to you. They get enough of your data already - even if you’re not freely giving it those around you are. Which is a serious issue. But at least it’s not listening to you!

Well… in a technical sense they are listening in on everything you do. All the telemetry and user interaction and cross platform/website/ service interactions is probably a billion times better than recording the audio.

 

[ehunatin]

I resent that Apple will be posting ads with Apple Maps, etc. starting with iOS 27. They really have their nerve. We don’t have enough ads as it is on the Internet.

 

[SnowCrocodile]

Google Maps, here we come.

If I have to accept ads, might as well use the map app with a proven better accuracy.

Apple turning into Google will mostly benefit Google, at the end of the day they have far better services if privacy is no longer a differentiator.

Granted, GM has its own annoyances. But it’s more reliable, and AM just lost its biggest advantage (for me, at least).

I’ve been using GM on my phone for about 4 weeks now, after sticking with AM for years.

 

[james yates]

As expected, Apple has officially announced that ads are coming to the Apple Maps app on the iPhone and iPad in the U.S. and Canada starting "this summer."

Apple says businesses in the U.S. and Canada only will be able to place ads in search results and at the top of a new "Suggested Places" section in the app.

"Ads on Maps will appear when users search in Maps, and can appear at the top of a user's search results based on relevance, as well as at the top of a new Suggested Places experience in Maps, which will display recommendations based on what's trending nearby, the user's recent searches, and more," says Apple.

Similar to the ads that are already shown in App Store search results on the iPhone and iPad, ads in Apple Maps will have an "Ad" label, and Apple promises strong privacy protections. For example, Apple says a user's location and the ads they see and interact with in Apple Maps are not associated with a user's Apple Account.

"Maps with ads is just as private as Maps without ads," says Apple. "Where you go and the ads you see and interact with are not associated with your Apple Account. Personal data stays on your device, is not collected or stored by Apple Ads, and is not shared with third parties."

The introduction of ads in Apple Maps will obviously help to further increase Apple's services revenue, but the move will disappoint some customers.

Businesses will be able to set up ads in Apple Maps via the new Apple Business platform. More details are available on Apple's website.

Article Link: Apple Announces Ads Are Coming to Apple Maps

Tomtom maps £19.99 for a year, £29.99 for family plan 6 devices. Bye bye Apple Maps.

 

[RecentlyConverted]

Soon we are to get ads on homepage on iOS lol, at least I get to use maps me app lets you download maps and still use gps for it

Don't give them ideas.