Apple Has Internally Tested Injecting Ads Into Maps App Search Results [Updated]

[mikethemartian]

So when are they going to start playing ads on the lock screen?

 

[Osxguy]

The internet is 90% ads these days. I hate going to a website closing the email subscription pop up, saying it’s ok for cookies, saying no to notifications and then reading a website that has five paragraphs and ten ads. I guess welcome to the new millennium. The ads are so far in left field. So is apple killing the other advertisers by locking down the iPhone to only replace it with their own advertising. That flip phone is really looking good these days.

 

[salutcemoi]

You are arguing that ads are OK because the walled garden is too high to escape, so we shouldn't complain. I do not agree.

That's not what I meant, my apologies if it wasn't clear

My point is let's wait and see what it will look like - if they move forward with this because Gurman is not really reliable

If they are too intrusive and our data is sold to 3rd parties, then yeah we should complain and even consider leaving the walled garden - but as I said in the other post, Android has a lot of glaring issues that Apple products don't have and need to be addressed pronto

 

[DblHelix]

Only possible ad I would accept on maps would be in search and even then itnis intrusive when I am looking for a place I don’t want other places offered up.

 

[salutcemoi]

I disagree. Let’s over-react because otherwise what you get is creeping intrusions into your apps. Even a massive over-reaction will only deter this type of intrusive advertising by only a short time. Apple (actually, every cell phone provider) counts on new intrusions generating outrage for a short time followed by grudging acceptance. When there are no viable options, what are you going to do? Quit using your phone? Go back and buy a dedicated map device/service?

Any retreat by Apple will be temporary. Advertisers will pay a lot of money to put ads in front of iPhone users because of the type of people that buy Apple. So the only thing that Apple will listen to is a significant loss of sales. They have obviously been listening to potential advertisers and are trying to come out with a marketing campaign that will promise “the same high level of privacy while also offering many benefits for people who want them”. You don’t have privacy if a company is making money selling your data and that’s what Apple will be doing.

Significant loss of sales?

Unfortunately millions of people won't care and will keep buying Apple products

 

[JM]

To be fair, contrary to what I said before, i cannot disagree with this! I also certainly don't want to always be seeing guides for my own city.

I would however like to be able to give better reviews for business I've liked, as I can on Google Maps.

Good idea! An Apple vested business review would be great actually. And, not to be that guy, but another way Apple can easily “lock-in” customers and have brand loyalty.

Of course, it may very well put Yelp out of business 😂 and I’m not sure that would happen since Yelp is integrated pretty deeply with iOS. (Maybe they pay money to Apple like google does for default search.)

 

[Porco]

Maps + Ads = Map Sads
😢

 

[EdT]

What do you think they spent billions of dollars creating Maps in its current state for?

It’s not my problem if Apple spent a ton of money to become Google V2, it’s Apple’s. Although dwindling there are still a few phone only cell phones and I can buy one of those. Who knows, maybe some company will decide that the privacy market Apple is moving out of is something that they would like to persue.

 

[npmacuser5]

Tracking us the only way Apple can provide targeted ads. If those ads were generic, no user data collected, then I would have no problem with an occasional ad. I do not trust anyone, including Apple, using tracking data.

 

[EdT]

Significant loss of sales?

Unfortunately millions of people won't care and will keep buying Apple products

Make it a cause that’s trending and you can probably beat this back once. But if Apple is already looking for how to couch this change then it’s been a done deal for a while, and any retreat by Apple to implement targeted ads will be very temporary.

 

[CoMoMacUser]

Long long ago in a very early job I worked for a direct marketing company. You know, junk mail. They would run big ad campaigns for customers and spend a lot of money on full color printing and premium paper stock and inserting the mail and postage, and get a 1-2% reply rate. Not necessarily sales, just a “send me more information” reply.

And this rate of return made both the customer and my employer a lot of money.

I'm not surprised. A lot of my work is in telecom, where robocalls, SMishing and other scams are rampant. Over 5 billion robocalls per month, for example. But if the scams hook just 1%, they make bank.

 

[AlixSPQR]

So when are they going to start playing ads on the lock screen?

Yes, and pop up ads you have to scroll all the way down before you can answer a call.

 

[spinedoc77]

I realize this is a maps and and not streaming article, but add’s in general are becoming a hot topic. Do these companies not understand the monsters they’ve created? The streaming culture not only doesn’t want to see add’s, a lot of them have never even experienced add’s in the first place. Add’s now feel like a scam to most younger people. The experience of watching an add is akin to getting spam email.

The flaw in the business model was they always counted on just adding subscribers to the base for growth. Now that they are hitting thresholds, they are raising prices and looking at add’s for revenue. Price hikes will make people reduce the over all number of services they subscribe to. Add’s will make that choice easier.

I think it's a short-term solution to slow down bleeding while they hope to invent a new paradigm. It's like Netflix and Disney+ raising their prices and adding an ad-supported tier, it's really difficult to not imagine them pushing more customers away but at this point they probably have little choice in order to survive. Consumers have shown that they are ok with being bombarded with ads everywhere they look, especially when there are no other choices available, and these companies all bank on that apathy.

 

[spinedoc77]

that's one of the key reasons to pick macOS/iOS instead of Windows/Android. Clean, fast readable UI, without distractions like ads.
If they start with ads (after already buying a hefty premium order price) I don't see much reason not to change to Android...

That's odd, I don't have any ads on any of my Windows computers.

 

[spinedoc77]

This is pretty awful, feels like we are headed down a slippery slope. Take Amazon - search results have "suggested" products. But those products are always outside of the filters (ie, filter by price and you still see sponsored items more expensive than the limit set) and not necessarily the best item or what you are looking for. I fear Apple Maps search results - mostly geographically relevant now - will be taken over by unrelated companies or if there's a small business their results will be crowded out by big box stores and chains. It just makes my search that much more difficult to weed out good results form the bad - now I'll have to question if I'm getting a result because someone paid money for me to see it (though they will likely be labeled).

There's also the question about monetizing user's behavior, which Apple has always promised not to do... they'll probably come up with some BS claim that they "anonymize" the data.

Is there a term for the practice of sort of half-seeing ads but not registering them? I do this all the time, and I feel like I've been trained for years on the internet. Pop up ad? My brain doesn't even register what the ad is, I just reflexively hit the x to close it. Sidebar ads? My eyes have become accustomed to not register them. I'm sure there is some subliminal and/or subconscious action taking place, but overtly I feel like so much of this ad space is just wasted.

 

[bluecoast]

Somewhere in Apple in the last year or so, you can bet that they:

- Analysed how much revenue they were getting per user
- And worked out that in the next few years, there are only X% who will pay for their additional services each month (iCloud+, Apple One etc.)
- However, they likely concluded that lots more money was be made by serving up ads to their installed base in the iOS software experience.

All well and good - this is what MBAs teach you i.e. to squeeze as much revenue from your loyal users as much as possible.

However - and as many people on this thread have noted - Apple's brand promise is a premium experience.

And I think that only Eddy Cue - and maybe a handful of others - would argue that ads are a valid part of a premium experience.

Can we expect ads to feature too in the forthcoming VR products?

Or maybe I'll see ads on the HUD display of my Apple Car when I whizz past businesses.

Just no. If I want great hardware but with a software experience full of random ads and the sense that the company is trying to constantly squeeze me for additional revenue I might as well buy a Samsung Galaxy or something.

 

[Monque]

Next, stickers on laptops...

 

[CoMoMacUser]

Next, stickers on laptops...

View attachment 2043317

Like a NASCAR car or a European sports jersey.

 

[Evil Eric]

This is a truly horrible idea. Any app that forced me to view ads I simply wouldn’t use.

 

[MVMNT]

Ad-Supported Apple Arcade pricing tier.

Remember this post.

 

[EdT]

That's odd, I don't have any ads on any of my Windows computers.

Maybe. But I bet you have emails because of information sent via your Windows computers. But Apple users shouldn’t be too smug, a lot of their spam emails and texts were also from information gathered off their computer as well. And that’s only if Apple really does stop unauthorized access to personal information on your computer. You only control your side of the information highway and ad providers basically control the other, the side that provides the content you are looking at.

 

[btrach144]

Then I would switch to Google maps, which is the more reliable product. No ads or tracking is one of Apple Maps only advantages.

 

[Kraszim]

So, If I search for "cafe" in Maps, I'm ok with a small percentage of the results being featured as adverts IF a) they don't totally dominate and other results get a fair look-in, and b) it's obvious they're adverts and I'm not being mislead.

They won't be, in the same way promoted content is not clearly marked in the app store already. You will search for cafe, expecting them to be ordered from best to worst, you will get paid listings on top.

Thematic ads are to some extent even worse then targeted ads. Targeted ads often show you thing out of context, like bikes on news site. You can easily realise that that's an ad. They are a privacy problem, and they are annoying, but they don't undermine the general usefulness of the service. Thematic ads actually do the opposite. If you are searching for a good printer, presence of any ad damages your belief that this site will advise you well. Those ads will have the same impact on maps. They already made me stop looking at first page of app store as I know things there are paid to be there.

 

[Benlurks1010]

I only occasionally use Maps to scout out some nearby places so this won’t affect me much, and for transparency’s sake I’m glad they implemented a rating/photos system before doing this, but still a worrisome direction for Apple.

 

[3530025]

I thought the idea of paying a premium was for good service and NOT to be bombarded by ads, ads, and more ads.....

Step 1) create actually privacy friendly ecosystem

Step 2) point at your competitor and say how privacy unfriendly he is, block ads for others on your ecosystem (don't track me) and say "ads are bad mkay"

Step 3) introduce your own ads

Step 4) ???

Step 5) Profit.