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Apple Reportedly Moving Ahead with Ads in Maps App
- kylehotchkiss 1y agoWhy can’t Apple work on a nicer reviews implementation? Linking out to crap like yelp is such a B-grade experience. I wish they’d just build their own and use some LLM/sentiment analysis to help filter any spam, but even then, submissions would be tied to Apple IDs and they have a pretty good handle on the legitimacy of devices associated with an account
- gdulli 1y agoMaybe it's the same sort of deal as Google where they sell the traffic to Yelp and agree not to compete? So they can sell your privacy without it looking like they're selling your privacy. If they did what you're suggesting they'd either do it in a privacy-respecting way and leave money on the table, or else directly profit from the sale of privacy and lose the ability to claim they respect your privacy. They don't like either of those options, so they go this indirect route. Again, I have no idea if they have this relationship with Yelp, I'm just speculating if it's like the Google deal.
- drewda 1y agoApple likely pays Yelp to license the review content, not the other way around.
- windexh8er 1y ago> Maybe it's the same sort of deal as Google where they sell the traffic to Yelp and agree not to compete? I mean they already do this with preferred apps in the App Store (e.g. preferred revenue sharing for apps like Uber), so why wouldn't they do this in maps? The Apple "privacy" brand has been a sales pitch of questionable validity since it started. Apple only cares about privacy enough to keep its users from being a front page headline, nothing more.
- ezfe 1y agoApple already has an in-house rating and photo system that they are slowly replacing Yelp with...
- abirch 1y agoPersonally I would love to see my foody friends’ recommendations for a restaurant over some random person on the internet.
- morshu9001 1y agoYelp reviews are designed for abuse. I don't even look at them.
- maelito 1y agoThat's why I'm basing cartes.app's review system on ATProto.
- hexbin010 1y ago"We make money when we sell devices. We think the user experience should be the product, not something you exploit." RIP, Steve. I wonder if there will be fewer ads in countries they know that Apple Maps is worse than Google Maps?
- fennecbutt 1y agoSteve would've been all about this too, if he were still alive.
- Simulacra 1y agoI encourage you to read Walter Isaacson's book about Steve Jobs, I think he would've absolutely hated this because it would've degraded the user experience.
- fsflover 1y agoWalled gardens and monopolies also degrade user experience, yet he was all for it.
- array_key_first 1y agoNot if you're inside the walled garden. That's what makes it a walled garden and not a walled, uh, prison. The value proposition of Apple is that they're going to charge you 2x what they should for just about everything. But then, the software doesn't completely fuck you up the ass. Which isn't even a very enticing value proposition. It's just that Google, Meta, and Microsoft suck so severely that it actually works. Consumers are actually willing to dole out double the funds for stuff that's slightly less hostile to use.
- Simulacra 1y agoThis is how I felt, I was willing to pay more for an Apple product that was easy to use, and straightforward. No bullshit on the back end like Microsoft. This goes beyond a "walled garden" because it's not about the garden, it's about the people who enjoy it.
- macintux 1y agoSpent over a week wandering the backroads and state highways of the American southeast region, and I was amazed at how out-of-date Apple Maps was regarding local businesses. Often I’d see something on my map that had clearly been abandoned for years. Somehow I doubt ads are going to improve the quality of their data. Very discouraging to see Apple (allegedly) headed down this road.
- jostmey 1y agoThe single reason I use apple maps instead of google maps is because of the lack of ads. For me, it is really the only competitive advantage offered by apple maps
- Razengan 1y agoJust a minute ago I searched for the app for my bank on the iPhone App Store. I literally wrote the name of the bank + "bank" in the search field. I got an ad for fucking backgammon at the top.
- artursapek 1y agothe App Store ads are egregiously bad
- Razengan 1y agoI guess Apple deserves the Samsung ads that Google gives you when you search for "iPhone"
- array_key_first 1y agoThey also should not exist - Apple gets money for free from the app store. They collect 30% while doing as close to nothing as possible. After a certain point, the greed has to stop. This is far too much.
- artursapek 1y agoI mean, they develop iOS. That's not nothing lol
- array_key_first 1y agoThey already get paid to do that - the 30% is completely unrelated to that. That's also optional. Apple chooses to develop iOS because it becomes a new pathway for siphoning money from consumers and developers, and allows them to create their walled garden. They could just stop at any point and use android or even off-the-shelf Linux with an OS mobile environment.
- Razengan 1y agoFuck. The cancerous "growth" syndrome that all corporations inherently fall to. How long before they outright start selling our data along with all the exact bio-patterns gathered on the millions of Apple Watches out there? Even if Tim Cook personally believes in privacy, there's no guarantee the next CEO after him will.
- pjmlp 1y agoLook back to Apple with Sculley, to predict how current Apple will keep changing.
- fsflover 1y ago> Fuck. The cancerous "growth" syndrome that all corporations inherently fall to. This is called "enshittification": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41277484 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41277484
- Razengan 1y agoWe need to taint the word the boardrooms use as positive lingo. Whenever some suits blarfs crap like "exploring options for gRoWtH" they mean "how can we be more like cancer" and fuck our users up.
- pjmlp 1y agoAs shown, Apple isn't much different, they only sell themselves better as not doing evil.
- wlkr 1y agoPerhaps a bit cynical, but it seems that as Microsoft continue to shove ads in absolutely everywhere and track everything they possibly can, Apple are content to be just marginally better rather than actually having meaningfully higher standards. Of course, it's business as usual, but we are boiling the frog for the next generation by tolerating it.
- Iulioh 1y agoThe problem is that these systems are so costly and hard to make that without a capital incentive no indipendent entity is going to make them and what entity do have an interest in making them as a "loss leader" if not monetized in any way (ads or paid product)? Do we all jump on Bing maps? Open street map is a second but still...
- walterbell 1y ago> costly and hard to make https://x.com/charliebilello/status/1953643549435527320 https://x.com/charliebilello/status/1953643549435527320 Apple has bought back $704 billion in stock over the past 10 years, which is greater than the market cap of 488 companies in the S&P 500.
- Iulioh 1y agoI don't see the correlation
- Tadpole9181 1y agoApple has been running maps for well over a decade without this. They are one of the most profitable businesses in history and have spent almost a trillion dollars in financial games to enrich stakeholders because they had so much cash to burn. The idea that "poor little Apple is struggling without enshittifying to microptimize profit opportunities" is an utter joke.
- BobaFloutist 1y ago
- bangonkeyboard 1y agoThere are already ads in Apple Maps: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255060954 https://discussions.apple.com/thread/255060954 This would just be more ads.
- echelon_musk 1y agoLooking forward to hearing more about GrapheneOS's hardware partner for when my iPhone finally shuffles off of its coil.
- fsflover 1y agoThey will continue depending on the Google's OS. Consider GNU/Linux phones instead.
- walterbell 1y agoWhich one would you recommend?
- fsflover 1y agoThere are only two such phones, Librem 5 and Pinephone. The former is my daily driver.
- walterbell 1y agoAre you mostly using web sites instead of e.g. airline, rideshare, e2ee messenger apps?
- fsflover 1y agoYes. Concerning messaging, Matrix, Telegram work fine. Others typically can be also installed, sometimes with workarounds. Also, with Waydroid, I can run most Android apps.
- parsimo2010 1y ago“Gurman warned that the move risks some amount of consumer backlash.” The frogs don’t have to wait and see if the pot is boiling, they have a pot named Android right next to them for a direct temperature comparison and other Maps apps available. If I lose screen space to ads in my native Apple apps then I’m out. How is the money they are getting from hardware sales and their developer fees not enough? I don’t see how the execs can’t tell how damaging this is to their brand image. Apple used to be something you accepted because you were filled with rage at Microsoft. Then Apple was something that cost extra money but it had good software and cross device integration. Then Apple’s software quality went down noticeably, but I stuck with them because at least I figured my data was slightly safer on an Apple device. But now if they’re using my data to sell ads they don’t even have a privacy angle. Apple now lags Android flagships in features, costs at least as much, and also sells my data. I’m out.
- fsflover 1y ago> I’m out. Where are you going? See also: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26639261 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26639261
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- phoronixrly 1y agoHere for example Organic Maps -- https://apps.apple.com/us/app/organic-maps-offline-map/id1567437057 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/organic-maps-offline-map/id156...
- parsimo2010 1y agoIf both major options are doing the same thing, there’s nothing to justify me putting up with Apple’s stagnating product line. Android phones have some neat features, the hardest part is deciding which phone to pick.
- bean469 1y agoDepends on your use-cases, but I have found OSM to be a awesome alternative
- jm4 1y agoHow times have changed. It wasn't long ago that Apple was all about promoting privacy and a premium experience, making a clear distinction between themselves and the likes of Meta and Google. Now they are using AI to profile us and deliver ads. We badly need a good open phone with an open source OS. Choosing a more open phone shouldn't mean having to settle for five year old hardware.
- arrty88 1y agoThe existing Yelp integration is so bad. Want to see a picture larger, or read more than 10 words of a review it opens Yelp app which usually doesn't work.
- fennecbutt 1y agoLmao, but Apple is the "good" one, it's not just a corporation like all the others. Ahahaha. Endless growth, babyyyy
- dundundundun 1y agoI've always believed the deal with Apple was that I pay more, but then I am the customer and not the product. Apple is not stupid, so I guess their research shows that this is not a common enough sentiment that adding ads will measurably hamper sales. To someone who loathes ads (like me), this is a tragedy.
- kakacik 1y agoEven brilliant companies sometimes make stupid moves and shoot off their legs with literal shotgun. Past performance is not an indication of future and all that. I'd say this is testing waters, seeing how big backlash will be. The sad part may be they may be right and limited loss with power users will be outweighed by ads income. After all, ads are the sole revenue stream for giants like Google or Meta, too juicy to ignore where no other breakthrough is in sight.
- illiac786 1y agoBrilliant people exist, maybe brilliant group of people, say 30-50, beyond that, it doesn’t exist in my view. Apple is a behemoth, with its faire share of slop, just like all behemoths. People keep expecting Apple to be something else than a profit oriented company. So far, the proportion of their revenue coming from ads is still lower than google by far, hence statistically I have less chances of being the product with them, hence I choose them. I definitely don’t choose them because their products are better. The hardware and its software support duration, maybe, but the software is definitely worse than google’s, especially assistant and maps.
- merelysounds 1y agoI guess no user is going to like that and especially not the current users. Until now Apple has been relatively decent about prioritizing user experience; and if not that then about respecting privacy. Ads are aligned with neither.
- Mistletoe 1y agoGreat, the reason I switched from Google Maps to Apple Maps is going away. I endured all of Apple Maps’ weirdness and how subpar it is to escape those ads. Guess where I’ll probably go, Apple?
- davisr 1y agoAntitrust regulation now!
- atonse 1y agoStuff like this (lets wring more money out of our existing stuff even if it erodes the customer experience) smacks of a culture that’s losing a spirit of innovation. This is the kind of thing some jackass worked out in a spreadsheet and then decided the profit outweighs whatever customer backlash. Stuff like this is a huge red flag for the future direction of Apple.
- _factor 1y agoI think it’s not lack of innovation. They’re just innovating in the wrong direction.
- ajkjk 1y agowhat's innovative about this? "putting ads on every conceivable surface" is far from novel.
- emchammer 1y agoHas lost. Tim Cook chose the path a decade ago. He’s a guy you can call Tim Apple to his face in front of everybody and he’ll sit there and take it. He is the wrong person for the job.
- nalekberov 1y ago“Future direction of Apple” is red flag for more than a decade already. Vision Pro, releasing iPhone N every year, doing incremental improvement in CPU and then selling it as “innovation”, making it impossible to repair the devices customers bought with their own money, just to name a few. Of course Tim is only concerned whether you bought an iPhone to your mom.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- tencentshill 1y agoA toucscreen Macbook is in the works. It's over at that point.
- fsflover 1y agoThis has been going for a while: Apple Further Expanding into Ads, Now Directly Selling Ads in News App (macrumors.com) 4 points by ksec 11 months ago | 1 comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34299433 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34299433 Apple's collection of user data hard to stop says report (appleinsider.com)' 44 points by janandonly on April 11, 2024 1 comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40006508 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40006508
- lysace 1y agoI’d be okay with that if they fixed iOS 26 looking like dog poo. (I’ll simply keep using the superior Google Maps anyway. I’m sure it has has ads but it hasn’t bothered me.)
- jasonlotito 1y agoApple has been including ads in it's products for years now. I'm not even talking about App store ads, but ads in the OS by default. This should not be a surprise to anyone. Let me be clear: ads for Apple products and non Apple products have existed as a part of the default user experience in Apple products. Whether you noticed or not is merely whether you paid attention.
- eep_social 1y agoIt was unacceptable then and continues to grow more-so every time they release anything. However, as another commenter pointed out they seem content to be slightly-less-bad than their competitors which means those of us who are furious remain trapped.
- isoprophlex 1y agoI use it over google maps, even though the navigation is strictly worse, because it feels less seedy. No ads, no RESTAURANTS NEAR YOU when i just want to pick up my kids from school. Apple does this, they destroy the only differentiator they had.
- owenbrown 1y agoThis will destroy a lot of trust and between Apple and me. When I buy Apple, I pay a premium price for a premium product. I would rather you simple charge me more for my product. The ways ads work, is that the ad revenue shows up in the company’s revenue, and very quickly the company has to increase ad load across every surface to meet earnings expectations. The user experience deteriorates, getting worse each year. When I buy Apple, it’s based on my expectation that Apple will remain a premium, ad-free experience for the life of the device. When, after my purchase, Apple make the product worse, like with the recent iOS update that rolled back usability, it destroys a lot of trust. I will leave the ecosystem. This is not in Apple’s long term best interests.
- saagarjha 1y ago> Apple's approach reportedly leverages AI to deliver relevant and useful results Ok so not only will it be unpleasant it will also be terrible at actually being relevant
- kmfrk 1y agoI don't see a good way to implement this. It sounds like the exact thing that's making prospective Windows 11 users explore other OS's.
- owenbrown 1y agoThis will destroy a lot of trust and between Apple and me. When I buy Apple, I pay a premium price for a premium product. The ways ads work, is that the ad revenue shows up in the company’s quarterly earnings, and very quickly the company has to increase ad load across every surface to meet earnings expectations. The user experience deteriorates, getting worse each year. When I buy Apple, it’s based on my expectation that Apple will remain a premium, mostly ad-free experience for the life of the device. When, after my purchase, they make the product worse, like with the recent iOS update that rolled back usability, it destroys a lot of trust. I will leave the ecosystem. This is not in Apple’s long term best interests.
- SebastianKra 1y agoApple Maps is not that good. The main selling point of like half their services was “we're worse but at least not an ad-company”. Due to some misguided loyalty, I usually search for places in AM fist, then switch to Google. I still don't see viable alternatives to their operating systems, but it's clearly time to de-apple wherever you can.
- einszwei 1y agoThings like these make me more skeptical of any claims that Apple values privacy. Ad tech business is fundamentally at odds with Privacy.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- Simulacra 1y agoDoes anyone else have a folder of Apple apps that they just don't use, need, or want?
- morshu9001 1y agoThis gives Windows/Android/FireTV poor vibes. Not like iPhones are status symbols post '09, just that people are expecting not to deal with this if they pay the name brand premium.
- treetalker 1y agoGhost of Steve Jobs, guess what? In 2025, Apple Maps gets billboards; iOS puts text on text and has smudgy visual effects with transparent icons; and Apple is paying for Trump's muscovite ballroom! And we think you're gonna love it!
- biinjo 1y agoMeanwhile, also Apple maps since launch: “sorry I cant get directions from A to B.” It has NEVER given me directions. I live in a non-EU country and not in the US. Small island. It shows all the roads, shops and everything but for some arbitrary reason it won’t do navigation here. Never touched it again since Google maps is perfect. (Aside from the occasional off-road routing).
- FireBeyond 1y agoFirstly, before anyone comments, I know it's a Siri thing... but no less hilarious... Driving home last night, CarPlay is active, and I have navigation on, and it's driving me home. I need a snack. Press the button on my steering wheel. "Get directions to Panera Bread." "Sorry, I don't know where you are." I get it, permissions, but the hilarity of "this is how you interact with CarPlay, or one of the ways, but is broken".
- wtmt 1y agoEven in India, a large country where Apple has a growing manufacturing presence, Apple Maps is totally neglected. It cannot find many places in major cities. It just does not have any transit directions in major cities. It’s at least 10 years behind Google Maps (which updates very quickly to changes, even though it’s not perfect). Apple just does not care much about countries other than the US and a few others when it comes to maps.
- ajdude 1y agoI used to use waze maps a little over a decade ago. I got into a car accident trying to dismiss an ad that required tapping "dismiss" while trying to follow what road to turn on. Ads have no place in a map app.
- wtmt 1y agoI don’t like this direction that Apple has taken over the last several years that it needs to provide more services and that all its services need to be monetized with an aim of a 70% plus profit margin. This greed to capture every penny is creating poorer and worse experiences for users of its platforms. As for ads on Apple Maps itself, it may generate some revenue in the US and a few other countries. Elsewhere (like in India and many other countries), Apple has practically neglected Apple Maps and it sucks terribly even in large cities. Google, with all its tracking and other issues (including map accuracy issues), keeps moving at breakneck speed on Google Maps. Apple’s single minded focus on the US with severe lethargy in other countries is why in most countries where (some/many) people use Apple devices, they use Google’s services. Both Eddy Cue and Tim Cook are squarely to be blamed for this greed, laziness and lack of vision or strategy.
- seec 1y agoThis is the real issue. Before they can think about putting Ads, they should try to make a competitive product. I used to use Apple Maps but I just don't bother anymore. It's alright for navigation but pretty bad for discovery and finding stuff. In France it's just so much worse that it is a bit of a joke. When you search for stuff, not only is the information not necessarily correct but the way the information is displayed is not as good/useful and feels extremely neutered like an asepticized listing with no qualities. There are rarely pictures (both outside/inside), opening hours and distance are poorly displayed (when they exist in the first place) and functionally it is harder to use. The whole thing reeks of rigid/psychotic thinking. It feels like a bureaucrat was tasked to fill in a form and he is not doing it with much enthusiasm. Apple was supposedly the company for creatives, yet most of their software feels like you are operating in some modernized version of a Soviet system. It's not beautiful, it's barely functional and it's inefficient. They spend a ton of space on oversized UI buttons and useless informations that has to fit in dedicated box without overflowing. Apple Maps is the perfect example of how bad Apple has become and their inability to build software for the most common use case of today's computing devices: organizing and accessing information. Google is winning not just because of the monopoly; they became monopoly because the competitors got complacent and Apple is one of the few who could truly compete, yet they refuse to do so. Considering money isn't the problem, puttings Ads to get more money will only make thing worse.
- Panino 1y agoApple News is loaded with ads, so this wouldn't surprise me. iOS already has ads. I just installed Open Street Map (the iOS app is called OsmAnd) and it looks nice! Zoom in/out is much better than on Apple Maps. A quick check of a route I know produced a good map, so I'll start using OSM from now on.
- commandersaki 1y agoYeah I had to look myself, Apple currently sells ads on App Store, News, and TV (MLS). The App Store ones are a nuisance and are never the app I'm searching for. I'm expecting the same degraded experience with Map.
- dingaling 1y agoOsmAnd is a commercial product ( by OsmAnd BV of the Netherlands ) that uses Openstreetmap data but it isn't related to that organisation. There are other apps that use Openstreetmap data, such as Organic Maps.
- scdnc 1y agoIsn't this textbook enshittification?
- mvdtnz 1y agoI love these threads because they're always filled with indignant HNers telling us "if apple does 3 or 4 more things like this it's OVER, I won't be buying from them again". Come on guys. Get real.
- bigyabai 1y agoYou won't get any love for calling it out, but I agree. A lot of hand-wringing goes into discussing "how Steve would handle it" even though that bridge was crossed a long time ago. Apple is not invincible, they're going to be looking for alternative revenue streams as the App Store monopoly becomes less certain and the hardware margins shrink further.