Apple will soon bring advertisements to its Maps app on mobile and the web, according to a report from Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman. The ads, which Apple could reportedly announce this month before rolling them out in the summer, could allow businesses to pay for the highest spot in search results on Apple Maps.
Oof, this is bad news. I remember when Apple sold hardware and made excellent software that people wanted to use because it was in service of selling their hardware. Ads are a path to enshittification—there just aren’t many companies who can pull off ads without being user hostile.
Apple could put ads in Maps as soon as this summer
Another Apple app is getting ads.