Ads have landed in Apple Maps, and they are as bad as expected

When we ran a poll last month, the overwhelming majority of 9to5Mac readers agreed that Apple should exit the ad business.

Ads have now landed in Apple Maps in the US and Canada, and my view is that they are every bit as bad as expected …

Apple warned us back in March that we would begin seeing ads in the company’s Maps app at some point in the summer. We first spotted them ourselves yesterday, and the company confirmed that the rollout began in the last few days. Within a few weeks, everyone in the US and Canada will be seeing them.

The company says that privacy is a major focus.

I’m sure all of that is true, but I still think it’s a terrible look for two reasons.

First, while Apple isn’t doing any kind of tracking in order to deliver personalized ads, almost every other app and website is. Most people are going to assume the iPhone maker is doing the same, and – however unfair the perception might be – that damages the company’s reputation for protecting our privacy.

Second, it simply looks cheap. Ads are a necessary evil in both the app and web publishing ecosystems: they are what keep the lights on when an app or website is free to use. But Apple doesn’t need ad revenue to pay its bills: it already charges a premium price for premium hardware. Ads simply don’t fit with the company’s image.

I think it was John Gruber who likened ads in Apple apps to those awful Intel Inside stickers you got on cheap Windows laptops. Sure, we understand that companies aiming to provide budget laptops need every revenue stream they can find, but we would never have expected Apple to cheapen the look of a MacBook by adding them. Why, then, should we see ads in the stock apps on our Apple devices?

My view very much remains that Apple has no business being in the ad business.