It’s 2025, and somehow, Apple Maps still doesn’t have ads. While virtually all of the competition has implemented some form of advertisements in their mobile apps, the Maps app remains ad-free. Sadly, that might not be the case for much longer.
In the latest edition of his Power On newsletter, Bloomberg’s Mark Gurman said that while there is “no timeline or active engineering being done” on Apple Maps ads, the company has recently told employees that it is “exploring” the idea of bringing ads to the platform. The ads would show up in the form of paid search results, similar to Google Maps or Yelp, where businesses can pay to have their listings show up ahead of others on relevant searches.
Not only is this not the first time we’ve heard rumors about Apple Maps ads, but Gurman himself reported on their impending arrival nearly three years ago.
Here’s what Gurman claimed in a 2022 edition of his newsletter: “I believe the engineering work is already underway to launch search ads in the Apple Maps app, and we should begin to see it be implemented sometime next year.”
Obviously, that did not come to fruition but don’t be surprised if you see sponsored results when you search in Apple’s Maps apps in the coming months.
Meanwhile, Apple is still working on bringing an ad-supported subscription to Apple TV+ as well. Similar to its mapping counterpart, the premium streaming service is one of the final holdouts in the industry without a cheaper ad tier on offer.
