Apple has started rolling out ads inside Apple Maps, the company confirmed to 9to5Mac on Tuesday. The launch began in the past few days and will continue to roll out to all users in the coming weeks.
So what will this look like in practice? A screenshot circulating online shows a sponsored listing for a bagel shop in the Suggested Places feed, marked with a small blue “Ad” badge to distinguish it from unpaid results, such as the seafood restaurant listed right below it.
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Per 9to5Mac’s report, ads show up in two spots. Before you search, a sponsored listing can appear at the top of Suggested Places. After you search, an ad can surface within your results when it’s relevant to the query.
The rollout follows Apple’s original announcement back in March alongside Apple Business, its new platform for company device management, email, and customer outreach. Apple said at the time that ads would launch this summer in the US and Canada, allowing businesses to bid for placement during key search and discovery moments. Google does something similar with its Maps platform and has handled promoted pins and sponsored search results for years.
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Notably, there’s no setting to turn the ads off, though Apple maintains that users’ interactions with Maps ads aren’t linked to their Apple Accounts or shared with third parties.
Reaction on Reddit has been sharply negative. A thread on r/apple discussing the rollout drew hundreds of comments lamenting the loss of the ad-free simplicity that set Apple Maps apart from Google’s more feature-rich alternative. Many commenters argued that introducing ads undercuts one of Apple Maps’ main selling points.
Other commenters pointed to Apple’s growing ad footprint across the App Store and Apple News as evidence of a broader pattern, with several arguing that a company charging premium prices for its hardware and services shouldn’t need to rely on advertising at all.
For now, ads on Maps are limited to iPhone and iPad in the U.S. and Canada — but given how quietly and quickly this rollout happened, they may not remain limited to those devices and markets for long.
