Open the App Store application on your iPhone and soon you will spot an ad: I see one for Temu on the first page, and a search for “Monster Hunter” surfaces another for Honkai: Star Rail before arriving at Any games of this name. This is slightly boring and makes a little more difficult to find the applications you want, but the inclusion of advertisements makes Apple money.
Whether you like it or hates it, this strategy seems to be part of Apple's future. It is already extended to include ads in Apple News and the Stocks application. And according to the latest episode of Mark Gurman's power on the newsletter, the company “explores” a plan to monetize its MAP application by also accepting advertisements.
This could take the format, as the most important in the App Store, paid entries at the top of the research lists, probably distinguished from organic results by a colorful background and a small label saying “ad”. Or this could, as Gurman explains, “reveal certain locations more in evidence on the map”. Slide in your local area and you might see that the Starbucks branches attract the eye more than what you would expect otherwise.
David Price / Foundry
Although this is not unprecedented, Google cards are already doing something similar – fans of the application are not very happy to hear this plan, which prioritizes the interests of advertisers on those of the user. But it corresponds to the broader strategic orientation of the company at the moment, which consists in looking for means to diversify its sources of income beyond a small number of material lines and in particular to create its income from services . Apple needs the service division to be ready to make up for the deficit when the iPhone ceases to be a lucrative milk cow.
In any case, we do not yet have to worry about the plan. Gurman reports that “there is no calendar or active engineering work.” Until now, the project has taken the form of speculative planning and a meeting of all hands for the MAPS team.
