Apple Finds Its Next Big Business: Showing Ads on Your iPhone
"Apple is set to expand ads to new areas of your iPhone and iPad in search of its next big revenue driver," reports Bloomberg. The Verge writes that Apple "could eventually bring ads to more of the apps that come pre-installed on your iPhone and other Apple devices, including Maps, Books, and Podcasts."According to a report from Bloomberg's Mark Gurman, Apple has internally tested search ads in Maps, which could display recommendations when you search for restaurants, stores, or other nearby businesses. Apple already implements a similar advertising model on the App Store, as developers can pay to have their app promoted on a search page for a particular query, like "puzzle games" or "photo editor." As noted by Gurman, ads on Maps could work in the same way, with businesses paying to appear at the top of search results when users enter certain search terms. Gurman believes that Apple could introduce ads to its native Podcasts and Books apps as well. [Gurman describes this as "likely".] This could potentially allow publishers to place ads in areas within each app, or pay to get their content placed higher in search results. Just like Maps, Podcasts and Books are currently ad-free.... Gurman mentions the potential for advertising on Apple TV Plus, too, and says the company could opt to create a lower-priced ad-supported tier, something both Netflix and Disney Plus plan on doing by the end of this year. Bloomberg points out that Apple is already displaying ads inside its News app - where some of the money actually goes back to news publishers. ("Apple also lets publishers advertise within their stories and keep the vast majority of that money.") And while you can disable ad personalization - which 78% of iOS users have done - Bloomberg notes that "Another ironic detail here is that the company's advertising system uses data from its other services and your Apple account to decide which ads to serve. That doesn't feel like a privacy-first policy." Bloomberg's conclusion? "Now the only question is whether the customers of Apple - a champion of privacy and clean interfaces - are ready to live with a lot more ads."
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