So in future versions of MacOS will we start seeing ads popup on spare screen space. My feeling is that Apple gets a good premium on the products it sells and a lot of that is for the excellent user experience. The idea that they will reduce that, while still taking the premium is not going to sit well with a lot of people.
Please cite a source for this. So far, this thread has only mentioned the Maps app, not macOS in general.
Or was that meant to be a question?
Personally, if Apple turned my $1000+ computer into an advertising platform, I’d stop using it and switch to something else (Windows or Linux).
I think it is more likely that Apple might go the way Amazon did with the Kindle. When you buy a Kindle, they sell two variations of each model. One with ads on the lock screen, and one without ads that costs $20 more. I think buyers of the ad-model can choose to pay the $20 after the fact, to deal with possible buyer’s remorse.
I could see Apple doing something along those lines. I wouldn’t buy it, but, depending on the size of the discount, others might.
Sadly, ads in macOS is not a new idea (and Jobs was involved, so Cook can’t be scapegoated this time, ha ha)…
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Of course, that was in the days of Mac OS 9, when Apple charged money for every upgrade. I think this was the case until OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard). All subsequent versions (10.7/Lion and later) were free downloads.
I don’t know what the pricing was for Mac OS 9, but in the OS X days, Apple was charging $130 for a single license and $200 for a 5-computer family pack of licenses. Giving users the option to pay less (hopefully significantly less) in exchange for a 60 second ad at bootup seems like it could be a reasonable tradeoff. As long as they can package/market/sell it in a way that doesn’t lead to user confusion (which would create a lot of ill will).
Of course, if such a plan goes the way of some streaming services, where they change the “no ads” tier to a “less ads” tier, that would offend everybody who paid full price for an ad-free experience.
It was an extrapolation of what they are doing. Ad avenue from Maps is not going to be great, so this may be a way of testing the water to see what they can get away with.
[EDIT: 19 April 2026 … I have since discovered a split project named CoMaps that is a community fork from Organic Maps with very similar features. Please see my next post from April 19 for more info.]
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RE: Organic Maps & maps.me
I previously used maps.me when it was “MapsWithMe”. I quit when the massive Mail.ru purchased them in 2014 and changed features and policies. However, they quickly made it open source. Unfortunately, it was sold again in Nov. 2020 to Daegu Limited / Parity, which promptly made significant changes.
Interestingly, Organic Maps is a fork of the last open source maps.me version by the original MapsWithMe creators and supposedly being developed with the FOSS community. They do seem to be doubling down on the “no tracking”.
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Thank you, I’ve been quietly taken by Organic Maps. It’s earned a spot on my devices.
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UPDATE on Organic Maps and move to “CoMaps”:
First, my apologies for not finding and reporting the following information earlier. I clearly missed a significant issue regarding Organic Maps and its open source/FOSS status.
Long story short, Organic Maps is held by an LLC that claims to be open source, etc. but never solidified the stated intentions (ie. shifting to nonprofit) nor was transparent about their financials (including donations). Growing concerns in the community culminated in a signed open letter (16 April 2025). After unsatisfactory responses, the community forked Organic Maps within 3 months to a new project called CoMaps (July 2025):
To be clear, there is no indication that Organic Maps has done anything egregious with user data per se. It still repeats the same privacy focus and anti-tracking stance. After CoMaps removed Kayak links last year, Organic Maps soon followed suit. However, as CoMaps is more focused on privacy and answering to community goals, they have also worked to remove Google and other dependencies.
I am now working with CoMaps. It is very similar to Organic Maps with a few feature and interface variations. Tapping the menu icon (bottom, right) reveals only 3 of the 5 style/layer options that Organic Maps has (missing: Hiking and Cycling styles). CoMaps has fewer options in some of its settings categories (in-app menu), but the iOS Settings are the same. More features and changes are on the way as the development community charts their own course. I will say that I appreciate the CoMaps team’s transparency on goals, methodology and future changes.
I exported my Organic Maps favorites and imported them to CoMaps with no real trouble (except for iOS’ fiddly process for deciding when a file has been “recently” opened).
For reference, below is the opening summary from the open letter to Organic Maps Shareholders from April 2025. If you wish to see the full description of community concerns and rationale for splitting the project, check the link.
16 April 2025
Open Letter to Organic Maps Shareholders
Summary
Community contributors to Organic Maps have expressed serious concerns about the project’s governance, transparency, and the potential for shareholder profit at the expense of the community. They are calling for a shift to a nonprofit structure, greater inclusivity in decision-making, and financial transparency, and are considering starting a new project if these issues are not addressed.
I will make edits in my previous posts above to notate CoMaps.
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And here’s a third-party description of the situation (I asked Perplexity about Organic Maps because I’m interested in startups and venture capital and it cited the link below; I don’t know anything about lwn.net) :
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Thank you for that link, Halfsmoke. It seems to mostly follow what I could find about the historical beats of MapsWithMe > Organic Maps along with some of the various “drama” that ensued amid corporate ownership and the original creators-now-shareholders.
I hope things settle down and development moves forward for both projects. Both have merit, but time will tell if they solidify and persist.
I will keep both apps on my phone for now to experiment between them, keeping an eye on announcements for both.