The free ride is over, ladies. Go ahead and fire up the Google Maps Apps for your iPhone (or iPhone touch), and you may well run into something you’ve avoided for so, so long: an ad. That’s right: Google Maps now shows advertisements. Things fall apart.
As you know, I don’t have an iPhone, nor will I ever, but here you can see what happens when you search for “sushi” in the City of New York. The ad itself, as Search Engine Land agrees, is rather unobtrusive; it’s not like one of those dumb Hulu ads that prevent you from using the site while it airs.
SEL also throws in some speculation that I’ve never seen before, that Apple is working on its own Map App, one that, presumably, wouldn’t bombard you with ads.
The 21 Club is a fancy restaurant on West 52nd Street. Like, we’re talking suit and tie fancy.
I like how you can’t see behind the ad. I’d say that’s pretty obtrusive.
The user must click on the ad for it to popup like that. So all thats different is the icon.
Ah I see, well that’s not too bad then. I’d be totally okay with that kind of ad.
“As you know, I don’t have an iPhone, nor will I ever”. Great, we have a non-user reviewing iPhone apps – that makes a lot of sense.
Good work Mobile Crunch – journalism at it’s best…
You don’t have to own an iPhone to review an app, you just have to have access to one. This isn’t exactly rocket science or anything. Play around with an app for an hour or two and you got everything you need. Compare someone who owns one and someone who doesn’t, and the reviews will be basically the same aside from personal tastes.
Doesn’t seem to stop all the iPhone users around the web from commenting on Android, Palm, Nokia or Windows Mobile devices.
Except that we are the commenters, not the reviewers. You are a website and the journalist of the website on a topic of which you know nothing about since you don’t own one. Just like the ignorant comment about how obtrusive that ad is when you have to actually tap on the icon to get that “obtrusive” ad.
Go outside.
Oh please, you don’t think there are any reviewers on the Internet who use an iPhone but still write about other phones? Being a reviewer would be a very expensive profession if you were only allowed to review things you own.
By your logic, Economic reviewers that reviews the mega corporations must own at least a mega corporation as well to ensure a reliable and highly credible review.
Bud it isn’t really a review of an app..he is just reporting on a new facet of the Google maps experience on iphone.
Sure maybe he should own an Apple product if he is going to talk about them…but maybe his haircut isn’t hip enough to enter an Apple store? Did you ever think about that before you start passing judgment?
Perhaps I should have been clearer – it was the “nor will I ever” part. A reviewer is supposed to be unbiased and a statement like that is far from it.
Like Joshua said to that other guy: go outside.
Nick,
Don’t worry Nick, we, satisfied iPhone users do not mind this. Anything actually useful you could write about?
First of all it is an ad that shows up if you click the pin. It is like all the other pins that show up when you make a search, just the pin looks slightly different.
This is what it looks like when you click on the pin:
http://localhostr.com/files/22f4ba/web.jpg
Oh no! The horror of it all!
This is all easily solved by giving the user a switch allowing the viewer to turn them on or off depending on their own choice. I’d be all for that. That way I can turn them off. And users who want to see them can turn them on.
The user must click on the ad for it to popup like that. So all thats different is the icon.
I prefer not to even see those icons at all unless I have a choice to toggle them on or off. Pretty soon these maps will become cluttered with more and more ads it’ll be like looking at Google Earth with all the layers turned on.
Well I think it was only a matter of time before we saw this happen. Everyone is looking to make money. I guess we really can’t blame them…too much.
Another factual error – 21 Club no longer requires a tie :) Not so fancy…