So Steve just unleashed another major revenue stream on the world: iAd. They are coming for Google. iAd is a mobile ad network that is giving apple some serious skin in the mobile ad game. Some interesting questions abound and we may see the FTC show up and spoil Apple’s fun.
iAd is a mobile ad platform that integrates seamlessly into the new iPhone OS 4. It will show you ads that can tie into the iPhone rather tightly including allowing you to set wallpaper, buy an app, or launch maps to the service being advertised.
Apple is claiming to generally be splitting the ad revenue 60/40 with the developers whose content is driving this scheme. I don’t know exactly what the split is with the google’s ads but Apple gives developer 70% of sales from the app store. This is the least controversial thing about iAd.
Next though we have the security concerns. Apple has a spotty security record, the only reason it isn’t worse is because Apple products have historically been a small niche of the market. Apple’s desktop products are routinely hacked in seconds at security conferences. Will exposing this much to an ‘active’ ad be bad for security. We won’t know for sure until we get shipping samples and the whole thing goes live, but it seems likely.
Last, and most pressing is the fact that Apple has entered an entirely new arena of content, Mobile Advertising. Apple now controls the hardware, the software, and to some extent the ad content that runs on that hardware. The interesting thing will be if they plan on using their draconian app store controls to force developers to only use iAd for ad supported content. This will surely piss off the DoJ and FTC. Is this the beginning of the end for apple or freedom? My bet is on freedom.