Apple to deliver interactive in-app iAds to your iPods, iPads and iPhones this summer
They'll combine emotion with interaction apparently, but will they enhance your experience or ruin the game?
Apparently not content to merely take on the mobile phone, handheld console and eBook industries, Apple now seem intent on taking on the Ad networks too.
At the unveiling of the iPhone OS 4.0 software in Cupertino, Steve Jobs announced the launch of iAd, a new Apple-run, developer revenue-sharing in-app advertising service to launch this summer.
It promises to not only shut out the ad networks but crucially to deliver a much more engaging and compelling experience to. Of course he would say that, but the examples shown so far do promise quite a dramatic difference to the usual ad experience.
Rather than display a simple flat banner or even a video, the ads shown for Toy Story, Nike and Target actually looked more like apps or microsites themselves complete with video clips, interactive elements (shake the screen to get a different colour scheme for your trainers or poke the Toy Story characters) and even simple games.
Obviously, whilst this does sound more engaging than the typical banner, it does have the potential to be a lot more intrusive, especially when combined with the fact that Jobs mentioned the ability to serve ads at regular intervals.
In his quest for ever bigger (and perfectly rounded) numbers, Jobs used the example of an average person spending 30 minutes in an app during a day and having one ad pushed up every 3 minutes creating 10 ads per day which when multiplied by the soon to be reached target of 100 million devices would mean (touches pinkie finger to corner of mouth) 1 billion ad impressions per day!
Whilst this all sounds great in the hyperbole-packed furore of a Cupertino conference room, in the cold light of a London-evening, the potential of having 'emotionally interactive' ads foisted on users every 3 minutes is more of a worry especially when you consider the fact that for every Nike and Toy Story there's also a myriad of Morrison's and Birds Eye Potato Waffles.
Naturally it's too early to say exactly how this will be implemented in practise and right now we have plenty of questions.
Will the developers control the frequency - as well as getting 60% of the revenues? Will this be used to do some cool in-app promotion of other games and apps? What apps and games will it be appearing in, only free ones or potentially all apps?
Suffice to say, we'll be keeping a close eye on developments to bring you the answers to these and other OS updates that affect your iPhone and iPad gaming joy in the near future. Oh and there's a full run-down of the iPhone 4.0 features here.
