Apple's iPhone platform has attracted a ton of developers to date, but especially free apps driven by ad revenues have seen an increasing potential. Coupled with the iPhone's built-in GPS capabilities, apps can provide location-based ads that are probably quite effective.
One of the ad networks that has had success with in-app advertising on the iPhone is AdMob, a company Apple tried to get control over but that Google is now in the process of acquiring. Make no mistake about it, that's why Apple's Steve Jobs is really angry at Google. It's all about in-app advertising revenues.
On January 5, Reuters reported that Apple will now acquire mobile ad company Quattro Wireless. This is a direct competitor to AdMob, and if you ask us, it's only a matter of time before Quattro Wireless will be the exclusive provider of in-app advertising on iPhones.
Likely, Apple will soon simply not approve iPhone apps that incorporate competing revenue sources. This strategy has been pretty obvious for exactly a month now, but actual proof of what's going on came to the surface this week. According to MacNN and The Register, Apple posted a short note on the iPhone Dev Center two days ago:
App Store Tip: Enhance Your App with Core Location
The Core Location framework allows you to build applications which know where your users are and can deliver information based on their location, such as local weather, nearby restaurants, ATMs, and other location-based information.
If you build your application with features based on a user's location, make sure these features provide beneficial information. If your app uses location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user's location, your app will be returned to you by the App Store Review Team for modification before it can be posted to the App Store.
In other words, if you're a smart developer that wants to boost revenues using existing technology, just forget about it. Apple is most definitely currently working on a solution on their own in order to control the ad monetization of apps offered through the App Store. For all we know, this could be a win-win situation, but there's no doubt that Apple is now closing a revenue leak that has grown too big.
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