Apple's Mobile Ads Strategy

Apple are well known for their progressive technology. It started with the Mac, then the iPod and iPod Touch, then the iPhone and now the iPad. Now, whereas most people think and believe that this is the real miracle behind Apple, something salient was happening that even Apple themselves had not anticipated; the phenomenal growth of the Apple App Store. According to Mashable, out of the over 100,000 apps that developers have developed for the various Apple products, over three billion downloads have been executed to date. This has seen Apple rake in millions from commissions - but this did not deter them from moving the game a notch higher.

Apple's Steve Jobs recently launched what he termed would change "the quality of advertising", the iAd mobile ads platform. The iAd platform is an in-app advertising platform that piggybacks on existing applications in order to take advantage of the massive apps market that Apple have garnered over the years. This groundbreaking innovation shall be built on HTML5 to deliver powerful, targeted and dynamic mobile ads on the iPad, iPod Touch and iPhone.

Some of the features the iAd platform will enjoy include the ability to deliver flash video ads that are served from within the app. This will be achieved through the use of proprietary software. Another unique feature of the iAd platform is that even though the ad will be accessed from within the app, this does not disrupt or discontinue the application, as most mobile adverts do.

This is seen as a linchpin feature that could see users accessing iAd ads more than ads from other mobile advert publishers. Apple plan to embed the iAd platform in their subsequent release of iOS; iOS 4.

The unique thing about the iAd platform is that it comes from a company that enjoys a cult following and as most people know, whatever Apple releases achieves instant icon status in no time. The platform is a game changer, especially in the mobile ads space, with search giant Google moving fast in order to jumpstart its forrays into mobile advertising.

However, the fact that Apple command such a huge following through the Apple app store gives them a major edge over Google and any other competitors. With Google's Android operating system on more and more handsets and the Android App Store continuing to grow, it shall be interesting to see what new trick Mr. Jobs has up his sleeves to counter this latest move from Google.