Dan Frommer writing for Business Insider raised an interesting question on iAd, starting the iAd dying doubts again. Apple had announced the iAd advertising platform last year and made its foray into the advertising business. This happened when its war with Google was at its peak and pretty much public. Apple’s terms were modified to hurt competitors (later reversed) and iAd was built with OS level integration such that no other 3rd party could match the experience Apple provides with iAd.
Now the point Dan raises is that yesterdays WWDC has no mention of iAd at all! In fact Apple took at hit at free email service providers who stuff ads in to your inbox. Apple proudly announced certain figures like app downloads, iBooks downloads and no of apps live on the App Store, but no figures from iAd. Why not tell us the number of impressions that iAds did? Money that developers made?
There is no doubt that iAd is a niche service by Apple and it is more like the Apple TV where they aren’t doing earth shattering numbers. Apple’s keynote yesterday was close to 2 hours long and the Apple TV and as it seems iAd didn’t figure in the list of priorities for Apple. That doesn’t mean that iAd is dead, does it? Perhaps we might hear more on iAd from Apple during the iPhone 5 launch or whenever they have new features to add to it. For now, iAd is live on Apple’s site and very much running for developers.