Apple's iOS 4 Explored
by Anand Lal Shimpi on June 22, 2010 3:27 AM EST- Posted in
- Smartphones
- Apple
- iOS 4
- Gadgets
- Mobile
iAds: More Significant Than You'd Think
This is quite possibly the feature with the most impact out of anything Apple announced in recent history. What’s the obvious next step when you’ve got the majority of the smartphone and tablet browsing populace using your closed OS? Show them ads.
On the iPhone it’s easier to read content in a well designed app than it is to use Mobile Safari to browse a web page. Once you’re in an app however you lose all web advertisements, but your attention is still held captive by whatever is going on in the app. This is where iAds come in.
Apple now has its own advertising network and it’s a big one at that. There are nearly 100 million devices that run iOS in the world today and no other non-independent (read: Google, HTC or Microsoft owned) network is allowed to run ads inside iOS apps. All the developer has to do is allow ads and the rest is handled by Apple. Apple will sell the ads and share some percentage of the revenue with the developer.
The idea here is that iAds could allow developers to keep the prices of their apps low while still making enough money to continue to operate. Assuming the revenue is high enough, iAds could eventually be a significant source of advertising revenue for content providers as well.
If it wanted to Apple could even sell ads in books. It’s not too far fetched to see a contextually relevant iAd popping up while you’re reading something in the iBook reader. And Apple controls the entire platform so there’s no hope for an iAd blocker.
Given Apple’s focus on maintaining user experience I wouldn’t expect the company to sell tacky ads or make iAds too distracting. In fact, out of all of the ad networks out there, I’d trust Apple to have the end user’s experience/interests at heart more than anyone else.
If iAd revenue gets high enough, Apple could eventually drop the price on iPhones in order to get more advertising eyeballs.
This is a huge middle finger to Google. There’s no room for Google’s contextual ads within iPhone apps and Apple has already announced that Google-owned AdMob is forbidden from displaying ads in the iOS. If Android doesn’t equal the iPhone’s popularity Google will be at a significant disadvantage in the advertising space. By now it should be very clear why the two biggest smartphone platforms are competing so aggressively here. It’s not about selling phones, ultimately it’s about controlling mobile eyeballs for advertising. This is also what makes me the most uncomfortable about Apple. If we plot out a future where Apple controls the majority of the mobile market, controls all mobile advertising, and controls what apps you can run we’re yielding as much power to it as we have been giving Google.
Hating on Microsoft for being big brother was the thing to do in the 1990s, but what we’re creating here with Apple and Google has the potential to be much worse. I don’t need to point out the irony but we actually need more players in the smartphone space now to make sure that no one company gets too powerful. I’d say we’re already at that point with Apple and Google, we need Windows Phone 7 and MeeGo more than ever.
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iamafish - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - link
Multitasking means running many tasks at once, not saving them and coming back to them later... The switching is fairly poor as well, nothing as seamless as Palm, personally I like how Nokia have done it on the N900/Maemo, tap the top corner and get a grid of previews, tap the preview to switch, 2 clicks and switched - on a properly multitasking OS.Looks to me like Apple are in danger of repeating past mistakes and getting complacent, Android is improving very rapidly, and if MeeGo can build on Maemo then it's going to be good, HPs money behind WebOS can't be forgotten and Symbian is a long way from dead and has a very mature base to build on.
medi01 - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - link
Symbian simply "long way from dead"? Last time I checked, it had 40% of the market.But it was worldwide, not US, mind you.
solipsism - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - link
Looks to me like you didn't read carefully. The multitasking APIs offer true multitasking, if the developer chooses, at a fraction of the cost from running each app fully in the background. The saved state is an option, but it's not the only option as detailed in this article and elsewhere.If I am running 5 apps, for example, that need to get my location constantly or periodically I don't need those 5 separate apps all running in the background pulling cellular and GPS data as well as everything else they need. I only need the single geolocation API to be tied to those apps and be running. One process to rule them all. How can you not see that as a benefit?
sigmatau - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - link
And what is the benefit of having Phone, Settings, Clock, etc taking up memory in the "multitask" bar? Now my phone's memory is constantly full with apps that surely don't need to be multitasked and everytime I need to load an app, another has to be unloaded first since I only have 5mb of memory free.Apple really should allow the user to chose what apps to multitask when they want them to multitask. Simply holding down the home key instead of clicking it once would do it. But we are talking about Apple and they apparently know best....
solipsism - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - link
Ugh... That isn't a "multitask bar" it's a "fast app switcher bar".The apps in there aren't necessarily taking up any RAM, they are just the last apps you have used recently, in order. If you restart your iPhone and then double0tap the Home button they will all show up in the list.
The reason for this is so you don't keep losing track of the complexity of folders. You can always easily go back to the most recent apps you have used regardless of where you are in the system or what app you are using.
sigmatau - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - link
See my post above. They do take memory. Not sure where you getting that they aren't taking memory. Basicaly after using the phone for an hour or so, anyone will have only 5mb of free RAM. I usualy have around 100mb free before OS4.Also the "fast app switcher bar" is not fast at all when you get to scroll 4 icons at a time to get to the app you want. And when the phone has to ALWAYS dump one app from memory to load a new one, this is NOT faster but slower. Not only that, but this screws with Safari and multiple tabs.
By Apple not giving us a choice on what to multitask, they tried to make the experience easy for every, they screwed many of the functions of the phone. You do not need Phone, Clock, Settings, etc. to go the that bar. It makes no sense.
Affectionate-Bed-980 - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - link
Proper push notifications make it UNNECESSARY for full blown multitasking.As an Android user I Wish I had push notifications so I can leave my IM app on without fear of it KILLING my battery.
Apple has already addressed the cases where you DO need an app to be running:
1) Music/Voice
2) GPS
3) Downloads
4) Go to completion
The others can be accomplished by saved states/push notifications/completion. The fact is you can't interact with simultaneous apps anyway... on any OS. WebOS just has that flick thing to look "cool" but do you really need to run 8 apps at a time? Unless you can cascade your windows and use it well on a 3.5" screen it's overrated.
I am a Symbian S60 user who has experienced full multitasking since the beginning of time. I moved down to Android which is a downgrade in that sense, and the iPhone could be a bigger downgrade. However, I actually DO want push notifications and many of the battery saving features of the iPhone.
You can complain about how this is a walled garden and how in principle Apple is evil for restricting you, but they actually got things right this time. For the end user it makes NO DIFFERENCE if you have full blown multitasking or not. Maybe you like how most Android devices barely get by 1 day of charge...
solipsism - Wednesday, June 23, 2010 - link
So you're going on record claiming that when if you restart your iPhone, iOS will automatically load every single app in the Fast App Switching bar into RAM upon restarting. Good luck with that one! :\SunSamurai - Friday, June 25, 2010 - link
This is a PHONE. Do you WANT the battery to last 30 min per charge? All the modern phones are doing it similer to this. Yes even droid. They get very minimal to NO CPU power in the background.This is a GOOD thing people. And to you people bitching about ads, get OVER IT. You want free apps on your droid/iphone/etc? You will get ads.
eloquentloser - Tuesday, June 22, 2010 - link
"I agree that the smartphone is getting more and more complicated. Good for us teck geeks :)."Can someone explain this new folders invention to me - it sounds terribly counter-intuitive. ;-)