Alarming development
As the newly crowned biggest technology company in the world, Apple is walking a tightrope with respect to playing nice with the rest of the technology and business world.
Yesterday it launched the latest version of its web-browser, Safari, which included a reading mode designed specifically to allow web pages to be viewed without displaying ads. Given that most online content, including this website, is only made possible by ad funding, it's easy to view this move as pretty hostile to the Internet on the whole.
Apple has also revised some of the developer terms for iOS 4 - the operating system that runs its mobile devices. Superficially it seemed to embrace mobile advertising networks other than its iAd platform but, as allthingsd.com pointed out, the terms seem to only allow ‘independent' advertising service providers and exclude those owned by companies that provide mobile operating systems.
As you all will already know Google, which owns the Android mobile operating system, has bought the biggest mobile advertising company - AdMob. So these terms seem to explicitly ban AdMob from serving ads onto any device running iOS 4.
The founder of AdMob, Omar Hamoui, has been quick to blog on this matter, and he's not happy. We've reproduced his post in full below, but we suspect this is the start of a whole new chapter in the use of antitrust law as a battleground in the tech industry. Where it was Microsoft and Intel getting accusations thrown at them in the past, it will be Apple and Google crying foul at each other in future.
Mobile advertising and the iPhone
Apple proposed new developer terms on Monday that, if enforced as written, would prohibit app developers from using AdMob and Google's advertising solutions on the iPhone. These advertising related terms both target companies with competitive mobile technologies (such as Google), as well as any company whose primary business is not serving mobile ads.
This change threatens to decrease - or even eliminate - revenue that helps to support tens of thousands of developers. The terms hurt both large and small developers by severely limiting their choice of how best to make money. And because advertising funds a huge number of free and low cost apps, these terms are bad for consumers as well.
Let's be clear. This change is not in the best interests of users or developers. In the history of technology and innovation, it's clear that competition delivers the best outcome. Artificial barriers to competition hurt users and developers and, in the long run, stall technological progress.
Since I started AdMob in 2006, I have watched competition in mobile advertising help drive incredible growth and innovation in the overall ecosystem. We've worked to help developers make money, regardless of platform - iPhone, Android, Palm Pre, Blackberry, Windows, and others. In the past four years, AdMob has helped tens of thousands of developers make money and build real businesses across multiple operating systems.
I've personally worked with many iPhone app developers around the world, including one who created a fun and simple game in the early days of the App Store. He built the app because he was interested in the challenge. He built this single app into a multi-million dollar advertising revenue stream with AdMob, hired a whole team, and turned a hobby into a real business.
We see these stories all the time. We want to help make more of them, so we'll be speaking to Apple to express our concerns about the impact of these terms.
Omar
