Google Slams Apple Over iPhone Ad Ban 562
crimeandpunishment writes "This real-life clash of the titans could be much more interesting than the movie. Today Google fired the latest volley in its war of words with Apple over mobile advertising. In a blog posting, the head of Google's mobile ad service, Admob, had harsh words for Apple's new restrictions concerning the iPhone and iPad ... calling them a threat to competition. There's a lot of money at stake ... the US mobile ad market, which is about $600 million, is expected to more than double by 2013."
Wow, I'm shocked. (Score:2)
When is a monopoly not a monopoly? (Score:5, Insightful)
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The mac fanatics will just say the usual:
"but Apple isn't in a monopoly on the phone market!"
And hence they can't do anything wrong and you will be moderated troll.
Re:When is a monopoly not a monopoly? (Score:5, Informative)
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Do you know what a monopoly is? (Score:5, Insightful)
Of coarse that doesn't make a ban on Google's advertisements OK. But the article says Google's ads themselves are not being banned, just the collection of personal data under certain circumstances. The article itself doesn't say that Apple is collecting the kind of data it is preventing Google from collecting. If Apple isn't collecting that data then it doesn't gain a competitive advantage by banning Google's data collection, it just levels the playing field while allowing Apple to protect user's privacy.
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What's amazing is Apple has a monopoly when they're being jerks but when there's a conversation about marketshare they only have 3%.
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It's not a monopoly when, not only do they not have a controlling share of the market, they also don't have the largest share of the market. In legal terms, antitrust starts to apply when you have enough of a market share to act as if you had a monopoly (e.g. you can raise prices arbitrarily).
When you have a minority of the market, you can do whatever you want with your closed platform, because it won't (seriously) distort the market. Apple could, for example, require you to buy a beret and turtleneck
Re:When you gain it fair and square. (Score:5, Funny)
Shit, I'd better run out and get one!
Re:When you gain it fair and square. (Score:5, Insightful)
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You can't have a monopoly on your own store. That as ridiculous as whining that [insert random store of any kind] won't stock your product and whining that it's using it's "monopoly" to strangle you out of their stores. Such an argument has no merit and would be thrown out as ridiculous. No store is obligated to stock your product.
Re:When is a monopoly not a monopoly? (Score:5, Informative)
First, this is Jobs (reality distortion fields envelop those emanating them), so no, they don't have 28%. Not even close. What do the other manufacturers claim they have? RIM is still number one. Android is growing much faster than Apple is, or did.
Second, they don't have a monopoly. Not even close.
Third, this is restraint of trade and illegal.
Re:I'm not too upset about it (Score:5, Insightful)
"foaming at the mouth hatred"? where did you pull that one from?
Google is a competitor in a few areas, and in other areas apple has no desire to compete. If allowing google to be the default, but allow for other choices is "foaming at the mouth hatred", then he must really loathe Yahoo for not letting them even be the default.
Apple discovered that analytics data was being used against them, and they were pissed and banned analytics. Then when they re-allowed them, they said that it can be with a direct competitor. Which makes sense. A competitor's phone division if they have analytics, probably has first crack, and might have more access to that data then the rest of the world ever gets a chance too. So they want the analytics forms to be independent so that if data is made available everyone can get the same data, and they can get it at the same time. That makes sense.
And while Apple may not be as generous with the data they collect, they are not collecting data from their competitors handsets. Unless of course I missed the announcement about the iAd API for android?
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I missed the part where 28% is a monopoly. Explain that to me again.
You also apparently missed the part where GP specifically said it's not a monopoly, he was just indicating that the figure is actually much higher than the "less than 10%" quoted above.
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I missed the part where 28% is a monopoly. Explain that to me again.
You also missed the part where you actually read the GPs post before posting your own snarky reply. from GP post
Sure, that's still not really a monopoly
Re:When is a monopoly not a monopoly? (Score:4, Insightful)
In economics, a monopoly exists when a specific individual or an enterprise has sufficient control over a particular product or service to determine significantly the terms on which other individuals shall have access to it. [wikipedia.org]
How about that definition? Being the 3rd largest isn't a automatic dis-qualifier. It is a important factor in why they are not a monopoly, but it is not a "no way Apple could be a monopoly by any definition."
Re:When is a monopoly not a monopoly? (Score:5, Insightful)
But Toyota can't stop Google putting an advert on a Prius, maybe not in the Toyota factory but once it leaves the factory it can.
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Anonymous Coward said...
if you want an iPhone you're stuck with iPhone OS
theolein said...
Pssst, Android has been ported to the iPhone.
So, I guess you've proven my point, and destroyed yours, i.e., you are NOT "stuck" with iOS if you purchase an iPhone. You just admitted that your initial statement was a LIE.
Are you even sure theolein is the AC from four posts pack? Or did you forget to see who was posting what? Or are you pretending to have misidentified the posters in order to troll?
And thus there was Android (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the reasons Android is an important project for Google -- it makes them little, if any, money, despite a half-baked plan to sell their own handset -- is exactly this scenario. Google's fear was that a single vendor would have too much control to cut them out. So Android was birthed, and there are many vendors. And for those who might not know, any Android handset vendor has the full ability to replace Google with Bing, or to cut out Google ads in other forms, yet the "fragmentation" of the market ensures that there isn't an overly one-sided power distribution.
So is Apple being testy because of Android....or is this the gameplan all along, and Android was a good pre-emptive strike?
Re:And thus there was Android (Score:4, Insightful)
In fairness, Google elected to compete with Apple in the mobile space with Android, the desktop space with the Google OS, and with a web browser (based on a technology currently largely driven by Apple no less). Then, when Apple tried to buy AdMob Google pulled the stool from under the deal.
If you were Apple (which is to say Steve Jobs) would you not be rather pissed? I certainly would be. If I had a legal recourse to retaliate in a business context I almost certainly would.
You've got to hand it to Apple they played this one really well. The FTC just approved of the Google/AdMod deal on the strength of Apple competition and so Apple feels pretty confident they can compete aggressively with little chance of the government crying foul.
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Well...Google bought Android team quite a bit before iPhone announcement, plus they don't actually have any consumer "Google OS" (and of you refer to ChromeOS, that's a different thing, aimed mostly at tablets and netbooks; in the first case, also made public before Apple move, in the second - Apple claims they are not interested). As for browser...c'mon, Apple would be pissed after building large part of it on someone's else work, too?
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Are you suggesting that Eric Schmidt wasn't sniffing around outside the board room when they recused him from the discussion?
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Why, do you think it smelled bad?
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Bullshit. Apple runs the site for the open source project. It's derivation from KHTML is in the very first paragraph of the page.
http://webkit.org/ [webkit.org]
Also on Apple's corporate description of Webkit. Again, very first paragraph.
http://developer.apple.com/opensource/internet/webkit.html [apple.com]
Re:WebKit is based of of the KHTML (Score:5, Informative)
I think you'll find if you look at the underlying codebase that the lion's share of development was still done as KHTML
Spoken like someone who has never looked at the code. If you exclude:
then yes, most of it was done as part of KHTML. If you look at KHTML now, you'll see a lot of changes back-ported from WebKit. If you compare WebKit now to KHTML in 2002 (when WebKit was forked), you won't see very much common code at all. When WebKit was forked, KHTML was about 140KLoC. According to Ohloh.net, WebKit now is 715K lines of C++, 75K lines of ObjC, 34K lines of C, and a lot of various other things. Even if Apple had retained 100% of the KHTML code, it would now account for 10% of the total codebase. In reality, large chunks have been rewritten (KJS, for example), so it's now less than 5%.
Re:And thus there was Android (Score:4, Insightful)
So is Apple being testy because of Android....or is this the gameplan all along, and Android was a good pre-emptive strike?
I don't think so. Google was one of the most important partners when the iPhone got its start: Google search, Maps, Youtube it was all on there. Then they decided they wanted a piece of the pie instead of depending on Apple and started directly competing with them making inane jabs in the process comparing Apple to North Korea [nytimes.com] and targeting them in their presentations [huffingtonpost.com]. Don't start a fight if you can't take a punch.
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"Then they decided they wanted a piece of the pie instead of depending on Apple"
Google bought Android in July, 2005. Apple announced the iPhone in January, 2007.
You're saying they launched their own platform as a reaction to the iPhone?
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So what you're saying is that Google makes no money from Android but rather uses it as a tool to gain advantage in the mobile advertising market? Android is not a legitimate mobile phone software business but rather a way to leverage Google's Web ad monopoly into mobile ads? I don't think you're helping Google by telling the truth about them. Just say they are "open" in spite of their black box ads and Android and Chrome OS both having closed native C API's and remind us again that they're not evil. Because
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Re:And thus there was Android (Score:5, Insightful)
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And the "iAds" themselves are mini apps that are in a layer over the current app and can be closed at any time. Definitely not a text link to a web page. Obviously Steve would rather keep people in the apps.
So this is like cable TV? (Score:3, Interesting)
You're missing the point, for many apps you will have the option of either purchasing a full price version or running an ad supported version so you can have exactly that choice. There will of course be paid apps with ads included but those most likely will either be unpopular or will be imitated by apps with the either/or model.
Back when cable TV was first conceived, broadcast TV had ads, and cable came out with no ads, as a paid service.
And now, today, there are of course cable TV stations with ads, but... wait, what were we talking about before the commercial?
-- Terry
Re:So this is like cable TV? (Score:4, Informative)
This will date me, but I remember when cable TV came out, two advantages detailed:
1: No antennas to worry about.
2: You pay for the service, and not advertising, thus no ads.
Then the ads came between shows. Not much longer, people sat through the same time of ads on cable as they do on OTA TV.
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And then the DVD forces you thru some ads before you can get to the menu
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there is no going back and there is no way of "Ignore updates" of an app so you are stuck with a constant nagging update indicator.
This is intentional.. Apple wants forced updates.
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In order to run afoul of anti-trust Apple would need to be deemed a monopoly. Apple is not even the market leader in smart phones so there is no way it could be considered a monopoly in that or any other space.
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I'm with you on this for two main reasons ...
First, The perception of the Google "do no evil" is simply a fantasy. If you hit parts of the market which affect Google, I could imagine them being as nasty as Microsoft. Second, when we had the browser wars it was Netscape vs Microsoft, it was one smaller company vs a giant brand. They weren't afraid to pull out the big guns (lawyers) and let it all fly. Why would Google or Apple have a problem doing it?
The issue I see is say hypothetically _if_ Google did win
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If you just purchased this company for $750 million expecting it too tap into a $600 million a year revenue stream, expecting to go into the billions subsequent years. All of a sudden a competing company deliberately closed the potency of that market, I would be pretty upset (kind of like some punk letting the tyres down on your brand new car)
If Google can prove that it was deliberate they could win. All I'm saying is that Google is really like everyone else, they aren't angels that "do no evil" and for App
Re:And thus there was Android (Score:4, Insightful)
The issue is not Apple leverage. The issue is Google leverage. Google is the one who wants to both receive ad data from iPhone users and compete with iPhone at the same time. Apple is saying "pick one." If you're a competitor you don't get the keys to the kingdom so you have an anti-competitive advantage over us.
anyone willing to defend consumers want ads? (Score:2, Interesting)
Cry me a river (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Cry me a river (Score:5, Insightful)
So Google gets into smartphones, browsers and operating systems, and then cries "Foul!" when Apple gets into online advertising? (OK, I know Apple's hardware restrictions are a valid issue, but still....)
Google is crying foul not because Apple got into advertising, but because Apple banned companies owned by makers of other mobile operating systems from using analytics(critical for ads) on the iDevices. i.e Apple is specifically targeting Google just like it targeted Adobe last time around
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Google started this whole dust-up when they went after Apple. See Gruber's thoughts on the matter:
http://daringfireball.net/linked/2010/06/09/battelle
"There’s no question it’s a dick move on Apple’s part. But what’s the argument against it? That Google gets a pass for being dicks to Apple, and Apple ought to just sit there and take it?"
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Do you think Google will permit iAD advertising in their any of their web based products? Why should Apple not institute a reciprocal restriction?
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"Critical for Ads" my ass. Advertisers have worked almost exclusively without analytics until about a decade ago.
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This is not only against google, google is the biggest target, but they hit Microsoft Yahoo and others as well, and also the developers who now have one and only one ad vendor which can provide them the revenue for their free versions, which means they are at the merits of Big Brother to give them a decent share.
Which in the long run will not happen, Apple will take more and more of that share since there is no competition.
Re:Cry me a river (Score:5, Insightful)
Quote:
"If a Ford makes a truck, do they have to allow GM to have a compatible engine for it?"
Yes they do. If I buy the truck there is nothing that Ford can do if I install a GM engine in it.
And I search for "advertiser networks" in google I do in fact get advertising from a a company which describe them self as
"Over 900 successful bloggers use BuySellAds.com to power their online ad sales. We help you sell ads better. We make your life easier."
But that is a bad example anyway, because there is an difference between a website you own, and a device you sell. I would not expect Apple to allow anyone to show advertising on their website or in Apples software, but neither would I expect Apple to have any control over what advertising 3 party software shows on devices once Apple have sold them(The device).
Re:Cry me a river (Score:4, Insightful)
If a Ford makes a truck, do they have to allow GM to have a compatible engine for it?
Well, yes, actually. They certainly can't legally prohibit GM from manufacturing one, or car mechanics from installing one, or end users from using one.
Re:Cry me a river (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not helping a competition, but deliberately locking out the competition.
Remember "DOS Ain't done 'til Lotus won't Run" and "Windows Ain't done 'til DR-DOS won't Run"?
It's the same thing.
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Re:Cry me a river (Score:5, Insightful)
Uh, no. Google is crying "Foul!" because Apple is banning developers from using Google's ad platform in their apps. Conveniently, right at the same time as they introduce their own: iAd. Yes, ads suck and it's weird defending an advertising platform, but this is Google: the company that made ads useful and unoffensive (and just that slight bit creepy).
Apple are truly becoming the kings of rent-seeking and platform lock-in. It's far worse than anything Microsoft ever did.
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Apple are truly becoming the kings of rent-seeking and platform lock-in. It's far worse than anything Microsoft ever did.
Dude, that's how Apple has always been. Except when Steve left for a while. I think this is kindof his legacy, and I don't think he has a lot of time so he's going full-bore for the brass ring.
Microsoft was always about putting as many copies out there as possible. Apple wants to be the exclusive cult.
Ars Techica has a rundown of Apple's ad hypocrisy (Score:3, Insightful)
http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/06/apples-evil-genius-plan-to-punk-the-web-and-gild-the-ipad.ars [arstechnica.com]
Combined with Apple's HTML5 demo site that shut out non-Safari web browsers, it starting to look like Apple is becoming a very anti-Web company... even more so than Microsoft.
I've been a Mac fan since 2004, but Apple has gone too far: They want to see then end of the Web and the personal computer now. They can go to hell.
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This isn't Google throwing a hissy fit over Apple being a new competitor, this is Google complaining that Apple decided to retroactively change the developer agreement and prohibit developers from using third party analytics and advertising, making iAd the only advertising service a developer can use in iOS apps.
This goes much further than say, any Microsoft example ever has been. It'd be like if Microsoft not only included IE by default (just as Apple adds new APIs or apps with each release) but made it so
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... ok, and then the next step is Google blocking Apple users from YouTube.
Too bad they don't own Facebook to, then it would had the possibility of getting really fun :D
Walled Garden (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Walled Garden (Score:5, Insightful)
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Could it be that it's at the discretion of owner of the platform? That fits both scenarios.
Google should have stayed silent (Score:5, Insightful)
Apple's excuse is, they want to protect their customers privacy. In fact they treat them like 6 year olds but it isn't the issue, it is their excuse.
Google, still thinking entire planet thinks they are "good guys" has major problems with their corporate culture and actions based on that. From "updater" to "Google Chrome" with default settings, Google is always blamed (rightfully) for not respecting users privacy. Some already calls them private data leeching vampires.
Steve Jobs saw this coming and used "privacy" as excuse to lock down the "real" advertising (location/analytics) to their own network. Now Google pops up and complains, people will say to them "look to mirror".
Some panel of advertisers or some people from analytics community should be speaking, not them. Anyway, too late now.
Re:Google should have stayed silent (Score:5, Insightful)
> Some already calls them private data leeching vampires.
Generally just people who have an entirely different grudge with google, usually something along the lines of sour grapes that google doesn't let them unfairly twist the search/ad results in their favor.
> Steve Jobs saw this coming and used "privacy" as excuse to lock down the "real" advertising (location/analytics) to their own network. Now Google pops up and complains, people will say to them "look to mirror".
Steve wants to own his cake and eat it too. First apple makes the hardware, which it owns. Oh, but you can install third party apps! But only through the store which apple owns and controls. Oh, but it's also a communication device, it has web access! But apple controls what aspects of the web you're allowed to use. Apple and Google are on the extreme opposite ends of the lock-in control freak scale. Google may want a finger in every pie, but they don't prevent any other company from entering any layer of the market at any time.
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Hardball (Score:2, Insightful)
Google is hypocritical (Score:2, Insightful)
Why doesn't Google allow 3rd party ad networks? Why doesn't Google allow 3rd party ad networks in their SERPs (search engine result pages)?
Google's great at crying and bitching but they're the absolute worst monopolist in ad space today.
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Ask a sensible question, get modded as troll.
Re:Google is hypocritical (Score:4, Insightful)
Come on though, there's a difference between Google's own SERPs and 3rd party iPhone apps.
Re:Google is hypocritical (Score:5, Insightful)
In my adsense account, i even have an option to allow 3rd party ads via the google network, (my account -> account settings -> "Third Party Ads Preference" for reference).
Been able to show 3rd party ads on my own website via google's own network defeates alot of what people are saying here.
In *my* website i get to choose my ad provider if i want one. In my iphone app, i have to use apple's ad network, i built the app, why should i be restricted to apples own software/property for how to monitize it? locking out analytics for 3rd parties makes them useless, i'm not going to want to show ads about uk tv shows to american visitors and vice versa, this means any ads showen will be poorly targeted because of this, and the income per click is going to be extremely low.
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Except that anyone can make a custom rom which uses bing on android without google prohibiting it, some phone manufacturers already do that for the chinese market.
Re:Google is hypocritical (Score:5, Insightful)
Choices, choices... (Score:5, Funny)
Do I complain about Apple's closed system, or Google's privacy concerns?
Man, if only Microsoft were in this story, I'd have the geek-complaint-hat-trick!
Apple makes Microsoft seem moderate. (Score:4, Insightful)
I never thought i would say this but darn it, we are lucky Apple didnt win against Microsoft. Apple will if given enough market share make Microsoft look pretty tame.
Steve seems intent on using any leverage against competitors no matter how bad the outcome is for the customers. Microsoft does this too but not at this level, probably because of antitrust concerns.
Apple seemed like a nice company but recent moves has changed that perception almost completely. If given the opportunity they will be just as bad for computing in general as Microsoft has been for the last 20 years.
Steve Jobs are a huge douchebag and the best we can hope for is cooperation between Apple and Microsoft. That way they can stab each others back instead of ruining computing for the rest of us.
Re:Apple makes Microsoft seem moderate. (Score:4, Interesting)
As someone who has used Apple devices for a lot longer than they've currently been popular, I can tell you Apple has *always* been the worst in the industry for things like this.
The difference is, ten years ago Apple didn't matter.
Re:Only the Analytics are banned (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't reasonably run ads without analytics. The entire ad industry depends upon analytics.
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Not having used iOS 4, I can't really say if this is a good thing or a bad thing overall, but I do like knowing that there are restrictions in place on who gets to handle what info about me.
Personally, I have location awareness turned off so this doesn't really apply much to me, but the idea is the same.
This isn't a monopoly move eith
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The notion that company y has a right to company x's capabilities and information is absurd. Google doesn't have to hand over all their ad data on me to Hulu and Apple, even though they collect the same general info for the same purpose. Apple isn't saying you can't advertise, they are saying you don't get things without joining the club.
As for your TV example, you are basing that
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They're not controlling what ads show up on web pages, which are not part of the delivery system of the app store.
Like it or not, the GP's example was apt.
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Why does the advertiser need to know what other applications I have installed, what my name is, what my credit card number is, how much money I spent in my last bricks-and-mortar store credit card transactions, or how long I spent playing "FarmVille" instead of "Bejewelled Blitz"?
The advertising industry has plenty of avenues to target their ads at people who will be interested in the product being advertised, if (a) the product is worth having in the first place and (b) they study demographics a little mor
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You also can't reasonably spy on Apple without analytics. This is Apple's primary motivation, IMO. $60M or $600M (in 2013), they can leave on the table.
Good for users (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't reasonably run ads without analytics. The entire ad industry depends upon analytics.
And this is mostly Google now. AdMob was the largest of them all and now that Google bought them...
The main reason I don't like Android is Google: With it Google gets your email, your contacts, your searches, your calendar, your location, the maps you look at, the places you navigate to, the RSS-feeds you read, your voice profile and of course they track you via ads. Probably even more things I forgot right now. This is creepy. This is much too much data to give to *one* company that can easily connect all the dots and knows more about you than yourself then. Evil or not evil, this is too much.
I'm totally surprised that people are being that ignorant of the fact that Google is inserting its tentacles in every orifice of your digital existence while whispering "It won't hurt... no, it will feel good and it's totally free" and people are crying for more. Right, you just have to give them your digital soul and your digital blood, nothing more.
Apple is with no doubt just protecting its assets with this, but it's their right and Apple users should be happy about it anyway. This new war between Apple and Google is a most effective firewall between them: Apple won't share your data with Google and Google won't share theirs with Apple.
The "cloud" means you have to give more and more of your personal data to some company; giving different data dimensions to different companies being at war with each other is the least you can do.
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For an advertiser, the real value of mobile advertising resides on "location", less sense of privacy, convenience like "click here to call", a common standard hardware with very identical OS and predictable behavior.
I am not saying these are good things, it bugs the hell out of me and I never, ever use advertising supported software on any handheld. I am just saying that, if Apple can do it, every credible (note: credible) company should do it, informing the user first of course.
Re:Only the Analytics are banned (Score:4, Insightful)
BAH! they lie.
They can do the SAME thing that the TV and radio ad people do.
If you think that the Cable TV and Radio and Print ad's get a nice analytics report back, then you're nuts.
you get to pay $X to run your ad X times a day for X days...
They can EASILY go back to that. They cant do low cost ad whoring, but that's a good thing.
Re:Only the Analytics are banned (Score:4, Insightful)
How are they supposed to know how much to charge or how much to pay out if they aren't legally permitted to know how many users are being exposed to ads, how long the exposure is, what click-through/tap-through rates are, etc?
What Apple has done is not explicitly ban third party advertisers, but instead achieve that goal through crafty wording in their developer agreement.
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They are allowed to count click throughs. They just aren't allowed to pass any information about the user/device/location, that's all.
Re:Only the Analytics are banned (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh, developers and advertisers will be allowed to know all that. They'll just have to wait for the brouhaha to die down so Apple can quietly introduce their spiffy "new" advertising service. Then they'll pay Apple, not the people who first developed the technology for the platform.
It's possible, maybe even likely, that Apple will bury the costs of the Apple branded service where it won't show. Then they'll piously tell the credulous world that they're giving away free service out of the goodness of their hearts. Sound familiar? It should.
This will be the Stacker case all over again. The platform owner is happy to let vendors make a little money if it sells the platform, but if somebody makes a little too much money, the platform owner forces the vendor to sell out on its terms or pay the consequences. It's worse because in the Stacker case you *could* continue to use Stacker on Windows if you liked it better. Many did that. But Microsoft shrunk the market for Stacker's product sufficiently that Stacker was no longer a viable business.
Apple is simply kicking Admob off the iPhone. None of its high minded justifications of user experience and malware protection apply here. *Apple* wanted to by Admob but failed, so obviously they don't think this is something that shouldn't be on their platform. Failing to buy the company themselves, now they want to stick their thumb in the eye of Admob's new owners.
And why not? Developers aren't going to be porting their Objective C apps to Android overnight. Users still have their apps -- they may even get fewer ads until Apple has replaced Admob. That's not sustainable, but since third parties can't provide advertising revenues to developers, Apple is surely going to create its own version of Admob.
In effect, Apple gets to take over revenues from the business Admob created without buying the business itself. How sweet is that?
This is what I've said all long about Apple's TOS. It really amounts to your committing to a Hobson's choice to any future changes Apple dictates: either eat them or close up shop. For the vast majority of small and even semi-hobbyist developers, this is an acceptable deal because you're only talking about making small amounts of money. But you'd be nuts as an entrepreneur to spend years creating the next big thing on the iPhone platform. Admob's backers got under the wire, but the next entrepreneur who sells his business will have to discount the value of that business by the probability of drawing Apple's displeasure.
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I think it's yet to be settled if it's legal for Apple to essentially nullify all the agreements Google and other advertising companies had by locking them out retroactively. I imagine that'll be settled in court, but I think the DOJ has a pretty plain case.
I see nothing wrong with Apple providing their own service, the fact that it's from the same company that makes the device and all the other APIs and writes your check already is a strong sell. But creating their own service and then making certain there
Re:Are they...surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
So when you buy an iPhone, you accept that it's still Steve's? Wow.
Note that we're talking about ads in third-party applications. Meaning as a third-party application developer, Apple has now said "Oh, and by the way if you want to advertise, your only real choice is us." How is that defensible?
And do you accept that the Safari browser on the iOS devices has the right to purge all web ads and replace them with Apple ads? Why not, right?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
If you buy a device from vendor you are buying into whatever the vendor is selling. In this case your buying into the 'word of Steve' and the word of Steve today is 'the only ads you will see will be served by Apple'.
If you don't like it, don't buy it, that's the free market way.
(Honestly, despite Google crying foul this has 0 impact on consumers. Does anyone care who serves the advertising?)
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Re:Are they...surprised? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah, exactly. The whole PC market was built on choice and freedom. Apple has always been about living in the Apple box, and getting some benefits like easier setup at the expense of being in a monoculture..
Although Apple has made some innovations, mainly on the design side, a lot of their innovations fail as well (Firewire?).. The PC has done far more to improve productivity, and the business of computers. If you're in the computer business, you owe it to the PC. Whereas if Apple had won, we would all be working for Apple.
Microsoft, for it's evil, was always just a publishing company. Apple is the tool of the publishing companies. They want to do away with the web, and replace it with a big "App Store". They don't want you to get stuff for free on the web any more. Anyway, the bottom line is that Apple is still swimming upstream. I'm surprised they made as much money with the iPod as they did, but I think that had as much to do with the economic bubble as it did the product. People with a extra money buy nice things, and Apple makes nice things. But not everyone can drive a Porsche, and that will be their eventual undoing, again.
I said a few months ago that APPL was a classic bubble, and the stock will never get over $275 and it still hasn't. People are getting tired of it, the novelty is wearing off, and they just want a cheap phone that does what they want it to do. I think the phone manufacturers have gotten the message and now it's up to the carriers to provide as much bandwidth as possible. Android and Windows Mobile are the long tail and RIM will continue to be the choice of the enterprise professional.
Re:Are they...surprised? (Score:5, Insightful)
And do you accept that the Safari browser on the iOS devices has the right to purge all web ads and replace them with Apple ads? Why not, right?
Your actually very astute by pointing this out. The application advertising is only the first skirmish in the battle. Apple will almost certainly permit these ads to be shown in Safari using some kind of proprietary extension. Because iAD adds earn significantly more than AdSense these will get extensive adoption and significantly improve support for iOS devices.
It's a real smart move by Apple.
Re: (Score:2)
You don't have to use iAds, you do have to use it if you want to get paid by Apple. They are just preventing people from running out and making a bunch of ugly, confusing, possibly nefarious ads like the rest of the web. The app store is not the web, Steve says. He made a clear distinction between free content on the web and the premium, high-end brands on the app store. It's like a high-end mall. Anyone can advertise on iAds but since it takes a minimum of $500K and programming.
Whereas Google has corn
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
The version of Chrome you link to is a BETA release.
If you don't like crashing, why not use the release version [google.com]?
Re: (Score:2)
The FTC just approved of the Google/AdMod deal on the strength of Apple competition so it's unlikely they will say anything other 'see, we were right!'
Re: (Score:2)
No, just a call that completely ignores the facts.
Re:Bizarro Google bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
I can't tell if you're trolling, but not much of this makes sense.
(a) How does the language of the native API on platform X have anything to do with its "openness"? Yes iOS is objective-C and Android is Java. Openness has everything to do with what you exclude. Anyone is free to deploy a C program to Android, using a C-to-Java-bytecode interpreter for example. The converse is not true for the iPhone, where Java in any form is strictly disallowed.
(b) How can you make statements about Chrome OS, when it isn't even released? Do you have spies inside Google?
(c) Where did Google claim that "Adobe Flash is open"? Either come up with a citation, or admit you're just making shit up.
(d) It was the Manhattan Project that destroyed the PhD brand, if anything the tech companies collectively are restoring it.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)