Apple to Automate iAd Platform and Dismantle In-House iAd Sales Team [Updated]

Apple's iAd program has never been responsible for a large portion of its sales, leading Apple to decide that it's time to take a step back from the platform. According to BuzzFeed, Apple plans to end its efforts at advertising sales and cease its direct involvement with iAd. "It's just not something we're good at," an inside source told BuzzFeed.

To accomplish this, Apple will dismantle its iAd sales team and will turn the iAd platform over to publishers, allowing them to directly create and sell advertising content. Publishers will be able to keep 100 percent of revenue generated.

iadplatform

Advertising industry sources familiar with Apple's new plan for iAds seem intrigued by it. "I think this is going to be great for publishers," said one. "It gives them direct dialogue with their customers as opposed to forcing them to go through an Apple middleman. Access will be more plentiful and easier to manage -- theoretically."

In September, Apple made the first steps towards automating iAd with an iAd Workbench update that added tools to allow publishers to sell ads themselves in Apple News. Currently, Apple News publishers are able to sell their own ads or have iAd sell on their behalf, while developers have to rely entirely on iAd. Apple is expanding its Apple News model to the App Store and other platforms, allowing publishers to sell directly.

Since its debut in 2010, Apple has failed to establish iAd as a successful advertising platform, mainly due to pricing. At launch, iAd's minimum buy-in fee was at $500,000 and despite several price cuts, Apple has struggled to get advertisers on board. Apple made several improvements to iAd over the years and attempted to revive the platform when iTunes Radio launched, but it has never been a successful venture for the company.

For end users, the impact should be minimal. The iAd platform is sticking around and should continue to serve up many of the same in-app ads in the same format that's available today.

Update 1/15: Apple has confirmed plans to discontinue its iAd App Network on June 30, 2016 in an announcement made to developers.

Tag: iAd

Popular Stories

New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18

20 New Things Your iPhone Can Do in iOS 18.2

Monday December 16, 2024 8:55 am PST by
Apple released iOS 18.2 in the second week of December, bringing the second round of Apple Intelligence features to iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 16 models. This update brings several major advancements to Apple's AI integration, including completely new image generation tools and a range of Visual Intelligence-based enhancements. Apple has added a handful of new non-AI related feature controls as...
iphone 16 apple intelligence

Apple Drops Plans for iPhone Hardware Subscription Service

Wednesday December 18, 2024 11:39 am PST by
Apple is no longer planning to launch a hardware subscription service that would let customers "subscribe" to get a new iPhone each year, reports Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Gurman first shared rumors about Apple's work on a hardware subscription service back in 2022, and at the time, he said that Apple wanted to develop a simple system that would allow customers to pay a monthly fee to gain...
iPhone 17 Pro Dual Tone Feature 1

iPhone 17 Pro Rumored to Stick With 'Triangular' Camera Design

Wednesday December 18, 2024 2:36 am PST by
Contrary to recent reports, the iPhone 17 Pro will not feature a horizontal camera layout, according to the leaker known as "Instant Digital." In a new post on Weibo, the leaker said that a source has confirmed that while the appearance of the back of the iPhone 17 Pro has indeed changed, the layout of the three cameras is "still triangular," rather than the "horizontal bar spread on the...
elevation lab airtag battery

Your AirTag's Battery Will Last for Up to 10 Years With Elevation Lab's New TimeCapsule Enclosure

Wednesday December 18, 2024 10:05 am PST by
Elevation Lab today announced the launch of TimeCapsule, an innovative and simple solution for increasing the battery life of Apple's AirTag. Priced at $20, TimeCapsule is an AirTag enclosure that houses two AA batteries that offer 14x more battery capacity than the CR2032 battery that the AirTag runs on. It works by attaching the AirTag's upper housing to the built-in custom contact in the...
apple tv 4k yellow bg feature

New Apple TV Rumored to Launch Next Year With These Features

Tuesday December 17, 2024 9:02 am PST by
The current Apple TV 4K was released more than two years ago, so the streaming device is becoming due for a hardware upgrade soon. Fortunately, it was recently rumored that a new Apple TV will launch at some point next year. Below, we recap rumors about the next-generation Apple TV. Bloomberg's Mark Gurman last week reported that Apple has been working on its own combined Wi-Fi and...
blackmagic vision pro

Blackmagic Debuts $30K 3D Camera for Capturing Video for Vision Pro

Monday December 16, 2024 4:17 pm PST by
Blackmagic today announced that its URSA Cine Immersive camera is now available for pre-order, with deliveries set to start late in the first quarter of 2025. Blackmagic says that this is the world's first commercial camera system designed to capture 3D content for the Vision Pro. The URSA Cine Immersive camera was first introduced in June, but it has not been available for purchase until...
mac pro creativity

Apple Launched the Controversial 'Trashcan' Mac Pro 11 Years Ago Today

Thursday December 19, 2024 7:00 pm PST by
Apple launched the controversial "trashcan" Mac Pro eleven years ago today, introducing one of its most criticized designs that persisted through a period of widespread discontentment with the Mac lineup. The redesign took the Mac Pro in an entirely new direction, spearheaded by a polished aluminum cylindrical design that became unofficially dubbed the "trashcan" in the Mac community. All of ...
iPhone 17 Slim Feature

'iPhone 17 Air' With 'Major' Design Changes and 19-Inch MacBook Detailed in New Report

Sunday December 15, 2024 9:47 am PST by
Apple is planning a series of "major design" and "format changes" for iPhones over the next few years, according to The Wall Street Journal's Aaron Tilley and Yang Jie. The paywalled report published today corroborated the widely-rumored "iPhone 17 Air" with an "ultrathin" design that is thinner than current iPhone models. The report did not mention a specific measurement, but previous...

Top Rated Comments

BornAgainMac Avatar
117 months ago
Here is an idea. Developers can just pull iAd out of their apps and charge for the App instead. If the app is not very good, then keep it free with the iAd in there and we will know that it isn't worth downloading.
Score: 9 Votes (Like | Disagree)
cmichaelb Avatar
117 months ago
Steve Jobs would never have... Oh wait

You know, for all the missteps that Tim Cook has made, a lot of people tend to forget that Steve Jobs was running out of ideas too...

A lot of the more half-baked ideas actually came from Steve Jobs… Such as Siri, the iPhone 4 with the antenna lines, iCloud that didn't have much functionality…

I would argue that the Apple today is a very logical evolution of the old apple.
Yes because -

a) Siri is soooo useless.
b) Steve designed the hardware "Let's add antenna lines!"
c) You mean mobileme I think.

:rolleyes:

Yes every company has missteps. I don't see what the big deal is. MobileMe was a disaster but iCloud has been much, much better. The cloud still isn't Apple's strong suit that's for sure, but iCloud has been a nice improvement.

I like the fact the will admit their missteps and move on.
Score: 7 Votes (Like | Disagree)
nepalisherpa Avatar
117 months ago
"Publishers will be able to keep 100 percent of revenue generated."

Uh-oh! I don't like the sound of this. This is basically going to entice more developers to use ads in their programs instead of releasing paid/ad-free versions.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Karma*Police Avatar
117 months ago
Steve Jobs would never have... Oh wait

You know, for all the missteps that Tim Cook has made, a lot of people tend to forget that Steve Jobs was running out of ideas too...

A lot of the more half-baked ideas actually came from Steve Jobs… Such as Siri, the iPhone 4 with the antenna lines, iCloud that didn't have much functionality…

I would argue that the Apple today is a very logical evolution of the old apple.
You could have chosen a lot of Steve Jobs failures, but those 3? Siri, the foundation of the next gen in UX which Google and Microsoft promptly copied; iPhone 4, considered by many as the foundation of the modern smartphone; and iCloud, the foundation that ties all of Apple's hardware and services together?

Those were all big ideas and just because everything wasn't perfect out of the gate doesn't mean he was running out of ideas or that they were half-baked.

On the contrary... The evolution you speak of are evolutions of those foundational pieces which Steve planted before he passed.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
kdarling Avatar
117 months ago
Considering Google has gone nowhere fast with their mobile ad biz, an essentially free one by Apple for direct access to platform responsible for a 90% majority of revenue generated in mobile, I'd say it's time to take a hard look at selling that Google stock.
Apple making 90% of smartphone profits has nothing to do with ad revenue.

Google's revenue has been increasing, including the percentage from mobile ads.

Mobile ads themselves are expected to pass print ads this year in spending, an event coming earlier than predicted.

From the linked article:

"In 2015, iAd’s share of mobile display advertising revenue was just 5.1%, according to data compiled by EMarketer; meanwhile Facebook claimed 37.9% and Google 9.5%."

A 5.1% share of mobile ad revenues is actually pretty huge, especially when you consider that Google is only at 9.5%!
Of course, that instantly fails the smell test :). If Apple was making half the ad revenues of Google, they would not drop iAds.

Those look like percentages of change, not of market share. I suspect that someone at Buzzfeed screwed up reading some chart. (No surprise these days; the quality of tech reporting continues to drop.)

According to the same source, eMarketeer, this is mobile ad revenue share in the US:



Attachment Image
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Chupa Chupa Avatar
117 months ago
Steve Jobs would never have... Oh wait

You know, for all the missteps that Tim Cook has made, a lot of people tend to forget that Steve Jobs was running out of ideas too...

A lot of the more half-baked ideas actually came from Steve Jobs… Such as Siri, the iPhone 4 with the antenna lines, iCloud that didn't have much functionality…

I would argue that the Apple today is a very logical evolution of the old apple.
Jobs passed away a year after the iPad was release so impossible to say he was running out of ideas. In fact, his ideas probably were part of many Apple products from the years following his death since electronics are designed years in advance of production.

Certainly he had many bad ideas that were either emotionally based or not completely thought out. His bio talks about many of them. But Thomas Edison had a lot of bad ideas too. That doesn't take away from the fact both of these men changed the world they lived in and started the path future generations would take.

OTOH what ideas have exactly propelled Tim Cook to Jobs level? Maps? A slimmer iMac? A one port MacBook? Apple Music? Buying Beats? Apple Watch? None of these are societal game changers.

Also Siri was bought by Apple, not a Job's idea, other than voice control is the future. It's implementation has been rough, but most of that, again, rests in Cook's hand. He was the one that took it out of beta. Since Siri, Amazon, Google, and Microsoft have all developed competitors, so clearly Jobs was on to something there.

iCloud is a mess, but again implementation, not idea. But Job's idea of the cloud goes back to iTools way before anyone else. Good idea, poorly implemented. It's something Jobs let slip though his hand and let the likes of DropBox and Box take the space. But it was and is a good idea.

iPhone 4 antenna was a bit of overhype. The aesthetic design of the 4 was ground breaking -- compare to any of the plastic junk phones of the time. Even today its design is classic. The antenna was clearly a design over function decision. But, honestly, it wasn't as bad as the news stories let on. I certainly didn't have any issues with mine -- a "day one" purchase.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)