Interesting to see that amongst all the figures showing Apple’s mobile dominance at the developer’s conference, there was no mention of iAd. Although Steve Jobs didn’t dismiss iAd as such, when he was speaking about iCloud he said:  “We build products that we want for ourselves, too, and we just don’t want ads.” Hmm. OK, so it’s a different channel to iAd, which is focussed on rich media advertising delivered via apps. But it isn’t exactly an endorsement of it.

Apple as an advertising network doesn’t seem to sit comfortably with their great product design/user experience philosophy. Having had some conversations with iAd in the UK last week, they still seem to be finding their feet with it. The minimum spend has been reduced, but it is still more than most brands total mobile marketing budget. Neither is there is an ad management platform or automated reporting – something that many brands and agencies would want in order to book and refine their campaigns.

Another update to iOS, the Safari Reader will remove ‘clutter’ from browsed sites. That could well include ads, but in spite of enquiries from the marketing press, Apple failed to shed any more light on it. If it does strip out advertising though, then the new update could scupper the rapidly growing mobile advertising market. iPhone users are important to this channel as they tend to be more affluent and browse the web more than anyone else. Without that market, what are the implications for Google’s Admob, Millenial and InMobi?

Both the lack of mention for iAd and the possible change in Safari could be a really big deal for mobile advertising.
More on the iAd snub here. 

More on the Safari update here.