All Things Digital
Peter Kafka reports that the latest update to Apple’s developer agreement has some mobile ad companies concerned they will be effectively banned from operating on the iPhone platform. The update, which accompanied Apple’s announcement of the iPhone 4.0 operating system, appears to restrict third-parties from gathering analytics data within iPhone apps. “If they’re right, Apple’s contract would severely handicap rival ‘in-app’ ad networks — like Google’s AdMob — without formally banning them.”
Quoting a mobile ad executive Kafka writes, “Ads don’t exist without analytics. Can’t measure it, can’t bill for it.”
Apple raised similar eyebrows among app developers last week when the developers agreement update revealed a ban on cross-platform app compilers. In effect this restriction eliminated Adobe’s plan to allow mobile apps to be built using the AIR framework and then exported into various formats that would operate on multiple handheld devices.
> Apple Places New Limits on App Developers (NYTimes.com DealBook)
> IAds, IPads And The Great IUnknowns (MediaPost)
