Apple iAd platform

One of the most interesting thing Apple previewed at the iPhone Os 4.0 preview event April 8th was the iAd advertising platform. Steve Jobs seemed very enthusiast about it. What is the big deal ?

Well, to me, looking at the iAd presentation, this is another market Apple could change for better in a big way. Here is why.

• Search on mobile is not going to happen anytime soon. On mobiles, it's all about Apps. Apple know it and this is what they told us. Everybody is talking Apps. This is where the action happens, so this is where the ads revenue will come from.
• Emotion. Why so many companies are just trying to port something from the desktop to the mobile space without trying to reinvent it. This is true for Microsoft and its Windows OS for the mobile phones (well, maybe before Windows Mobile 7), This is true with Google about search business and ads. Apple came up with yet another view on something many were doing since many years. Ads are about emotion, engagement, enlightenment. Banners ? So boring, so passive. Fail.
• Complexity of ad content. Looking at the Toys Story 3 ad, this thing seems to be an application by itself. All HTML 5 based. Menus, videos, sound, interaction. So nice. 
• There is a lot of new opportunities to enter the iAd content creation and I'm just anxious to look at the first ads. Yes, really.

A few questions still unanswered. From the dev perspective things are less clear. 

• How will we adapt our apps to display banners... ?
• From the current application approval process, we don't know how Apple is going to review the new ads... or will they ?
• How iAd will be published, through iTunes Connect ?

The coming months will be exciting.