Apple Might Launch Ad Platform in iPhone OS 4.0

While everybody is all geared up to check out Apple's iPhone OS 4.0 event tomorrow, fresh information regarding the same has arrived now. Peter Kafka of The Wall Street Journal s All Things Digital reported that sources familiar to Apple's plan say that the company will launch an ad platform which would most likely be called iAd. If that stands true, we may expect future apps to come with ads inside. Apple already owns Quattro Wireless, a mobile advertising start up.

At the iPhone Developer centric event, which is just a day away, Apple is expected to talk about the ad platform in applications. The iPhone OS Apps have turned out to be a gold mine for Apple and hence the company wishes to make the best of it. If Apple gets a heads up for introducing the ad platform for mobiles, rival Google will totally jump in its chair. Reason? Even Google will get a strong basis to go ahead and point out potential competition to Federal regulators and thereby purchase AdMob, a mobile advertising company, for $750 million. Originally, Apple intended to by AdMob.

Apple already has an established mobile OS App Store and a hot product - iPad. Apart from that, Apple has massive user data that many advertisers would be interested in for targeting ads. What Apple or Google will gain from mobile ad platforms is a totally different story. For that matter, iPhone App developers will see a win-win situation to earn more by developing applications with ads. However, the big question is, would you pay for application with ads or the one without ads. One possibility could be that future free apps (mostly games) in the app stores may carry ads.

We shall wait another 24 hours to see if the said plans are being followed or not.