Apple (AAPL) to Cash-In on iAd Interactive Advertising (GOOG)

With the launch of the new O/S 4.0 for Apple's (NASDAQ: AAPL) iPhone, many new changes were announced right along with it. The confounding question is, what's better: the multitasking or the iAds? It's sort of a chicken and egg question.

From Apple's press release:

Apple's new mobile advertising platform, combines the emotion of TV ads with the interactivity of web ads. Today, when users click on mobile ads they are almost always taken out of their app to a web browser, which loads the advertiser's webpage. Users must then navigate back to their app, and it is often difficult or impossible to return to exactly where they left. iAd solves this problem by displaying full-screen video and interactive ad content without ever leaving the app, and letting users return to their app anytime they choose. iPhone O/S 4 lets developers easily embed iAd opportunities within their apps, and the ads are dynamically and wirelessly delivered to the device. Apple will sell and serve the ads, and developers will receive an industry-standard 60 percent of iAd revenue.

The question, as in any business decision, is "where is the revenue potential?" Well, without multitasking, making iAds the way Steve Jobs wanted it wouldn't have been possible. To have an ad pop-up would have ceased the previous app, and the user would have had to search to find the application that they were using, select it, and continue from where they left off.

Talk about frustrating.

So, Jobs wants all of the ads to be based in HTML5, interactive, and built right into O/S 4.0. The ads, when clicked, will fill the screen, and look more like an app than an advertisement. To exit, you just click the 'X' in the upper left corner [I'm hoping this is correct, I don't use an iPhone!] and exit the advertisement.

Well, running the HTML5 ad and still having the application accessible is virtually impossible without multitasking. Now, however, the O/S pauses when the app pops-up, and restarts when you exit the ad, leaving everything just as you had it.

Oh yeah, and O/S 4.0 has a built-in GPS, so that advertisers will know where you are for targeted ads. Think of it like walking by a Dairy Queen, and POP!...a coupon for Dairy Queen appears on your cell phone. The ads could be pushed onto you, letting the advertiser interrupt to let you know about that coupon or special deal.

All in all, Apple should be able to generate a good amount of new cash through the O/S 4.0. Additionally, an affect might be felt on Google (NASDAQ: GOOG), as Apple is aiming to virtually revolutionize the way advertisers connect with the consumer. Google, however, is said to be happy about the announcement, as they feel it will reduce tension in the FCC about their proposed $750 million merger with AdMob.

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