iAd App Network announcement

I was also confused by the announcement and the media coverage.

I now think the announcement means that iAd is closing entirely, at least from a developer perspective, i.e. for earning revenue by showing ads, and for creating ads for your own apps.

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My confusion was really based on the fact that I didn't believe Apple would close down iAd with just the short message on the developer news page.

https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=01152016a

Also because the rest of the iAd promotional pages are still active with no message stating it is closing.

https://developer.apple.com/iad/

I had also read some media reports like you that said it was just the part of iAd where developers create ads for their own apps that is ending:

http://9to5mac.com/2016/01/15/apple-will-discontinue-iad-app-network-for-developers-on-june-30th/

http://www.engadget.com/2016/01/15/apple-iad-shutdown-june-30th/

However other reports from well informed sources still indicate the complete closure:

http://daringfireball.net/linked/2016/01/15/iad

http://www.imore.com/apple-shutter-iad-app-network-june-30

I contacted the iAd team for clarification and was just referred back to the original announcement

Hello,

Thank you for your inquiry.

You may refer to the below website

https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=01152016a&1452895272

Any future updates will be mentioned on our website.

Thank you again for your interest in iAd.

Best Regards,

- iAd Support Team

Yesterday I finally found a description of what "The iAd App Network" means on the Apple developer site, and now conclude that, from a developer perspective, "The iAd App Network" = "iAd" as we know it, So the whole thing must be shutting down:

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/LanguagesUtilities/Conceptual/iTunesConnect_Guide/Chapters/ConfiguringStoreTechnologies.html

iAd App Network.

The iAd App Network provides an environment for you to incorporate rich media ads into your iOS apps. Once you sign the iAd App Network Contract and integrate the iAd Framework in your app, all apps that are approved and Ready for Sale will be eligible to receive iAd ads.

And

iAd App Network

iAd is Apple’s digital advertising platform. As an iOS app developer, you can take advantage of iAd in two ways:

... Design targeted advertising campaigns to promote your iOS apps through iAd Workbench.

... Earn revenue by joining the iAd App Network and incorporating iAd rich media ads into your iOS apps.

The final bit of confusion relates to earlier media reports about possible changes to the iAd backend:

http://www.buzzfeed.com/johnpaczkowski/apple-iad#.idnM7Gx8q

and reports on quotes from Eddy Cue:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/apple-news-app-is-off-to-a-rocky-start-1452474159

Mr. Cue said he was surprised by the extent to which publishers call on Apple to handle ad sales. He said Apple has accelerated the development of its iAd network and expects to launch a self-service ad-buying platform in the next two months to help increase ad spending.

I think the reported backend changes to iAd must only refer to advertising in the News app, which could make sense as the news publishers are locked into Apples own News app and can't replace iAd themselves with an alternative.

But still having said all that, could they really shut down iAd with just a brief statment on a easily missed news page!

Eddy says a lot of positively charged 'forward looking' things...he's the Pete Carroll of the online world. Wax positive to help comfort investors.

Eddy recently said the company "missed the error as it focused on other aspects of the product" about why Apple 'underreported' Apple News users to it's publishers. Smells like a typical Eddy snow job...

Projecting they would eventually control 50% of online advertising and thinking they could price it as high as they wished, Apple mismanaged iAd from the start. It was just a matter of time before they cut their loses, and recent changes to staff [ Hoping this is good news] may have something to do with it.

It all boils down to Apple's habit of 'build it and they will come' - all well and good, but when you build something, you need to build it out, not just press-release it and then move to the next big thing.

roryobryan I think thats a great summary, and you are probably right. Its all over for developers providing free apps using iAd.

I've always been a bit confused by peoples general impression that iAd is a "failure", its been by far the most successful way for me to monetise many of my apps, beating several other ad networks.

Its very strange the way this has been announced, I suppose the iAd staff who have been layed off don't have an incentive to clarify or update the web site.

Or, they've been caught on the hop by the initial media stories and just aren't ready for the big reveal where it will all make sense?

I would agree with your thoughts on it not being a failure - before the bulk of my free downloads started going to China (where iAd does not operate), iAd was my best performing ad network. I guess it depends on how you measure success. Not taking 50% of the ad market, meh, it's a failure, chuck it.

It's a shame as that was the ad network I most trusted not to mess me or my customers about.

>a bit confused by peoples general impression that iAd is a "failure",

Failure for Apple. The individual dev is left to decide how it worked out for them, personally. I think at the beginning, many of us had high hopes it would be a trustworthy and beneficial experience simply because Apple was involved.

If Apple had better managed their own expectations, perhaps it would have worked out better for everyone.

It's clear that Apple needs to inform developers on what exactly is going on. There is tons of confusion out there about this announcement.

If indeed iAd is going away, then they need to inform developers NOW. I would not have heard about any of this if it weren't for blog reports and I use an iAd banner in my app. Developers need time to make all the necessary changes to either switch to a different ad network or chage how they monetize their apps. And as wel know, that's not always a quick process.

So if Apple has indeed decided to kill iAd, then then there's no excuse for them to have not sent our emails to all app developers using iAd about this decision.

>If indeed iAd is going away, then they need to inform developers NOW. I would not have heard about any of this if it weren't for blog reports and I use an iAd banner in my app.

Yep. I wouldn't have known about this either if someone else didn't post about it on the developer forums in response one of my threads. They dropped a couple line statement on the "News" RSS feed, which has a buried link at the bottom of the Developer page. How many apps use iAd today (how many thousands or perhaps hundreds of thousands)? Rodney Dangerfield, we get no respect!

The right thing to do, would be to e-mail all developers and tell them that iAd will be discontinued. It doesn't sound like they are preparing a replacement for WWDC, why would they sneak a few lined statement on the RSS feed beforehand?

I was planning on releasing several free apps in the next couple months, to be supported by iAd... but now....I'm wondering if it'd just be a waste of time. I stopped using AdMob awhile ago because they weren't worth it. They don't pay.

I was very happy with iAd. It was a nice built in API made by Apple, you didn't have to worry about a third party sneaking Malware in your app too. Even if iAd wasn't making enough money from Apple's perspective, do they not see the value it adds to the platform, to incentivize app development? This type of change, I imagine sure won't hurt Apple in the short term, but what about the platform? Who feels like making free apps right now?

Are we allowed to talk third party alternatives on the forums? Everyone knows Admob. Any others?

So I'm working on integrating a third party Ad SDK...

What a mess. They clearly don't understand how the view hierarchy is supposed to work. I place an ad at the bottom, after clicking it, there ad autosnaps to the top of the screen. No...you are just a view...you don't set your own frame...I will layout my own subviews....okay....

The quality of free apps will def. go down the tubes with iAd gone. Too many messy ad platforms out there. The entire platform will suffer. I bet.

Between their ad blocker and now getting out of the mobile ad biz, you'd think apple is out to kill online advertising all together...

And wouldn't that be sweet.

Do you think Apple is shifting to a similar platform to Amazon underground? Where users pays a monthly fee to download any App for free within the program and developers are paid by amount of minutes the App is used.

I can see them doing something like that, although i'd imagine they would base the payment on some kind of abstract "engagement" measure which they would never actually reveal.

Is this really true? Wikipedia says "January 2016 -The iAd App Network (not iAd, just the advertise-your-app component) will be discontinued as of June 30, 2016." - of course Wikipedia could be wrong.

However, if iAd as a whole would really be going away, wouldn't the framework and API be deprecated by now?

I am still confused by this.

Yes, it's true. See: https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=01152016a

But that refers to the iAD Program, whereby Apple stops vended ads. New apps stopped being allowed a few months back.

No news yet about the API, yet - we're waiting for WWDC.