Apple warns developers: no location-based ads
Apple has warned developers of apps for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch that they should not use the location based services of these devices to serve local ads to any of their mobile platforms.
In a post on their iPhone Developers news site, Apple has indicated that developers of applications for its mobile platforms are not to use CoreLocation services, which provides apps with the location of the devices, as a way to deliver location-based ads to consumers on Apple devices. Specifically, Apple said, “[i]f your app uses location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user’s location, your app will be returned to you by the App Store Review Team for modification before it can be posted to the App Store,” according to an ars technica story. That is a very clear statement.
The motivation for the Apple position is not quite as clear, however. On the one hand, it could be that Apple wants to protect users of their products from being subjected to a flood of ads from local car dealers every time they open their phones. For better or for worse, there is a less idealistic possibility, as well. Apple recently purchased a company named Quattro Wireless, whose specialty is location based advertising, and has recently filed several patents for location-based targeted advertising, especially as it relates to offering songs or videos that are currently playing at a particular location for purchase via iTunes, but could just as easily be used for other similar purposes.
Apple has always been known as a company that wants to retain a great deal of control over the experience of its users, and certainly wants to control much of what happens on the devices that they manufacture. The location-based advertising situation may well be wrapped up in this Apple control issue, which has both an aesthetic side and a profit-motive side. Apple probably is actually trying to protect its user base from a random flood of ads from local banks while at the same time wanting to hold onto the revenue for location-based advertising that it considers to be less intrusive. Situations like this are why some people find it so easy to love Apple, while others, well, not so much.
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