Just days after Apple asked an iPhone app developer to remove references to Google’s Android Marketplace, the Cupertino, Calif. company is advising location-aware applications can’t simply help Google’s AdMob serve location-based advertising.
“If 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,” Apple warns.
Apple’s comments come as the company and Google increasingly butt-heads on numerous fronts, the latest being who will control the burgeoning market for mobile advertising. In November, Google acquired AdMob for $750 million, snatching the mobile advertising firm while Apple was negotiating to buy the company. Stung, Apple turned around and paid $275 million for Quattro, AdMob’s chief rival. Just this week an Apple patent was reported, allowing iPhone users to share their current location, a potential precursor to employing the Apple handset as a platform for location-based ads.
The current battle for startups in the mobile arena is likely to heat-up as Apple looks for ways to invest $23 billion in cash. “As mobile computing takes shape, Apple, Google, Nokia and other traditional tech titans have become more active in searching for startups that can help them with the new terrain,” BusinessWeek writes.
Another signal of the growing importance of mobile advertising for Apple was news the company recently hired a former Microsoft mobile advertising sales manager, Theo Theodorou, and Todd Tran, formerly of the mobile ad agency Joule.
[Via 9to5Mac and AppleInsider]
