You don't consider it at all possible that "because privacy" is the PR spin on it?
When iAd launched, it required mid six digit buys for ads. Users complained that they only would see the same half-dozen ads. Over the course of the next two years, that was steadily reduced, low six digits, fifty thousand, and the complaints stayed the same.
Before iAd shut its doors, you could get ad buys for a minimum of _fifty dollars_.
I tend to be a bit skeptical that instead of the platform being a failure, Apple realized after a few years of cutting buy prices that "hey, privacy is important".
Those ads were priced that high for a reason, to keep garbage off the iPhone. iAd only really made sense as a way to enable developers to make money from their apps in a high quality way. All the stipulations don't make sense for a pure ad-tech business.
And I don't think a former iAd exec has any reason to be doing PR for Apple when the purpose of that WSJ story and his cooperation with it was to pimp his new job/startup.
> Those ads were priced that high for a reason, to keep garbage off the iPhone.
Perhaps so. And only a few companies bought ads, which pissed off their customers (the ones that Apple is "fighting to protect") because of the repetition.
So Apple lowered the barrier. A failure to realize.
Not sure how this is a dispute of what I said, or somehow proves that iAd wasn't a failure, but a planned exit.
> And I don't think a former iAd exec has any reason to be doing PR for Apple when the purpose of that WSJ story and his cooperation with it was to pimp his new job/startup.
If you think that Apple (or any company of that size) doesn't have non-disparagement agreements with any corporate officer or down to SVP level, at the _very minimum_, you're mistaken.
Even those "we screwed up" articles you see are very carefully stage managed. They're (almost exclusively, save some very isolated high profile situations) scripted as a PR effort to manage customer satisfaction.
When iAd launched, it required mid six digit buys for ads. Users complained that they only would see the same half-dozen ads. Over the course of the next two years, that was steadily reduced, low six digits, fifty thousand, and the complaints stayed the same.
Before iAd shut its doors, you could get ad buys for a minimum of _fifty dollars_.
I tend to be a bit skeptical that instead of the platform being a failure, Apple realized after a few years of cutting buy prices that "hey, privacy is important".
That sounds a lot more like a PR soundbite.