By Srini Dharmaji

As is typical, Apple launched its iAd Network last month all the requisite fanfare and Google-bashing. The announcement, however, has left many people in the industry asking a variety of questions, many of which remain unanswered. 

Will this be a game-changer for mobile advertising? Will Apple be able to re-create an iPhone like user experience on non-Apple devices? What will be the impact of HTML5 for ad agency personnel who currently use Flash? And how can Steve Jobs claim that mobile ads ?suck?? 

Let us take a closer look at these questions. 

Do mobile ads really ?suck??
I must agree with Mr. Jobs about the poor state of today?s mobile ads.

The current mobile ad networks are flooding the mobile device with irrelevant advertising that is not only annoying, but also lacks the engaging user experience necessary for in-application advertising. 

Apple?s iAd platform solves some of the problems by looking at HTML5 as a standard for ad rendering, thereby keeping the user within the application, and providing a homogeneous ad experience, regardless of the device orientation changes. That is a big step in the right direction. 

Even though there are issues with HTML5 ad creation, it is nice to see a major player address the insanity that prevails in the market.

OS is ad platform
The fact is that a device manufacturer can provide a better user experience than any other advertising vendor or network simply because the operating system knows how to deliver a superior user experience on the device. 

Apple started the trend, which I am sure will be followed by Google, BlackBerry, Nokia and every other handset manufacturer under the sun.

But the most important factor is uniformity of ad experience across devices. Can Apple recreate the same user experience on non-Apple devices, or will it only sell iPhone/iPod/iPad inventory?

HTML5: New standard for ad creative?
The de-facto standard for creating online ads in the industry today is Adobe/ Flash tools.

Ad agencies must invest a significant amount of money to recreate these Flash ads in HTML5 for mobile platforms. It will take ages.

To my knowledge, there are currently no easy ad creation tools for HTML5 ads. Even if there is one, what is the guarantee that the same HTML5 ad will work on non-Apple devices?

It seems that Apple is taking on the Herculean task of trying to change the ways of the entire mobile ad industry with a minute global market share of phones ? 50 million Apple devices out of a global 4 billion phones is 1.25 percent.

And, of course, we cannot forget the dreaded 3.3.1 clause in the iPhone 4.0 developer agreement, which essentially burns the bridge between the iPhone, Android and PC programming. 

The 3.3.1 clause is a huge hindrance for any application developer that uses Flash application conversion tools. 

It will be interesting to see if Mr. Jobs would apply the same 3.3.1 rule for converting Flash ads to HTML5. If so, it will make Mr. Jobs? supposed comments on Adobe being ?lazy? appear hypocritical, at best, if agencies find it difficult to create HTML5 ads.

Who really made the iPhone the success that it is?
Without a doubt, the iPhone is one cool device with a great operating system.

We should note, however, that were it not for the iPhone application developer community, Mr. Jobs would not have such a successful App Store business or the marketing tools it provides for selling iPhones to the consumer. 

Think about that for a brief moment. 

Have you ever seen any television spot or any other sort of ads for the iPhone that was not tied to applications?

Apple is using the application developers as the bait to sell its phones.

If Shazam is driving iPhone sales because its application is featured in iPhone TV ads, what should we conclude?

Using the Mr. Jobs logic, Apple should be paying Shazam 60 percent of the iPhone sales tied to purchases because of the Shazam spots. The brazenness of Mr. Jobs? latest edicts is really quite stunning. 

The application developers and publishers built the iPhone business for Apple.  Now, apparently, Apple has turned on those same people. Talk about forgetting who brought you to the dance.

If it is revealed that Apple will only offer ads on its own popular mobile platforms, we will certainly hear cries about an unfair advantage that the industry giant wields over all other players ? a debate that Washington will monitor closely. Only time will tell.

As the Chinese adage says, we are truly living in interesting times. Never has this phrase rung more true than in today?s mobile marketing industry. 

Now that Apple has made its move, is it time for Adobe to pull the plug on Flash 2 iPhone conversion tools? And what will be Google?s next step?

Time to move from Net Neutrality to the device neutrality debate? Along with everyone else in this industry, I will be watching with great interest.

Srini Dharmaji is founder/CEO of GoldSpot Media, a Sunnyvale, CA-based company that offers interactive rich media and video advertising services for mobile applications and Web sites. Reach him at

Note: This article was submitted to two publications. However, all columns submitted to this publication should be unique and not shared with other publications.