Apple is planning to allow all iOS 9 users to block ads on their iPhones and iPads through Safari. While Apple’s plan might please a lot of its customers, many companies that depend mostly on advertising are starting to worry about the consequences of Apple’s latest move. This is the first time Apple is bringing ad-blocker extensions on iPhones and iPads and as Business Insider UK founding editor Jim Edwards put it"
“This isn't Microsoft. This is Apple. And Apple tends not to launch products unless it is sure they will succeed.”
According to a BBC report, “Safari browser has a 25% share of all mobile web browsing, by some estimates. [...] Google is already losing 10% of its annual revenue to adblockers, according to PageFair, which monitors online ads. [...] The Apple ad block announcement already appears to have wiped 7% off the value of stock in Criteo, one of the major web advertising providers, according to Fortune.”
While it is true that for a long time now everyone has had the opportunity to block ads by using various ad-blocking extensions and browsers, not a lot of people are actually using these extensions to stop ads from their browsers and Apple is now making it easier for a lot of people to block ads by just changing their settings and not worrying about using third-party ad- blockers. Apple’s iOS 9 ad-blocking plan will allow users to add ad-blocking extensions to Safari, which in return will block any unwanted pop-up ads, cookies, etc. which not only are distracting and annoying, but also slow down pages from loading and waste a lot of battery.
“The extensions will prevent scripts from being able to download adverts. By detecting and stripping out scripts in the code of web pages meant to make browsers pull content from ad networks' computer servers. They will also act to prevent scripts from doing things like tracking how long a user has been looking at a webpage and monitoring how far they have scrolled down a page in order to serve up more ads,” according to BBC.
Web giants like Google, Facebook, and Twitter are all going to get affected by Apple’s new feature on iOS9 operating system which is going to launch on September 16, 2015. Google’s AdSense which relies entirely on ads is expected to get affected a lot but surprisingly, Google, just like most of ad-block browsers, agrees that the advertising industry is the one that needs to change for the better. “The industry needs to do better at producing ads that are less annoying and that are quicker to load,” Google CEO Larry Page said at a recent meeting with Google’s shareholders. “I think we need to do a better job of that as an industry,” Page added.
If you want to read more about this topic, check out our previous article on mobile advertising lacking innovation and customer insight here.