Among the many announcements made today at Apple’s WWDC was further information on Apple’s iAd platform. At the conference and in a release issued today, Steve Jobs revealed that Apple currently has mobile ad campaigns for AT&T, Best Buy, Chanel, Citi Target, The Walt Disney Studios and a number of other high-profile brands. Another interesting stat: Apple has iAd commitments for 2010 totaling over $60 million, which the company says represents almost 50 percent of the total forecasted US mobile ad spending for the second half of 2010. Jobs said in his keynote that Apple has only been selling iAds for 8 weeks.
iAd, which is built into iOS 4, will allow users to engage with in ad within an app, even while watching a video, playing a game or using in-ad purchase to download an app or buy iTunes content. Apple will give developers 60 percent of iAd Network revenue paid via iTunes Connect. The platform will debut on July 1.
Apple originally announced the iAd platform in April after the company acquired mobile ad platform Quattro Wireless in January. And the iAd network will go head to head with Google’s ad network AdMob. The mobile advertising market represents a massive revenue stream, and the $60 million stat only reinforces the potential takeway that both Apple and Google could pocket from their moves into the arena.