LONDON: This week’s launch of iOS 9 also marked the debut of optional content (read: mobile ad) blockers in Apple’s Safari browser. The ensuing firestorm has led to a highly emotional debate over intrusive and annoying ads, versus the need for online publishers to make money in order to stay afloat.
It’s impossible for any Web publication to talk about mobile ads without some inherent bias — advertising, after all, keeps the lights on at sites like AppleInsider and countless other outlets. Without ads, frankly put, I would not have a job as the managing editor of this site. There is no purely objective way for me to write about this topic.
In recent years, advertising — especially on some particularly egregious mobile sites — has become increasingly bothersome. We’ve all experienced it: iPhone and iPad browsing has been plagued by popovers, slow loading times, and even some exploits that will unexpectedly force users from a website to the App Store, without even tapping on an ad.
Apple has decided to fight back with a one-two punch, offering third-party developers the ability to create their own content blocking plugins for Safari, and thus allowing users to download them and have a more pleasant, ad-free mobile experience. In the second prong of this attack, Apple is also delivering content from publishers — AppleInsider included — via iOS 9’s News app.
The benefits to Apple are numerous: The company gets to provide a better experience for its users, and also in the process snub its largest competitor, and the largest online advertiser, Google. And because Safari plugins can’t block ads in third-party apps, Apple wins yet again, encouraging sites to build apps from which it can collect a 30 percent cut of revenues.
The costs to online publishers from all of this are obvious as well, with the threat of severely decreased revenue if ad blockers catch on with iPhone and iPad users.
Suffice to say that online publishers are concerned, unhappy, and downright angry with Apple about ad blockers in iOS 9. And the very livelihood of editors and writers (including yours truly) hangs in the balance.
The debate over the morality of using ad blocking software, versus the arrogance of online publishers to subject their readers to copious amounts of advertisements, took a turn this week. Prominent developer Marco Arment’s own ad blocking app, Peace, found its way to the top of the iOS App Store charts. But just as quickly as it rose to prominence, Peace vanished, with Arment saying publicly that he had a change of heart.
