Apple, who are notorious for their big media events, made their official announcement of the iPhone/iPod Touch OS 4.0 features today. There are loads of new features to go through, but I will do my best highlighting the most important ones here.

Firstly some statistics:

Now for OS 4.0

• Developers can now access calendar, photo library, still and video camera data, quick look, SMS inside their apps.
  • This is great news as event modules can now add events into your actual calendar.
  • Articles can now be shared via SMS within the application without needing to leave the app
• Automated testing tool that Apple uses internally to decided whether an app will be accepted or rejected is now publicly available.
  • This means that the app approval process is much more open and it will speed up the overall approval process
• A few new features: Create playlists, 5x digital zoom in camera, Bluetooth keyboards, spell check, gift apps, Tap to focus video, Places in Photos, Home screen wallpaper, file & delete mail search results, web search from sugestions,Larger fonts for Mail, SMS & Alerts, Rotate photos, Sync IMAP notes, iPod out, Wake on wireless, Folders.
• Multitasking is here! Jobs likens it to cut, copy and paste. “Not the first, but the best.”
• Apps keep track of where you were and can start right back up again.
• iBookstore on iPhone as per our predictions in this blog post
• Better data protection. Encrypt all your e-mail, including attachments with PIN codes.
• Mobile device management. Letting IT managers to deploy iPhones and manage them remotely.
• Wireless app distribution. Companies can push out custom apps over the air instead of relying on an iTunes sync.
  • This is great for corporate apps as they no longer have to be distributed through iTunes

There is much more, but this is all they had time to highlight

iAds

iAd’s is Apple’s new advertising network. They will be managing all the inventory and from the sounds of it they will be taking 40%. All ad units are built in HTML5 and get served up in the application without having to go to an external site. Spreed is doing something very similar, but NO development skills are necessary.

• Jobs says Apple wants to help developers make money off their creations, but says that “most of this mobile advertising really sucks, and we thought we might be able to make some contributions.”

• Jobs says ads are easy on the desktop b/c of search. But people are spending all their time within apps. “This is where the opportunity to deliver advertising is,”

• Jobs: Average user is spending 30 minutes a day using apps. That’s 10 ads per device each day.
• We want to get 1 billion ad impressions per day by the end of the year.

• Jobs: deliver “interaction” and “emotion” – Something that’s in the middle of where Web ads are, and ads on your TV.

• Jobs said it was annoying for people to click on an in-app ad b/c it would take them out of whatever they were doing.
• Devs can add iAd in their apps for a 60% split of the revenues. All the sales and inventory are handled by Apple.
• Ads have access to much of the same APIs as apps, like location and some level of accelerometer access
• Jobs demoed a Toy Story and Nike ad
  • All the animations are interactive, and crazy smooth.
  • It’s not so much about the content of the app, but the interactivity
  • He’s flipping through the app: it’s offering up the history of nike ads, allowing you to flip through the years to see all the shoes throughout history
  • He pulls up the app with the Nike ad. It puls up an Air Jordan 2010 clip

So the run down on iAd’s is that it is great for developers in that it will be very easy to monetize apps. However, this is not a great solution for publishers and media companies. Apple will be taking 40% of all ad revenue and they are administering the inventory (you cannot retain your ad sales teams). In addition I am skeptical as to how deep their ability to target advertising will be. They have one piece of the puzzle and that is strong creative advertising, but they do not address targeting. Because they do not parse, control or index the content and because they do not understand user behavior, it will be hard to do deep targeting which is one of the main promises of mobile advertising.

Julie Ask of Forrester Research backs up my point about iAds not being for big publishers in her blog post on OS 4.0 with these two points

1. We didn’t hear a lot about targeting – making use of past purchase behavior, day-to-day use of applications, etc. We did hear about location. Knowing that I have downloaded and am using the latest Audi application or browsing automotive sites on my iPhone might indicated that I am in the market for a car – that would be valuable information to automotive OEM’s. Knowing that I buy alternative rock music or that I read mysteries adds other dimensions. Location – given the structure of how they sell ads – this will more likely be purchased by large, national companies with stores throughout the country. Location (from the consumer’s perspective) will be more interesting when it helps me find local mom and pop stores that better match my interests.
2. We didn’t hear much on analytics for the advertisers. This will be interesting to watch as the more effective Apple can be in demonstrating ROI – bought movie tickets, purchased a Nike shirt, bought the movie Toy Story – the more advertisers will spend. They’ll spend on branding now, but I think they’ll spend more if they can drive sales.

What is good though is that it will super charge the agencies to begin selling ads as they can utilize their existing skills sets to build strong creatives. Jobs just did to the mobile ad industry what he did to the mobile industry in general 2 years ago.