After being offline for more than a week, Apple’s Developer Center is back. Access to the portal was removed by Apple after it was discovered that a breach into the system granted individuals access to the names, mailing addresses, and email addresses of registered developers. Apple confirmed that sensitive personal data such as credit card information and developer passwords were encrypted and secure.
The Developer Center looks the same as it was prior to its removal, but we assume Apple has followed through with its promise to overhaul the entire system by updating its server software and rebuilding its databases from scratch so as to prevent another intrusion.
While most of the main developer services have returned, Apple is still in the process of restoring the entire portal to normal. Some areas of the site such as the forums, pre-release documentation, and development videos, are still offline as per Apple’s System Status page.
Apple has also emailed developers with this new information:
With the latest changes to iTunes Connect, Apple has clearly changed its approach to mobile advertising. For the last three years, Apple has targeted large brands with minimum buy-ins ranging in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. However, uptake of iAd does not seem to have been at the level Apple expected, which has had a negative impact on developers, who have commonly observed low fill rates for their ads.
In mid 2010, Apple allowed app developers to participate in the advertising side of iAd program, by showing banner ads that link directly to their apps. With newly announced changes to iAd, which have been discussed in-depth at WWDC, Apple has furthered this push.
There were no shortage of details regarding Apple’s much rumored radio service leading up to today’s keynote address. The rumors said Apple was planning on introducing a free, ad-supported radio service, similar to Pandora, that would be highly integrated with a tweaked model for its iAd business. Apple has now officially unveiled the service dubbed ‘iTunes Radio’ and provided some details on exactly how it will work during its keynote presentation this morning at Moscone West in San Francisco.
The new iTunes Radio app is built in to the iOS radio app, and works on the Mac and Apple TV as well. As rumored, iTunes Radio will be free, supported by ads. In a twist, however, iTunes Radio will be completely free (free of ads) if you’re a subscriber to iTunes Match:
The Music app has a beautiful new design and includes the new iTunes Radio, a free Internet radio service featuring over 200 stations and an incredible catalog of music from the iTunes Store®, combined with features only iTunes can deliver. iTunes Radio is the best way to discover new music. When you tune into iTunes Radio on your iPhone, iPad, iPod touch, Mac®, PC or Apple TV®, you’ll have access to stations inspired by the music you already listen to, Featured Stations curated by Apple and genre-focused stations that are personalized just for you.
As we reported prior to today’s event, the underlining technology is based on Apple’s iTunes Genius feature with iTunes Radio tailoring the experience to your iTunes usage. Apple says there will be Siri integration, and also aims to offer users “access to exclusive “first listen” premieres from top selling artists.” Expand Expanding Close
Following several reports from earlier this week claiming Apple’s much rumored free, ad-supported radio service would be tightly integrated with its iAd business, AdAge claims to have more details on how ads will work in the service.
In case you were wondering whether or not the ads would be audio ads or traditional app-like iAds, AdAge says both:
The audio ads will be sold via iAd, Apple’s mobile ad network, according to a former Apple executive with knowledge of the situation. In addition to audio ads, the streaming music service will also contain the mobile ads iAd currently sells.
The aim of the ad-supported service, which according to the report’s sources will not include the ability to search or play specific songs on-demand, is to drive song downloads to iTunes.
The report adds that a spokesperson for Sony/ATV Music Publishing, the one major publisher that reportedly hasn’t made deal with Apple yet, said the company “is optimistic it will sign a deal with Apple soon.” Expand Expanding Close
While Tim Cook didn’t seem to place too much emphasis on advertising being a core business for Apple when asked about mobile advertising during his recent D11 interview, BusinessInsider reports it has heard from sources that Apple is gearing up to launch an ad exchange service similar to recent efforts by Twitter and Facebook:
We heard it from an executive who is one of the biggest players in online advertising… an ad exchange would work by allowing advertisers to target users as they enter the Apple eco-system on their iPads, MacBooks, various web sites and apps. The system would alert advertisers that an Apple user arrived. Any advertiser tracking that user with a cookie (a piece of software that records previous web sites you’ve looked at) could then bid to serve an ad targeting that user.
When asked why Apple wasn’t making money off its mobile ad business in comparison to other companies such as Facebook, CEO Tim Cook told D11 attendees that the focus for advertising was making developers money, not Apple. Cook said the company would continue doing things in advertising only if it contributed to its developer community, but according to several execs in the advertising industry quoted in the report, Apple could have much bigger plans for its ad business in the months to come. Expand Expanding Close
Apple’s iAd Producer tool for creating HTML5, CSS3, and Javascript ads for its iAd platform gets updated to version 4.0 today and adds a number of notable new features on top of some performance enhancements that Apple outlined in a knowledge base article. The updated app now allows users to create iBooks Author widgets, iTunes LPs, and iTunes Extras. Apple provides more information on the new features, such as creating an iBooks Author Widget for iBooks Author projects on the iAd Producer support page:
You can create an iBooks Author widget for use in your iBooks Author projects. For example, you can create a widget that allows users to stream video from the Internet, draw using their finger, or interact with a timeline.
A full list of what’s new in iAd Producer 4.0 including: folder-based organization support, new HTML, Stack, Drawing, and Panorama objects, in-app quick previews, CSS filter support for objects, and much more below:
New in iAd Producer 4.0
This release contains a number of new features and improvements
Improved Object library interface
Improved Actions library interface
Support for folder-based organization in the asset library
New HTML, Stack, Drawing, and Panorama objects
New actions for adding and removing CSS classes, animating background position, animating image masks, and text slide-in animation
Support for applying CSS filters as well as image and gradient masks to objects.
In-app quick preview
Project-wide search in the Code Editor
Better export performance
Improved menu layout
Improved font support, including support for OpenType fonts
Improved rulers and alignment guides
Enhanced inspectors, with pop-up color pickers, and gradient sliders that now represent opacity
Support for QuickLook previews in iAd Producer project files
Support for iTunes LP, iTunes Extras, and iBook Author widget project types
There were reports last year that Apple’s former Director of Publisher Partnerships at iAd—and co-founder of Quattro Wireless (which Apple acquired in 2009 for $275 million)—was leaving to start a new reward-based ad company called “SessionM.” Lars Albright is one of many iAd execs that recently left the company. Former Vice President of Mobile Advertising Andy Miller departed last year, while Senior Manager Mike Owe left just this month for a new role at AdColony. In case you were wondering about Albright’s motivation for leaving Apple to work with other ad companies, he talked to BusinessInsider today about why SessionM will have the upper hand on iAd:
But Albright demurs. “We’re incremental to iAd or Millennial Media. We’re not replacing banners.” Rather, he argues, SessionM’s reward ads reach a consumer when they’re already engaged in an app, and the action is taking a natural break (such as a reload between levels).
That, he says, solves the main problem with mobile display banners of the type served in the iAd environment: While the branded content that iAds trigger may be incredibly rich, they’re limited by the small, unappealing size of the initial iAd banner that users must click to generate them.
“The limitation is the entry-point,” Albright says of the medium he pioneered. “It’s not going to provide engagement, it’s not going to provide rewards.”
Last year, we noted Apple’s Vice President of Mobile Advertising Andy Miller left his role on Apple’s iAd team to become a partner at venture firm Highland Capital. Apple hired Todd Teresi from Adobe to replace Miller, but TechCrunch reported today that another iAd executive, former Senior Manager Mike Owen, will leave to take a job as the CRO of video ad network AdColony:
In his role at Apple, Owen had overseen the company’s New York office — arguably the most important, given many of the main players in the ad industry are so heavily concentrated there. His new job as CRO at AdColony is based in Los Angeles, where he will be responsible for overall company revenue
Owen provided a statement:
“AdColony is delivering rich, fast mobile video experiences to consumers in a mobile video ecosystem that is riddled with speed and quality issues… Video is incredibly powerful for consumers and brands and AdColony’s technology is allowing premium publishers to deliver the highest quality video experience to their consumers, which is translating into unprecedented results for advertisers. The post-PC era has just begun and we have a clear opportunity to change the way consumers think about, and experience advertising on their mobile devices.”
AllThingsD reported that Apple is planning an event for late January to be held in New York, not in Cupertino or San Francisco, Calif. The event will not be huge nor will it cover any iPad or Apple TV related announcements.
But, for sure, several sources underscored that the event is not related to an upcoming version of the iPad 3, the next iteration of the popular tablet device that many expect to be available in 2012. Also unlikely,?the rollout of Apple’s large-scale rethinking of its interactive television initiative currently in the works. While the company is expected to launch a new Apple TV product later in 2012, such an event would also certainly be held in the heart of the industry in Hollywood or at least in Silicon Valley. That leaves some kind of advertising or even publishing announcement…
Apple’s Senior Vice President of Internet Services and Software Eddy Cue is said to be involved in the event, and the event is reportedly “media-related.” On a side note, Apple has an office for their iAd business in New York, the business that Cue is now in heading.
The Wall Street Journalreported this evening that Apple isn’t seeing the success they’d like with their iAd platform. The company has deployed iAd as an advertising platform throughout their iOS devices in the summer of 2010 and is now making changes in the hope of attracting both more developers and ad spending. First off, Apple is reportedly lowering the entry-level cost for marketers to $400,000 – down from $500,000 and even lower from the original $1 million when the platform was launched. Apple is also reportedly putting new caps on what it charges for clicks on ads, letting advertisers pay $10 each time an advert is viewed every 1,000 times (CPM) and $2 every time it’s specifically tapped on.
So why is Apple making these changes? Apple had tied for the lead in ad market share last year, but has reportedly fallen back to the third place in 2011 advertising market share, behind Millennial Media (#2) Google (#1), per IDC. Hoping to re-gain lost share, Apple is also launching a training program to bring in more advertisers onto the network, partnering with its media buying agency OMD, part of Omnicom Group Inc. to educate new advertisers on iAd, a standard practice providers of digital advertising platforms such as Google and Yahoo! have been exercising from the onset. In the recent weeks, executives from Pepsi, Clorox and JC Penny have reportedly visited Apple’s campus to talk about iAd. OMD also hopes to lure more advertisers in February 2012.
9to5Mac has learned that Apple’s iTunes chief Eddy Cue has been promoted to Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services, reporting directly to Tim Cook, the CEO of Apple. Cue, 47, will also serve on Apple’s executive management team. The change has been communicated internally via Tim Cook’s email message to employees, enclosed below. Also, Apple’s PR beat Cue, whose LinkedIn profile still lists his old role, by updating his public bio page on the company’s site to reflect the change.
Interestingly, Cue is now responsible for Apple’s iAd division which has been struggling since its promising launch in the summer of 2010, culminating with the resignation of Apple’s former vice president of mobile advertising Andy Miller earlier this month. In fact, Eddy Cue is now in control of Apple’s entire cloud-based operation that encompass the iTunes Store, App Store, iBookstore and iCloud services, the CEO wrote in his email message. Here’s Cook’s email to troops:
Team, It is my pleasure to announce the promotion of Eddy Cue to Senior Vice President of Internet Software and Services. Eddy will report to me and will serve on Apple’s executive management team.
Eddy oversees Apple’s industry-leading content stores including the iTunes Store, the revolutionary App Store and the iBookstore, as well as iAd and Apple’s innovative iCloud services.
He is a 22-year Apple veteran and leads a large organization of amazing people. He played a major role in creating the Apple online store in 1998, the iTunes Music Store in 2003 and the App Store in 2008.
Apple is a company and culture unlike any other in the world and leaders like Eddy get that. Apple is in their blood. Eddy and the entire executive management team are dedicated to making the best products in the world that delight our customers and make our employees incredibly proud of what they do.
Please join me in congratulating Eddy on this significant and well-deserved promotion. I have worked with Eddy for many years and look forward to working with him even closer in the future.
Tim
Fast Company last year ranked Cue the second most creative person in their annual list of creatives. They wrote:
Some may recall Unilever to be one of the big brand names to first jump onto the iAds mobile ads bandwagone way back in June, now Europe’s about to see the first Unilever iAds make their appearance as Apple’s ad system hits Europes this month — and the ads will feature the “Lynx effect”.
Unilever is launching a new campaign for Lynx’s Excite range, with a major push through Apple’s iAds, as part of a £8.3m marketing spend. The “Falling Angels” campaign launches next week and will be supported by print, TV, digital and other activity. Expand Expanding Close
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