Okay, I promise this is not an Apple dedicated blog.  There’s just been tons of news lately, and I’ve gotta put my two cents in.

So 4.0 has tons of new features to come, most notable is the Multitasking and Folders.  In a nutshell: You can now (finally) switch between Apps via a sliding task manager that pops up below the dock; very elegant and unlike any other task manager on any cellphone unit.  Folders will now enable you to organize/consolidate your icons by category into groups represented by a single icons.

Now, to the point of this post.  I was watching the keynote that Jobs held today at Cupertino and watched it to the very end.  The last segment of the keynote presentation was probably the most intriguing for me, and that was the introduction of iAd… yes.. as in iAdvertisement.

Jobs almost lost me on this one, as my initial reaction was “?”, “why!?”, and “uhhh… wtf?!”.  After giving Jobs a chance to fully explain, I was sold.  With the iPhone, not only has Apple captured the telecom market,create and nuture a solid app market/industry via the App Store, drive iTunes sales via the iPhone, introduce iBooks (a book store now with 4.0)… he is now taking a share out of the advertising industry.

At first, it may sound like Jobs is in over his head and over capitalizing on almost EVERYTHING.  But watch the video… you’ll see that he’s re-innovated the way advertising has been done both online and within apps.

The function of the ads in the first place, is to help generate funding for the developers to keep them going and to help keep free apps, well… free.  The only thing is, those apps are annoying, lame and static.  They’re in the way.  We ignore them and want to continue on with our app usage.  Furthermore, even if we were interested in the ad, we are more inclined to either check it out later or choose not to click on it at all, as it will cause alot of opening and closing and switching back and forth between apps.  This dynamic makes for the ad impressions to be inefficient and ineffective.  Ineffective ads make little to no incentive for advertisers to continue advertising with the app developer.

This is where Apple’s innovation kicks in.  They’ve built iAd into the OS so that it is native and will display advertising in a way we have not seen before.  Super interactive without having to leave the app that you are currently in.  The possibilities are endless, it’s almost as if you have an app within an app.  Keep in mind, this does not mean your phone will be laced with commercials and advertisements all over; this is feature  that is available for developers to add within the apps they choose to.  The ads lay at the top or bottom of each screen in a small banner, just as they have been in the past in other apps that you might have downloaded.

With this being said, Apple is offering 60% of the ad revenue back to the developer.  It really seems like a win win situation for all parties:  Advertisers are now capable of reaching more of their potential markets with new and improved interactive ads, giving incentive to advertise with developers.  Developers can potentially profit and maintain their projects/free apps. Lastly,  Apple now has a hand in the advertising market share. Genius.

The “i” in all of their products must mean “innovation”.