And that’s how an iAd supported version of Dex died. No warning, no notice and inevitably no respect to the developers who have cenetered their app’s revenue model around the iAd platform.
Apple should target their ads better. I would have loved to have seen some ads that were better suited to kids in Dex. It’s a shame they don’t have the inventory to do so. However the manner in which they’ve made this policy change just stinks.
Furthermore there is no documentation of this change. Nothing is on the iAd developer page to alert people that the current fill rate for apps and games targeted at kids is zero.
As for what will come of Dex, in the short term it will remain the same: a free download, showing ads (now only from AdMob network) with an in-app purchase to show support and turn off ads. For the future, Dex will have to move to a normal pay per download model or lock some of the major features behind the in-app pay wall and continue to give out basic functionality for free. I’m leaning toward the latter but won’t make a decision until I’ve finished shipping my new iOS game TwizShow, which until recently was going to show iAds.
Today was another harsh reminder we iPhone developers are making a living at the beck and whim of a powerful platform vender. Be careful putting all your eggs in his basket.
via Clickable Bliss Blog – iAd Policy Change: No more kid-focused apps. I can totally understand Apple wanting to pull iAds from apps targeted towards children, however that has to really hurt app developers as apps targeting kids are probably most often ad-supported business models.