Pancreatic cancer survivor Jobs, looking thin but energetic, introduced the iAd mobile platform, which he said had the opportunity to make 1 billion ad impressions a day on tens of millions of Apple mobile device users.
IAds will allow applications developers to use advertisements in their apps, pocketing 60 per cent of the revenue. Apple will sell and host the ads.
Jobs harshly criticised the current manner and look of mobile advertising, particularly search ads. He promised that iAds will foster more engaging advertising that will not pull users away from the content within apps.
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Tim Bajarin, president of consulting company Creative Strategies, said it was a dramatic shift in thinking about the delivery of mobile ads, and an obvious move by Apple to set itself apart from Google, which made its name on search ads.
"It's very clear that Jobs believes that ads in the context of apps makes more sense than generic mobile search," he said.
Apple's entry into the mobile ad arena had been widely expected. This year, it paid $US270 million for Quattro Wireless, an advertising network that spans both mobile websites and smartphone applications.
Google, which already sells advertising on smartphones, agreed to buy mobile ad firm AdMob late in 2009. U.S. regulators are examining the deal's antitrust implications.
Jobs said Apple was also in the hunt to buy AdMob before Google "snatched them from us because they didn't want us to have them." The comments were just the latest hint at the rift that has emerged between Apple and Google, which were once allies but now compete in a number of arenas.
Research group Gartner expects the mobile advertising market to expand by 78 per cent to $US1.6 billion in 2010.