As Steve Jobs showed off iPhone OS 4 on April 8th, 2010, one of the most talked about feature since then has been the iAd – Apple’s own advertising platform for iPhone, iPod and iPad devices. While we have covered some other iPhone OS 4.0 features earlier, this is time we give you an insight into what iAd could mean for an iPhone developer and user.

According to Steve Jobs, founder of Apple Inc., “People aren’t searching on the mobile device, like they do it on desktop”. He feels that if an user needs to know about a good restaurant, he would most likely load up the Yelp ! app rather than searching for it. On the same note, he mentioned that the current ad bars that are served to iPhone users in many free apps are really deterrent to a good user experience because they take the user off from the app that they were using, onto the app store, or open Safari browser or to some other app. As a solution to all these Apple has introduced iAd, their new Ad platform that is integrated into iPhone OS 4.

Apple has a different approach for their new Ad platform. They want it to be ‘interactive’ and ‘emotional’. Current ad platforms which we see on the web in our everyday life are just ‘emotional’ but not ‘interactive’. Apple wants it to be ‘interactive’. For example by clicking on an ad you can visit a shop virtually and purchase goods or watch the video of a product and play little promotional games and make purchases using your linked credit card with an iTunes account.

If all that is being discussed right now comes out well, it is sure to give AdMob and other mobile ad platforms a run for their money as most iPhone developers would likely prefer to use the iAd system.

iAd specifically looks very promising for iPhone developers as it opens up dual opportunity. Firstly developers can integrate iAd within their free apps to generate some additional income. Second, iPhone developers can create a service offering based on this by developing ads for other businesses who would like to use iAd.