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iOS 9 To Have Ad Blocking Capabilities
An anonymous reader writes: iOS 9 will reportedly carry ad blocking capabilities for it's Safari browser when it is released later this year. The feature wasn't rolled out with the usual fanfare one might expect, and flew under the radar. ZDNet reports: "It's not immediately clear why the new ad-blocking privacy feature was included in iOS 9, due out later this year. After all, the iPhone and iPad maker has its own advertising network -- even if its success was limited (which is putting it nicely). What's clear is that allowing ad-blockers in iOS 9 could deliver a serious blow to Google, the biggest rival to Apple in the mobile space, because advertising remains a massive portion of the search giant's income."
Why sell ads, when you can sell the ability to let ads be seen?
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
Apple makes, relatively speaking, no money at all from advertising.
Indeed, if you take its entire software ecosystem as a whole, it makes up for a mere fraction of Apple's total profit when compared to its hardware sales.
So when we're all being very clever cynics and conspiracy theorists, perhaps we would do well to look at the motivation of a company in a holistic sense. For Apple, perhaps if they let users control ads, their overall experience of the platform improves, and they're more likely to remain loyal and keep buying hardware.
If you can't beat them, destroy their revenue stream. It's the same reason Google released free online office software to combat Microsoft and why Android is free. It's just good business sense.
It's not immediately clear why the new ad-blocking privacy feature was included in iOS 9
Well there's a pretty obvious reason why, and I don't see any reason to discount it. It's a feature that users will like, and Apple is in the business of trying to make devices that people like. Even more specifically, Apple's general approach to making "devices that people like" tends to be to try to take the hassle out of using the product, as much as is possible. Ads are a big hassle.
It seems like a pretty obvious answer, so much so that I don't see a reason to go hunting for another one without some kind of additional information that there's some other reason.
If those numbers are correct it is really an endorsement of Apple and their strategies. They sell things people want to buy. How dare they?!! Advertising is pure filth and the lowest rung on the business ladder. Google, Facebook and their ilk are parasites. Apple seems to stand a little above the mire.
http://www.acetonestudio.com
Android is free because they wanted to help unify the mobile OS space
And by "unify", you mean "fragment to the point of being completely dysfunctional". If this is Google's idea of an improvement, they must be some sadistic fucking bastards.
People who say "sheeple" have about as much sophistication as an AOL user, and in fact are probably actually AOL users.