Apple To Encourage Location-based Apps & Ads?

Apple Inc., the California based company behind the popular iPhone smartphone, has announced that the company will allow iPhone app developers to use the smartphone’s GPS technology in order to insert location based ads in their applications, depending on the user’s location.

However, the company also clarified that applications with features based on an iPhone user's location must provide ‘beneficial information’ to the user. Apple also said that apps which doesn’t adhere to this rule will be sent back to its developers for modification or simply zapped.

Commenting on the new iPhone app review rules, the company said in a statement that “If your app uses location-based information primarily to enable mobile advertisers to deliver targeted ads based on a user's location, your app will be returned to you by the App Store Review Team for modification before it can be posted to the App Store.”

Several industry experts believe that delivering ads based on a mobile phone user's location is expected to become a big revenue generator for advertisers and publishers.

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The emergence of the mobile phone as a lucrative advertising platform has not gone unnoticed by internet advertisement mogul Google, which has purchased AdMob for $750 million in order to enter the mobile advertisement market.