Are you the sort of person who loves movie trailers, who watches the Super Bowl for the commercials, and who loves looking at the advertisements in a magazine just as much as the content? Well then Apple has the app for you, the new iAd Gallery app that was released yesterday.
On April 8, 2010, Apple announced a form of mobile advertising called iAds, and they started to appear on June 21, 2010 when Apple released iOS 4. You may have seen an iAd in an app that you downloaded, especially a free app; they show up as small banners that, when tapped, take over the screen and provide an interactive advertising experience. They tend to be well produced, in part because Apple exercises strict control over what can be in an iAd to keep the quality high.
The iAd Gallery app allows you to view all of the ads that are currently in rotation on the iAd Network. The “New” button at the bottom allow you to view just the latest iAds, and if you really like an iAd you can tap a heart to indicate that you “love” it and it shows up in a list of Loved apps.
You can also browse a list of all of the apps in two different ways. Tap the Search button and you will see an alphabetical list of apps that you can search. Or more fun, tap the Browse button and you will see a carousel of ads that you can spin to select one.
Tapping an ad gives you some basic information about the ad (such as the advertising agency that produced it) and the iAd itself which you can tap to launch.
There have been times when I have heard about an interesting iAd that was available but had trouble viewing it because when I launched an app containing iAds, another iAd would be displayed. Using the iAd Gallery is certainly easier than opening and closing an app over an over again trying to get the right one to launch. Otherwise, I’m not sure how useful it is to have a dedicated app that just lets you view advertisements, although it is interesting that Apple considers its iAds so compelling that it made an app to allow you to do nothing more than view the ads. The app is free, so if you want to check it out, I’m sure that Apple — and its advertising partners — will be glad that you did so.
Click here to get iAd Gallery (free): 