Advertisers weigh moving to Android as iOS 14 privacy features loom

Posted:
in General Discussion edited February 2021
Citing uncertainty over Apple's iOS 14 App Tracking Transparency feature, some marketing firms are choosing to spend on Android advertising instead.

Credit: Apple
Credit: Apple


Ahead of Apple's forthcoming App Tracking Transparency in iOS 14.5, advertisers and marketing firms are trying to determine how much this privacy feature will alter their income. Some are reportedly moving their ad spend to Android, at least for the short term, while all are waiting to see the real-world impact of the change.

According to marketing research company Digiday, advertisers expect that costs will go up, but they are not certain how much profits will go down.

"Everyone is nervous about the future and how the performance of their advertising is going to take a hit whenever Apple's changes do arrive," Playbook Media's Bryan Karas said to Digiday. "I wouldn't say anyone is trying to frontload budgets or make big commitments to another platform because there's so much uncertainty."

Nonetheless, some advertisers are reportedly turning to Android. They claim that this is to prepare for the change coupled with a response to how iOS advertising may be declining.

"Because there are a lot of unknowns around the impact of Apple's move, some marketers are allocating budgets to places where they have more control over measurement, i.e Android, Ido Raz of advertising company Bigabid told Digiday. "It's more like budgets are leaning more toward Android."

"[Publishers] that used to be iOS-first are starting to reevaluate the importance of their Android apps, even in markets like the U.S. [that] is historically iOS heavy," said Inmobi's Sergio Serra.

However, other app monetization firms argue that after an initial dip in advertising profits, firms will adopt Apple's new App Tracking Transparency (ATT) and SKAdNetwork frameworks. These are the alternatives to the iOS IDFA (Identifier for Advertisers) that Apple's Craig Federighi says will benefit both users and advertisers.

IDFA allowed advertisers to gain enough information about users to help with targeting ads to them, while still giving privacy protection. ATT will not replace IDFA, but rather will mean that users will have to positively give their consent to be tracked.
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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 21
    Oh no, the rats are leaving the ship!  *shrug*
    mike1longpathanantksundarammad42Rayz2016Beatsjony0watto_cobra
  • Reply 2 of 21
    Hey Apple, are you prepared to get a few million more Android switchers?
    longpathjeffharrispaxmananantksundarammad42sphericBeatswatto_cobra
  • Reply 3 of 21
    rob53rob53 Posts: 3,241member
    Financial suicide? Doesn't bother me one bit if advertisers leave the iOS platform. It will hurt free apps but it won't hurt the iOS platform, if anything it will improve the user experience a hundred fold. As for trying to get any money out of Android users, good luck. Maybe the times have changed but I remember articles saying Android users rarely pay for an apps, especially with side-loading, so why would they even care about buying anything they see advertised?
    longpathjeffharrisqwerty52cincyteeanantksundaramWgkruegerdysamoriaigorskyBeatsjony0
  • Reply 4 of 21
    elijahgelijahg Posts: 2,753member
    Just proves how desperate they are to keep tracking people, and how certain they are that given the choice, people will choose no to being tracked. Which also proves they know they are acting without people's consent, and relying on dishonesty for their entire business model.
    edited February 2021 longpathmac_dogqwerty52anantksundaramdysamoriaJapheyBeatsjony0
  • Reply 5 of 21
    Hey Apple, are you prepared to get a few million more Android switchers?
    Studies have shown for years that no large switching from one platform to another occurs no matter what happens on either. The last big platform shift event was Android to iPhone when the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus launched but that ended with the combination of the iPhone 6s/6s Plus being underwhelming updates and Samsung launching curved screens shortly thereafter (which Apple themselves adopted). A small shift happened as a result of the Galaxy Note 7 fire issue (the Galaxy Note line never recovered and will soon be replaced by the Galaxy Fold). Claims otherwise - nearly all of it from the Apple fandom camp - are anecdotal.
  • Reply 6 of 21
    elijahg said:
    Just proves how desperate they are to keep tracking people, and how certain they are that given the choice, people will choose no to being tracked. Which also proves they know they are acting without people's consent, and relying on dishonesty for their entire business model.
    None of this is true. Most users either know that they are being tracked or do not care. The only people who do "care" are Apple fans who started caring when Apple told them to in order to paint their own products as "good" and opposing products as "evil", which is something that Apple and Tim Cook never did prior to around 2013 when they finally acknowledged that despite lawsuit threats and other tactics and alleged claims about the imminent rise of Windows Mobile, Android was never going away. You see it constantly in the U.S. media because nearly everyone in the U.S. media uses iPhones, iPads and Macs as their work and personal devices exclusively. You see it a lot in the foreign media because they see Google and Facebook as these massive U.S. tech companies that crush their own ... it is more of an anti-American (and anti-capitalist) thing than specifically against Google and Facebook and trust me they don't like Apple that much either. Were Google and Facebook EU-based companies that gave the EU countries that sort of wealth and power they would love them to death.

    Look: Google was tracking people back when their CEOs were on Apple's board of directors and were considered a critical strategic Apple partner against Apple's #1 competitor Microsoft and #2 competitor Amazon. Had Google not invented Android - for their own needs to survive against Microsoft due to their locking Google out of Windows CE which at the time everyone thought would eventually amount to something - and thereby joined Microsoft and Amazon as an Apple competitor, Google would still be Apple's #1 partner with their CEOs still on Apple's board. It was only because A. Google's tracking/data/analytics operation was being used to compete with Apple instead of helping Apple compete with Microsoft and B. Apple finally acknowledged that neither iOS or Windows Mobile was going to kill off Android (and later the Android/ChromeOS combo ... see https://www.geekwire.com/2021/chromebooks-outsold-macs-worldwide-2020-cutting-windows-market-share/) that Google and their business model became "bad." There is no record, evidence or hint that Apple felt this before but quite the contrary.

    In other words, Apple is just a company after your money like Microsoft, Google, Sony, Facebook and all the rest. If you think otherwise then you are just believing what you want to believe instead of thinking for yourself. Here's the deal: if Apple actually thought Google was this huge threat to humanity they could crush Google tomorrow by coming out with laptops that start at $450 instead of $999 and smartphones worth having  - the iPhone SE isn't - that start at $300 instead of $800. Had they done this in 2013 it might have killed off Android entirely. Now it is too late - more than 3 billion satisfied customers too late - but the fact that they aren't even trying to deny market share to "evil Google" shows that they don't really believe Google to be evil to begin with. It is all about money for Apple. Always has been.
    gatorguy
  • Reply 7 of 21
    rob53 said:
    Financial suicide? Doesn't bother me one bit if advertisers leave the iOS platform. It will hurt free apps but it won't hurt the iOS platform, if anything it will improve the user experience a hundred fold. As for trying to get any money out of Android users, good luck. Maybe the times have changed but I remember articles saying Android users rarely pay for an apps, especially with side-loading, so why would they even care about buying anything they see advertised?
    Yes, like a ton of Apple advocates, you keep repeating the same talking points from 2008-2011 when Android was struggling to catch on. You are ignoring everything since then. Granted, this site doesn't help. The typical headline on the pro-Apple sites (which includes the "mainstream media"): Apple dominates/doubles Google Play revenue! Then buried in the headline itself: Google Play earned $10.3 billion last quarter. If the article instead led with "Google Play now earns $10 billion per quarter despite competition from other app stores like Amazon and not operating in China, the world's largest app market!" then that would end the "you can't get money out of Android users" falsehood, wouldn't it? 

    Also, this isn't about app purchases but about advertising. Google makes plenty on ads on the Android platform. This site - and Apple sites - tried to ignore this fact and stick to the nonsense "Google isn't making any money on Android!" until the proceedings from the Oracle trial forced them to stop. At first the articles were "Apple makes more money off iOS in a year than Google has made off Android during its entire lifespan!" but when Google's profits kept ballooning those stopped too and the subject was dropped entirely. In other words, you only still belileve the 2008-2011 narrative because sites like this helped created it in the first place and do their level best to keep from correcting it. 
  • Reply 8 of 21
    paxmanpaxman Posts: 4,729member
    cloudguy said:

    Google makes plenty on ads on the Android platform. This site - and Apple sites - tried to ignore this fact and stick to the nonsense "Google isn't making any money on Android!"  
    The question is if the advertisers do. The fact that Google rakes in on people clicking on ads is good for google, but not necessarily great for the advertisers. 
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 9 of 21
    cloudguy said:
    elijahg said:
    Just proves how desperate they are to keep tracking people, and how certain they are that given the choice, people will choose no to being tracked. Which also proves they know they are acting without people's consent, and relying on dishonesty for their entire business model.
    None of this is true. Most users either know that they are being tracked or do not care. The only people who do "care" are Apple fans who started caring when Apple told them to in order to paint their own products as "good" and opposing products as "evil", which is something that Apple and Tim Cook never did prior to around 2013 when they finally acknowledged that despite lawsuit threats and other tactics and alleged claims about the imminent rise of Windows Mobile, Android was never going away. You see it constantly in the U.S. media because nearly everyone in the U.S. media uses iPhones, iPads and Macs as their work and personal devices exclusively. You see it a lot in the foreign media because they see Google and Facebook as these massive U.S. tech companies that crush their own ... it is more of an anti-American (and anti-capitalist) thing than specifically against Google and Facebook and trust me they don't like Apple that much either. Were Google and Facebook EU-based companies that gave the EU countries that sort of wealth and power they would love them to death.

    Look: Google was tracking people back when their CEOs were on Apple's board of directors and were considered a critical strategic Apple partner against Apple's #1 competitor Microsoft and #2 competitor Amazon. Had Google not invented Android - for their own needs to survive against Microsoft due to their locking Google out of Windows CE which at the time everyone thought would eventually amount to something - and thereby joined Microsoft and Amazon as an Apple competitor, Google would still be Apple's #1 partner with their CEOs still on Apple's board. It was only because A. Google's tracking/data/analytics operation was being used to compete with Apple instead of helping Apple compete with Microsoft and B. Apple finally acknowledged that neither iOS or Windows Mobile was going to kill off Android (and later the Android/ChromeOS combo ... see https://www.geekwire.com/2021/chromebooks-outsold-macs-worldwide-2020-cutting-windows-market-share/) that Google and their business model became "bad." There is no record, evidence or hint that Apple felt this before but quite the contrary.

    In other words, Apple is just a company after your money like Microsoft, Google, Sony, Facebook and all the rest. If you think otherwise then you are just believing what you want to believe instead of thinking for yourself. Here's the deal: if Apple actually thought Google was this huge threat to humanity they could crush Google tomorrow by coming out with laptops that start at $450 instead of $999 and smartphones worth having  - the iPhone SE isn't - that start at $300 instead of $800. Had they done this in 2013 it might have killed off Android entirely. Now it is too late - more than 3 billion satisfied customers too late - but the fact that they aren't even trying to deny market share to "evil Google" shows that they don't really believe Google to be evil to begin with. It is all about money for Apple. Always has been.

    Are you working for one of those parasite companies?
    What's wrong with Apple making its customers alert about the illegitimate collection and selling of privacy data from some of the applications you use? It is not important why Apple is doing this. It is important that Apple is doing just what the users are willing.
    elijahganantksundaramdysamoriajony0watto_cobra
  • Reply 10 of 21
    cloudguy said:
    Most users either know that they are being tracked or do not care. The only people who do "care" are Apple fans who started caring when Apple told them to in order to paint their own products as "good" and opposing products as "evil".

    We'll just say totally wrong here and move on.
    dysamoriaDogpersonBeatsjony0watto_cobra
  • Reply 11 of 21
    dysamoriadysamoria Posts: 3,430member
    cincytee said:
    cloudguy said:
    Most users either know that they are being tracked or do not care. The only people who do "care" are Apple fans who started caring when Apple told them to in order to paint their own products as "good" and opposing products as "evil".

    We'll just say totally wrong here and move on.
    Agreed. Most users don’t know any of this is going on. This guy is acting like he’s immune to the very thing he’s claiming Apple fans are experiencing. It’s selection bias.

    My disgust with laissez-faire capitalism and general capitalist abuse of people and economies has NOTHING to do with Apple’s PR. Apple is on my shit list too, only they’re slightly less bad than the majority of the other tech industry scum.
    Beats
  • Reply 12 of 21
    Obviously advertisers will turn to whatever platform will gain them income. What I wonder is if the current Android platform will be able to supply this influx of advertisers with what they need or will Android need to become even more intrusive than it is now. I picture lots of pop up ads on every Android screen and in every Android app or an ever increasing mining of our personal information as these advertisers fight your your attention creating a hellscape of distraction, unproductively and privacy violations.
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 13 of 21
    sflocalsflocal Posts: 6,092member
    "Everyone is nervous about the future"

    By "Everyone" it's the advertisers that track users.  Actual iPhone customers couldn't care less about advertisers.  Good riddance.
    Beatswatto_cobra
  • Reply 14 of 21
    cloudguy said:
    rob53 said:
    Financial suicide? Doesn't bother me one bit if advertisers leave the iOS platform. It will hurt free apps but it won't hurt the iOS platform, if anything it will improve the user experience a hundred fold. As for trying to get any money out of Android users, good luck. Maybe the times have changed but I remember articles saying Android users rarely pay for an apps, especially with side-loading, so why would they even care about buying anything they see advertised?
    Yes, like a ton of Apple advocates, you keep repeating the same talking points from 2008-2011 when Android was struggling to catch on. You are ignoring everything since then. Granted, this site doesn't help. The typical headline on the pro-Apple sites (which includes the "mainstream media"): Apple dominates/doubles Google Play revenue! Then buried in the headline itself: Google Play earned $10.3 billion last quarter. If the article instead led with "Google Play now earns $10 billion per quarter despite competition from other app stores like Amazon and not operating in China, the world's largest app market!" then that would end the "you can't get money out of Android users" falsehood, wouldn't it? 

    Alternate headline: "Google Play Store earns half as much as the App Store despite having 70% of the world's market share."

    You want to be an Android cheerleader then knock yourself at out.  At least have the balls to use intellectually honest arguments.
    edited February 2021 Rayz2016Beatsjony0watto_cobra
  • Reply 15 of 21
    andyorkneyandyorkney Posts: 8unconfirmed, member
    cloudguy starts one of his posts with "The only people who do "care" are Apple fans who started caring when Apple told them to in order to paint their own products as "good" and opposing products as "evil""

    What a load of angering twaddle, and how freaking offensive to tell me that I'm only interested in privacy because Apple or any other corporate tells me. I have been concerned about 
    privacy since the explosion of internet use, especially as someone working with vulnerable people and children. Do I think Apple has also been guilty of putting the well-being of vulnerable people at risk to maintain profits? of course; as has probably any organisation that has maintained a relationship with Chinese authorities to keep is production costs down or sell to one of the worlds biggest markets. Do I think there's a business model behind Apple's push for privacy? Absolutely, and I have a few theories but I'll not bore folks here with those speculations. 

    It is absolutely the case that a great many of us abhor the model of practice that is collecting as much data about individuals, and then selling that data to god knows who for the highest prices. I've watch a generation grow up being conditioned into the practice of sharing their lives on line and not caring about their privacy. I am hoping that many in that generation are in the vanguard of people pushing back against this culture. Those arguments that go "if you're not guilty of anything why would you worry about being tracked" are shockingly naive. Most political systems that have the flavour of democracy are fragile things, one only has to look back at Europe in 1933, and a number of other events that might include the Arab Spring (power vacuums) and the end of the Trump presidency to worry about what a rogue state would do with that data that advertising tracking and Facebook (among others) generate.  In those events I worry hugely for the safety of those who might want to push back against a totalitarian dictatorial leadership. 

    And that doesn't even begin to look at the morality of targeting vulnerable people, those addicted to gambling, those who experience eating disorders etc. Nor the fact that anti-democratic states are buying that data to develop strategies in attempts to influence democratic populations mindsets via false social media accounts. I think they're more easy to spot in UK because every so often an error, such as calling a mobile phone (uk) a cell phone (us) for example, appears in a so called UK post. We would never refer to our iPhones as cell-phones in the UK.

    And to cap it all, as a Brit who grew up with good quality TV and advertising; some of the creativity of brands was fantastic and entertaining and built loyalty. I can't help feeling that creativity has suffered at the expense of so called targeting. The really sad thing is ad targeting in my experience creates the creep factor (they're bloody spying on me), repeatedly shows you stuff that you've probably already bought or rejected after your research, and robs you of the opportunity to see things that you didn't know about that you might aspire to buy. 

    So please Cloudguy don't lecture me and tell me that I didn't care about privacy until Apple brain washed me. I bloody do care about privacy and any organisation that pushes back against me and my data being the commodity is more likely to get my money. 
    DogpersonRayz2016jony0watto_cobra
  • Reply 16 of 21
    I read yesterday that iMovie in Catalina uses iCloud Photos to get movie files to an AppleTV even if on a local network ?  Why do all roads increasingly seem to lead to Apple iCloud servers ?
  • Reply 17 of 21
    How is this a threat?

    It’s like Charter/Spectrum threatening to take their service out of the US so they can focus on Russia. Can I hold the door for you?
    watto_cobra
  • Reply 18 of 21
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    cloudguy said:
    elijahg said:
    Just proves how desperate they are to keep tracking people, and how certain they are that given the choice, people will choose no to being tracked. Which also proves they know they are acting without people's consent, and relying on dishonesty for their entire business model.
    None of this is true. Most users either know that they are being tracked or do not care. The only people who do "care" are Apple fans who started caring when Apple told them to in order to paint their own products as "good" and opposing products as "evil", which is something that Apple and Tim Cook never did prior to around 2013 when they finally acknowledged that despite lawsuit threats and other tactics and alleged claims about the imminent rise of Windows Mobile, Android was never going away. You see it constantly in the U.S. media because nearly everyone in the U.S. media uses iPhones, iPads and Macs as their work and personal devices exclusively. You see it a lot in the foreign media because they see Google and Facebook as these massive U.S. tech companies that crush their own ... it is more of an anti-American (and anti-capitalist) thing than specifically against Google and Facebook and trust me they don't like Apple that much either. Were Google and Facebook EU-based companies that gave the EU countries that sort of wealth and power they would love them to death.

    Look: Google was tracking people back when their CEOs were on Apple's board of directors and were considered a critical strategic Apple partner against Apple's #1 competitor Microsoft and #2 competitor Amazon. Had Google not invented Android - for their own needs to survive against Microsoft due to their locking Google out of Windows CE which at the time everyone thought would eventually amount to something - and thereby joined Microsoft and Amazon as an Apple competitor, Google would still be Apple's #1 partner with their CEOs still on Apple's board. It was only because A. Google's tracking/data/analytics operation was being used to compete with Apple instead of helping Apple compete with Microsoft and B. Apple finally acknowledged that neither iOS or Windows Mobile was going to kill off Android (and later the Android/ChromeOS combo ... see https://www.geekwire.com/2021/chromebooks-outsold-macs-worldwide-2020-cutting-windows-market-share/) that Google and their business model became "bad." There is no record, evidence or hint that Apple felt this before but quite the contrary.

    In other words, Apple is just a company after your money like Microsoft, Google, Sony, Facebook and all the rest. If you think otherwise then you are just believing what you want to believe instead of thinking for yourself. Here's the deal: if Apple actually thought Google was this huge threat to humanity they could crush Google tomorrow by coming out with laptops that start at $450 instead of $999 and smartphones worth having  - the iPhone SE isn't - that start at $300 instead of $800. Had they done this in 2013 it might have killed off Android entirely. Now it is too late - more than 3 billion satisfied customers too late - but the fact that they aren't even trying to deny market share to "evil Google" shows that they don't really believe Google to be evil to begin with. It is all about money for Apple. Always has been.
    Well, that certainly was a lot of words. 
    qwerty52jony0watto_cobra
  • Reply 19 of 21
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    mad42 said:
    How is this a threat?

    It’s like Charter/Spectrum threatening to take their service out of the US so they can focus on Russia. Can I hold the door for you?
    Unfortunately, they’re not going anywhere. 

    Apple’s restrictions will not stop it from having the most valuable customers, so after a few months of sabre-rattling (and that sabre is a tad blunt) they’ll figure out a way to work with it, or come up with some way to get around it. 
    qwerty52jony0watto_cobra
  • Reply 20 of 21
    BeatsBeats Posts: 3,073member
    More reason why knockoff Apple devices are a nasty hellstew.
    watto_cobra
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