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Will Steve Jobs Use MacBook and iAd to Kill Off Non-Apple Apps and Browsers?

By Jim Edwards

Updated on: October 27, 2010 / 3:43 PM EDT / MoneyWatch

Apple (AAPL)'s launch of the beautifully skinny MacBook Air -- backed by ads from agency TBWA (video below) -- and CEO Steve Jobs' surprise rant against Google (GOOG)'s Android system raise the tantalizing possibility that life for advertisers and users inside Apple's iAd environment is about to get even more restricted, even down to the level of the humble internet browser.

Let's put together five apparently unrelated jigsaw pieces and see if they create a picture:

On the Q3 2010 conference call, Jobs made a compelling case that the simplicity of Apple's "integrated" system has a strategic advantage for advertisers and app developers who won't want the hassle of dealing with Google's "fragmented" Android system:

[There are] more than a hundred different versions of Android software on 244 different handsets.
... Compare this with iPhone, where there are two versions of the software, the current and the most recent predecessor, to test against.
In reality, we think the open versus closed argument is just a smokescreen to try and hide the real issue, which is, "What's best for the customer -â€" fragmented versus integrated?"
There are now 200,000 registered Apple app developers. That's a critical mass, especially if you regard app developers and advertisers as two sides of the same coin. Android has only 90,000 developers.
Apple is preparing to integrate iAd into video so that iAd ads can be inserted into videos played on Apple devices.
There is already speculation that Apple intends to drop support for non-Apple browsers on its devices in favor of only Apple-approved apps and its Safari browser, according to InfoSyncWorld. That would be seismic if such a plan were rolled out across the new MacBook, the iPad and the iPhone all at once:

... Mozilla says Apple is about to prevent the ground for Firefox to be a viable option for Mac users. Mozilla also wonders whether Apple will drop Web browser support altogether.
If you ask us, Apple will soon introduce the term "Apple Certified Web Apps". It makes perfect sense, as it'll let Apple monetize all Mac OS X and iOS usage in the future. It remains to be seen whether it'll work, but make no mistake about it, we think it's indeed on its way. We also think Apple's iAd system will play a vital part here ...
And Apple has already shown an interest in an operating system with an "enforcement routine" that requires ads to be shown whether users like it or not.

If you were a wild-eyed conspiracy theorist you might think that Jobs wants to leverage the spending power of his advertising clients into monopolistic control of all software used on his devices. Or, that he's leveraging the monopolistic power of his devices into an advantage in the digital ad market. That, in fact, is the existing logic behind the "walled garden" environment of the iPhone and iPad. And, as my colleague Marion Maneker points out, it works.

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