Like ‘Em or Not, iAds Are Officially Here

iAds, Apple’s vaunted venture into the brave new world of targeted mobile advertising, are officially going live today on some iOS 4-equipped iPhones. The Nissan Leaf ad above, which Steve Jobs demoed during his WWDC 2010 keynote, is the first iAd on the scene, and incorporates audio and video components.

MacRumors reports that the iAd launch has been a bumpy one: They write that iAd advertisements’ “presence appears to be very spotty on iAd-compatible applications at the moment with banners appearing only occasionally while at other times the apps simply show blank space in the banner location.”

While the iAd platform was alternatively vilified as an infernally intrusive beast and hailed as the savior of app developers and publishers, odds are it’ll be neither. While the audio/video component could potentially be annoying, you can always mute ’em and close the boxes. On the flipside, as GigaOM points out, there are a enough downsides to iAds that their lock on mobile advertising is far from guaranteed.

It’s too early to pronounce a definitive verdict on iAds until we see what creative advertisers can do with them: Particularly if iAds aren’t coming to the iPad until November, as Ad Age recently reported, this could just be the beginning.

(via MacRumors)