Apple brings ‘bad news’ with iOS 14, Facebook warns advertisers and developers – Latest News | Gadgets Now

It’s almost that time of the year when Apple introduces its annual update to iOS — the software the runs on iPhones. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, it might be delayed from September to October but it is coming soon. Apple previewed some of the features expected to roll out with iOS in June 2020 at its annual WorldWide Developers’ Conference (WWDC). One of the biggest talking point of iOS 14 — and has the likes of Facebook worried — is the anti-tracking feature it is expected to have. Apple is making iOS even more secure by adding a privacy protection layer where developers will be needed to seek permissions before tracking a user across apps and websites.

This feature hasn’t gone down well at all with Facebook and after making initial grumbling noises, the social media giant has now issued warning to businesses, advertisers and developers about how iOS 14 will hurt them. In two separate blog posts, the Mark Zuckerberg-led company explained how iOS 14 will make it difficult for them to monetise on its platforms.

“This is not a change we want to make, but unfortunately Apple’s updates to iOS14 have forced this decision. We know this may severely impact publishers’ ability to monetise through Audience Network on iOS 14, and, despite our best efforts, may render Audience Network so ineffective on iOS 14 that it may not make sense to offer it on iOS 14 in the future.”

To understand it better, you must know what Audience Network is. The Facebook Audience Network gives the ability to developers to provide in-app ads targeted to users based on Facebook data. How it works is the advertisers get a unique device ID numbers — called IDFA — to do effective targeting of ads and gauge their effectiveness. With iOS 14, Apple will give users the option to be allowed to tracked or not when the app is first launched.

In its blog post, Facebook said that this could have a severe impact on revenues. “While it’s difficult to quantify the impact to publishers and developers at this point with so many unknowns, in testing we’ve seen
more than a 50% drop in Audience Network publisher revenue when personalisation was removed from mobile app ad install campaigns.” The company further said, this number could be higher in many cases and it is “working on short-and long-term strategies to support publishers through these changes.”

Facebook has made it clear that iOS 14 will hurt its developers and publishes “at an already difficult time for businesses” and that “these are small businesses that depend on ads to support their livelihood.” “We stand in strong support of the developer community and will share updates as we learn more about Apple’s policy and what actions publishers can take,” the blog post further noted.