Apple has been hard at work delivering on its announcements at WWDC sometime ago. One of the expected launches, iTunes Radio, now has some new information regarding the kind of advertising expected on the platform. From what is known so far, the new streaming service lets users create stations based on their library and listening habits, and also share them with friends.
A new report by Advertising Age has surfaced with details on how the advertising model will function on the new platform. The report states that it draws information from “people familiar with the negotiation". The first thing that draws attention is the kind of advertisers that are getting on the iTunes Radio bandwagon. Big brands like Pepsi, Nissan, McDonald’s, Procter & Gamble and a few others will be official brand partners at the time of the launch. And the report states that these companies may shell out anywhere between a few million dollars to tens of millions for a year-long deal. The advertising campaign will be exclusive for the company, within the limits of their respective industries for the term.
Advertising on iTunes Radio, from January next year, will reportedly come with a minimum buy-in of around $1 million. And the platform will be available on iAd in three forms: interstitial audio ads, video ads and slate ads. Put simply, slate ads are interactive display ads that will take over whatever screen the consumer is using. The pricing of each ad will depend on the screen size that the advertisers want. In addition, iTunes Radio users will be subjected to an audio ad once every 15 minutes and one video ad every hour.
Apple's iTunes Radio will come with a detailed advertising model (Image credit: Billboard)
The platform will definitely be wide-reaching, as advertisers on iTunes Radio can target users across iPhones, iPads, Apple TV as well as any desktop or laptop that has iTunes loaded on it. There is some good news for Apple users, though. They can avoid this by shelling out some moolah to buy iTunes Match. While this move may seem a bit counter-productive for promoting advertising, it can be assumed that Apple and its music industry partners don’t want to focus on ads as the primary revenue model. The whole point of iTunes Radio is to promote music, with the option of buying that song you have just heard. To that end, every song played on the service will come with a purchase button. Interested users just need to click the same to officially own the title in their iTunes library.
While the official word so far places the debut of the iTunes Radio later in the year, there are expectations that it will come to market next month, accompanying the company’s latest additions to the iPhone line-up, according to the Next Web.
A smaller, cheaper version of the iPhone has been talked about for the past few years. Now, leaked pictures and reports indicate that this cheaper version may be called the iPhone 5C, have a plastic shell that comes in multiple colors, and will be priced between $300 and $400. Users on the WeiPhone forums have posted pictures showing a supposed box of iPhone 5C packaging and phones in a variety of candy colors, like a red-ish pink, bright blue, Slimer green, white, and pale yellow. These colors do appear to fit the colorful palette of iOS 7, but they are not confirmed (nor is anything in this article). BGR has also obtained images of the 5C.
At WWDC, Apple unveiled “iOS in the Car,” which will integrate aspects of the iPhone and Siri into some cars. This may not be all, however. In last week’s earnings call, Tim Cook said that “having something in the automobile is very, very important.” A recently published patent shows that Apple is toying around with ways to further merge the car dashboard with iOS, or even enhance car functions alone. The patent shows some standard car dashboard controls being routed to a haptic touchscreen, or one with vibrating feedback when you touch it. This means you could perform basic functions from a touchscreen on the dashboard, and maybe your phone. Maybe your phone could dynamically change your entire dashboard? Either way, a huge touchscreen in our car dashboard could be very cool.
The BGR Boy Genius himself, Jonathan S. Geller, speculated on July 17 that Apple is encaseing the iPhone 5S in LiquidMetal and may use a sapphire screen to cover it. If true, this would make the iPhone 5S one of the most durable phones out there. LiquidMetal is supposedly twice as strong as titanium alloys. And if you’re wondering about sapphire screens, we saw first hand how awesome those are at MWC this year. You can check out our sapphire screen hands on here.