Exclusive: Apple to Buy Quattro Wireless for $275 Million
Google (GOOG) recently forked over an astonishing $750 million for Silicon Valley’s AdMob, a Quattro competitor, which Apple (AAPL) had also made a bid to acquire.
Both innovative start-ups are aimed squarely at the fast-growing market to advertise on smartphones, such as Apple’s iPhone and Google’s Android devices.
I do not like this at all.
Apple and Google are two of the smartest and most nimble companies on this planet.
They are now revealing they see the same economic future I’ve been seeing.
* We’re all shit poor
* We can’t afford shiny devices
* We can have the shiny devices for free if we are bitches to their ads
* The ads will be intrusive and inescapable
* Some ads will require “opting-in”
* Every ad will cause a privacy invasion
* No ads, no opting in, no services: no voice, no data, no nothin’
* Apple and Google have more data about us than every government agency
Some disgusting fanboiz out there will cheer each company for their foresight, so they can keep up their supply of shiny toys.
I wasn’t put on this earth to be anyone’s ad bitch.
The eBook Test 
C’mon Man
Steve will never walk away from a good fight. Made Google spend 3/4 of a billion on a company they didn’t want in the first place. He got his prize for a 3rd of the cost. You got love the man!
Totally agree.
I just hope they make a paid version available, that’s ad-less.
Oh, and my theory is they could also make an ad-supported version of OS X that would be installable on any PC. That way they could *give* it away, but still monetize it from the built-in ads.
But, yuk. I’d rather pay my $129 and get it ad free. But I’m not like most cheapskates… er, people.
Some fanboiz will create a mechanism for bypassing the ads. Such things already exist as plugins for web browsers. Google with its open source OS will be easy to do; iPhone will have it done via jailbreaking.
No problem. Unless of course these companies use the evil DMCA to force you to watch commercials. Now wouldn’t be interesting if that was the purpose of it all along!
Thing is, you can never know which fanboiz bypass tools to trust. Some are fake tools put out by those who invade privacy even worse.
Ad clicks will be inevitable and it won’t mean much to the average smartphone user. I grew up before cable and got used to watching ten minutes of commercials for every half-hour show. I either watched the commercial or spaced out. Wasn’t that big of a deal. You’re worrying about some big brother tracking you as you use your cellphone, but I doubt if you really have anything worth hiding. If you’ve got money, you might be able to pay for ad free usage, but for those that don’t, well, too bad.
Google is getting free revenue from hosting ads and Apple wants to do the same thing. That’s what you need to do to make your company a major powerhouse. All the damn jackass pundits insist that Apple stock isn’t worth crap and Apple can’t sell enough iPhones or build enough reserve cash to convince those bastard speculators that Apple stock isn’t going to go down to $150 tomorrow. Apple will just have to create a much bigger revenue stream. Ads are the easiest way to do it. So what if you have to click on a few ads every now and then. It’s not going to kill you or change your insignificant life. There will be millions of poor people out there that might be able to get some decent smartphones if they just click some ads. I watch Hulu and youtube and there’s always some crap popping up. I click it and it goes away. Wow! I’m being controlled. Who gives a damn. I’m getting to watch what I want and I’m clicking ads to do it while Google gets paid.
Damn. Always this worry about big brother watching you and controlling your life. It’s probably happened already and you don’t even realize it or are in denial. Everyone is somebody’s bitch and I’ll bet you’re no exception. I doubt if you’re that high up on the food chain. You should just turn off your computer, get rid of your cellphone, disconnect your cable and stay in your house and then you’ll be nobody’s bitch. You won’t have anything, but you’ll be your own master. Yeah, and life will pass you right by.
C’mon Apple, make those bitches click away to provide you with a free and easy revenue stream. If Google can do it so can you. If Apple gave me a Mac Pro just for clicking 25 ads a day, I’d take it and give them 30 clicks a day.
Um, you pretty much can consider that all data that Apple/Google/any other American corporation has on you, is pretty much trivially accessible by the US gov’t. Because unless you are a sitting Congressman, Senator or the President, you’re a terror suspect.
I used to think the same way. But now after cutting the cable, phone line and moving to online TV, I get a lot fewer ads.
I now realize that I miss the ads.
Are targeted/customized ads the same as news?
People usually put the best ads up on YouTube. You can get a fix there.