New Apple Product Would ‘Enforce’ Advertisements

CUPERTINO, Calif. — If Apple implements a new technology it’s trying to patent, consumers may be forced to read advertisements — and prove it.

Steve Jobs’ empire is working on a patent for what the company called an “enforcement routine” that could interact with virtually any device with a screen. The enforcement routine would freeze the device and present the user with an advertisement. In order to unfreeze the device the user would have to answer a question.
According to the patent application, this functionality would be woven into the device’s core code. That would not only make it more difficult to disable, but it would also give advertisers the power to deliver ads at any time, no matter what the user was doing.
In addition, the patent also specifies that the ads can increase in number and intensity if a user ignores them. For example, if a user repeatedly ignores ads, they will shrink and demand the user enter in more and more complicated keystrokes, including strings of random characters, the current date or the name of the advertiser.
What’s the upside? The tech’s inventors said that Apple could potentially offer various products for free if users agreed to watch the ads. Hardware could then become its own upsell, because users could later pay a fee to deactivate the ads.
The patent application, which bears Steve Jobs' name and approval, has received mixed reaction from the tech community. Randall Stross of the New York Times bemoaned the involvement of the normally user-friendly Jobs in the project.
“How Mr. Jobs reconciles this advertising technology with Apple’s culture is not known,” he said.
But ZDNet’s Adrian Kingsley-Hughes suggested that the technology could be used to sell content, not hardware. “Compared to the price of the hardware, content is pennies, and it’s easy to see a mechanism that allows owners to collect content credits in exchange for watching or listening to a few ads,” he said. Later, he added, “A certain number of credits buys you a song, a higher level allows you to rent a movie, and more credits would allow you to buy a movie. You’d have to watch a heck of a lot of ads to make up for a $100 reduction in the price of a device.”

 

Sounds a lot like 'time shares' for Apple devices. I can understand their marketing strategy though, if they drastically reduce prices or provide them for free, more people will have Apple devices. I would suspect a fairly high number of those will eventually pay the ransom to get the ads removed, as I think having them pop up frequently would be extremely annoying, not to mention a productivity killer.

Microsoft has similar plans and will be releasing a scaled-down free version of its Office product suite next year that will contain an ad banner in the corner of the window that will show ads extolling the virtues of the full Office version. However it won't require any interaction from the user, and so might be more easily ignored.

Hopefully this idea of ads on PCs and other devices won't prove profitable and won't catch on. I don't like ads on TV or radio. That's the primary reason I have Sirius radio and record everything I want to watch on the DVR, so I can skip the commercials. I'm sure not buying a computer, iPhone, or MP3 player that has them.

 

this is a pretty reasonable trial...
unfortuneatly I would say it will be realized.
For example the mobile industry is trying to figure out
how to benefit their custumers with discounts for
allowing them to send ads on their mobile devices as well.
annoying? - NO QUESTION - but would the avarage user
agree to this in order to get discounts? probaply yes... :?
Lets see....