Apple is looking to revolutionize mobile advertising to make it less interruptive and more interactive for its customers. Apple's iAd platform will launch this summer on the iPhone OS 4 for the iPhone and iPod Touch, with an iPad version coming in the fall. Apple will host and deliver the ads with developers taking 60% of the revenue, and Apple taking the remainder.

While ads running on iAd will only reach Apple customers, it has great promise to drive mobile and cross channel commerce opportunities.

iAd promises to make mobile advertising less disruptive and more engaging for Apple customers by enabling advertisers to attract the attention of consumers without forcing them to leave the current application they are using. With iAd, advertisers can create dynamic ad campaigns - delivering video or other interactive elements to impel consumers to respond and engage brands without being redirected to a browser window.

As Mashable.com reports,

When you click on an iAd advertisement, it will take up the screen using HTML5. Once it is open, you can explore the ad. Apple demoed an advertisement for Toy Story 3, demonstrating the ability to not only see information about the movie, but to watch trailers, play games and more — all within the same application from which you launched the ad. You will even be able to buy products within ads.

While the iAd platform will support mobile commerce growth, it can also be used to promote in-store discounts and sales which is a huge plus for brands looking to encourage cross channel shopping. In this case, the iAd platform becomes one more marketing tool to deliver these kinds of promotions and engage consumers.

While purely speculative on my part, it would be interesting to see a tie-in between iAd and geo-location technology. Say you are around the corner from Retailer X and get an iAd informing you about an in-store promotion; the timing of the ad's appearance increases its relevancy. While these promotions are done in geo-location services like Foursquare, what if you don't have Foursquare enabled or are using another app at the time?

Obviously iAd brings Apple up against Google in the mobile advertising market. Google's purchase of AdMob in 2009 will give advertisers a variety of mobile ad models such SMS ads, search ads, web display ads and of course, app display ads. This amount of choice in mobile ad delivery is a good thing since it will help brands reach consumers in areas of the world where the iPhone doesn't have market share.