Apple’s upcoming app tracking changes:
from opting out to opting in
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If you have a photo or video app that generates revenues through advertising, or if you advertise your products through Facebook or Google, the battle around the proposed changes for IDFA (Apple ID for Advertisers) is one to closely watch.
Since 2012, IDFA assigns an Apple device user a unique ID to facilitate targeted advertising based on the user’s app download, purchasing or website visiting behavior, among other things. Currently, Apple’s Limit Ad Tracking setting default is opt-out, i.e. any app can track you unless you change this setting.
But Apple will change this to opt-in sometime “early spring” with iOS 14.5, which will introduce a feature called App Tracking Transparency.
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Image: Apple.
Google and especially Facebook are crying foul as their iPhone-using customers would lose the “benefits of personalized ads” and small business advertisers would no longer be able to “efficiently advertise” their products (especially relevant to Facebook). At the same time Apple is the hero who is making this change “only for the sake of its users’ interests” – or something along these lines.
In a recent survey from SellCell among 2K adult iOS users, 35% of the respondents said they would allow app tracking to see personalized advertisements vs. 65% who said they prefer not to be tracked. But the % of respondents who'd allow app tracking is substantially higher if it meant they'd also see other content relevant to them or if it would mean apps would be free rather than cost money. In reality, it is hard to predict how iOS users will respond when the changes are in effect, but even if only a small portion will turn app tracking off, the impact on companies like Google and especially Facebook could be substantial.
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While Facebook has responded with a PR blitz, including newspaper ads, to make their case, Google has decided to stop using IDFA targeting tags . (Google’s bottom line is less dependent on behavioral targeting than Facebook’s, as most of its ads are related to its search engine results). For its own platforms, Google has announced it will phase out third-party cookies in Chrome in lieu of an AI technology called Federated Learning of Cohorts that lets advertisers target groups of people with similar interests rather than individuals, and is expected to use a similar approach with Android down the road. |
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Metalenz. Raising $ to produce miniscule 3D sensors on a chip. Academic researchers-turned-entrepreneurs keep coming up with innovative approaches to produce sensors and lenses that work within the limiting form factors posed by smartphones.
The reported result: no camera bump, brighter photos, and better depth-sensing capabilities than traditional Time-of-Flight or Structured Light methods, resulting in being able to sense depths at farther distances and in brighter lighting conditions.
CIPA. 2020 camera shipments down. Global 2020 digital still camera shipments were down YoY 42% by volume and down 28% by value. If we ignore the long in decline category of cameras with built-in lenses, interchangeable lens cameras were down 37% in volume and 25% by value. While the overall decline and increased average sales prices (i.e. less value decline than unit decline) is nothing new, compared to 2019, 2020 shows more decline in Q2 and Q3 and less so in Q4, which might indicate a partial recovery from the initial COVID-19 downturn.
Alice Camera. Digital camera meets smartphone. While the structural decline of the digital camera market has many causes, one obvious one is the slow adoption of the type of revolutionary computational photography enhancements seen in smartphones. Another is the dated UI and clumsiness for real-time photosharing. So why not combine the two platforms, is what the makers of Alice Camera thought. Its Micro Four Thirds camera with interchangeable optics can be mounted to a smartphone, while leveraging Google’s AI Tensor Processing Unit (TPU) in its camera. Seeing is believing though – for now the camera is slated to ship in October and the company takes pre-orders on IndieGoGo.
Smartphoto. 2020 Revenues up. We've reported before on consumer photo print product companies doing remarkably well in COVID times. Belgium-based Smartphoto falls in line with revenues up 19% to €61M and EIBTDA growing 35% to €12M.
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