Apple dropped the equivalent of a nuclear bomb on Google this week with its revision of its developer policies. Now, only "independent" ad-serving companies will be able to serve ads for the iPhone. That rules out AdMob, now owned by Google. The changes also appear to target third-party app usage analytics firms. Flurry, in particular, has been singled out for criticism by Jobs. Such applications are also banned from the iPhone.

The Federal Trade Commission has taken an interest and is rumored to be probing the iAd service, set to launch July 1, to see if it stifles competition and reduces choice for application developers.

The entrance of Google and Apple in the mobile ad space was supposed to provide a huge boost to this still tiny - if not hyper-spotlighted - space. Now that the two companies are clearly engaging in a long and dirty war, what does that mean for mobile advertisers? Surprisingly, there is much that will remain the same - which may or may not be a good thing - depending on your perspective.

Consider the following:

Parallel Universes

Google was never forthcoming with what it was going to do with AdMob. Sure, we knew it was going to compete with it, but how and in what form Google kept to itself. More than likely Google is going to build something that is the mirror image of what Apple is doing with Quattro and the iAd, Bruce Braun, Senior VP of sales and marketing at GoldSpot Media, told the E-Commerce Times - that is, ads delivered within apps, and a split of the revenues with advertisers.

But Not Necessarily Equal Ones

But the two platforms are not likely to be utterly the same. AdMob is a low-cost provider of mobile ads, while Apple is expected to charge high prices for iAd, Azita Arvani, principal with the Arvani Group, said (via E-Commerce Times). "AdMob/Google's mobile ad business will be much more scalable. Ultimately, Apple may become a niche mobile ad provider, offering better user experience at higher price points." Also, AdMob has a size advantage, she said. "Even though the mobile advertising world is fragmented today, AdMob has the biggest share of the mobile ad network. So, the combination of the biggest search advertising network with the biggest mobile ad network will be a big differentiator for Google."

Still Fragmented

Those hoping for some harmony in the fragmented and still very tiny mobile ad space will have to wait a little longer. With Google and Apple going head-to-head it had been expected that other acquisitions of the smaller ad networks would occur as competitors hoped to build up their own scale. Indeed, a company like Microsoft, say, is less likely to acquire a, say, Greystripe. Greystripe, not surprisingly, is delighted with the turn of events.  "We are pleased that Apple’s new terms and conditions explicitly allow independent ad networks, like Greystripe, to operate on the iPhone and iPad platforms," it said in a blog post. "It confirms the value of 3rd party ad networks that enable developers to earn great revenue with their applications."

Android is Still Overtaking Apple

By a lot of measures, Android is overtaking Apple - in marketshare and now, according to new CTR figures from Smaato, in the mobile ad space as well. Android phones have overtaken the iPhone in ad clicks for the first time this week, with Android phones scoring 118 and the iPhone just 111. (via Information Week).

No Flash, No Analytics

Apple’s ban on Flurry was not surprising - Jobs has complained about the company before. But in truth, advertisers were not likely to get much analytical data from Apple or the iAd. HTML5 - the standard that Apple is famously embracing - makes it difficult to track how many viewers watched a video, according to New TeeVee. "The problem is that HTML5 is still in its infancy, and as a result heavily lags behind Adobe Flash for features that many video publishers already take for granted," it said. "Adobe and members of the Flash video ecosystem have spent the last several years building out tools to improve in-stream advertising, real-time video analytics and other features, which many media companies now consider "table stakes" for publishing in today’s web video world. But as a nascent web standard, HTML5 falls well short in many of the areas that publishers depend on."

There are other problems too for marketers: there are no standards for dynamic ad insertion or any good way to create a call to action within the ad or video player. These measurement issues were substantial enough that Kia Motors Ameica decided against advertising on the iPad, according to the Wall Street Journal.  "As soon as there is something that is credible in terms of measurement, we will dip our toe in the water," says Michael Sprague, Kia's vice president of marketing.

Furthermore Apple has been vague with publishers about the amount of data they will share about their readers who buy iPad subscriptions through iTunes, according to another article in the Wall Street Journal. It reported that Josh Quittner, editor-at-large for Time magazine, asked Apple CEO Steve Jobs how much subscriber data Apple would permit magazines on the iPad. 'Some,' was Jobs' response. When. Quittner pressed again, Jobs again responded 'some'.

No More YouTube?

Now this will have an impact on marketers - not to mention consumers. Jonny Evans at ComputerWorld posed this scenario in a blog post.  Just how dirty will the war between Apple and Google get, wonders, he wonders. “Will Google respond to Apple's iOS iAds lock-out by locking Apple's people out of YouTube?”