I recently started developing iOS apps again, after about a four year break. Swift is fairly easy to learn and a nice change of pace from when I used to program in Objective-C. Also, not having to handle garbage collection seems to make the whole process just a bit easier. I have noticed, that ad integration is more difficult.

Four years ago, when I made my first iOS app, I simply looked at the Apple documentation for integrating iAds and was able to monetize my app. But, as of June 30, 2016, it seems that Apple will no longer be supporting the iAd App Network. This change means that iOS developers looking to monetize their apps need to look to third party advertising frameworks. This is fine, but I think the alternative, third party services, are almost more annoying to integrate than it's worth.

Google AdMob looks like it's the the predominant third party ad framework for iOS, but it seems that getting an account is a bit of a challenge. In order to get an AdMob key to use with your iOS account, you also need an AdSense account and a AdWords account!

Setting aside AdWords for another discussion, requiring a Google AdSense account makes the process difficult. In the AdSense application, the first two fields are a link to a website and the content language. However, if I'm trying to use AdMob for my mobile app, there is a good chance that I might not have a website or blog that would get approved through this application process. When I tried integrating Google AdSense into my app about a month ago, I applied with a single page app. Within a day, I was rejected from the program. This was not a shock to me because I don't get a lot of traffic, but what was more surprising is the anecdotes I've read online. It seems that approval is based on a content basis and more is better. This isn't a problem because the AdSense service is aimed at content based sites. The problem with this restriction is that in order to get an AdMob key and account, I need an AdSense account!

This might just be late night rambling or a misunderstanding of the services, but I'm upset that in order to get an AdMob account, I need an AdSense account. And to get an AdSense account, I need a site with a lot of content. I guess, we'll see what happens when I reapply for the program with another site.