Matt Drance on iAd and the Web

Matt Drance on why iAd is a web-based (rather than Cocoa-based) technology:

Why can’t the ad downloads be bundles of native code, instead of HTML/CSS/JavaScript? Isn’t native code faster? Can’t the native SDK do more than HTML5? For starters, third-party iOS apps are currently unable to load external native libraries on-the-fly. This technical restriction would have to be lifted in some fashion for native iAds to be a reality. This would be not just a huge policy reversal, but a security and stability headache as well: errant or rampant web code is generally less dangerous than errant or rampant native code. WebKit is already on every iOS device, with zero system changes. It’s not worth the trouble.

★ Tuesday, 21 December 2010