It looks like Apple is ready to enter the mobile advertising space aggressively, and it has made its first move to keep competitors at bay. Apple earlier said that any developer that plans to integrate geo-location capabilities solely to provide local, more targeted ads will be blocked until that functionality is removed. The app must have a more meaningful use of the built-in GPS chip than to provide ads, claims Apple.

This is fairly ridiculous. Apple recently bought Quattro Wireless after its failed attempt to acquire AdMob, a much larger competitor that went to Google. If anything else, it looks like Apple is trying to block local ads just so Quattro Wireless can have a leg up on everyone else and win over advertisers. Or perhaps Apple is paving a way for competitors to pay a fee to access this feature on the platform. As a user, I’d much rather have local ads that are relevant to me, so I fail to understand how Apple is protecting me with this. Besides, I can always turn off local services in the main menu.