After the first week of release, over 50% of Apple users had downloaded and installed the new iOS9 software on their Apple iPhones and iPads. This is a significant achievement when compared with Android’s latest Lollipop 5.0 that was released over one year ago and has only managed to achieve to date a 21% adoption rate. These adoption rates by OS platforms clearly highlight the fragmentation across the Android ecosystem and the challenges faced by Android developers with designing software and user experience.

Apple’s latest iOS9 also included a major challenge and threat for the mobile advertising industry – ad blocking. Supporters make a case that consumers are tired of having to put up with (low quality) ads splattered across their apps and want some form of control over advertising. Publishers on the other hand, argue that mobile advertising is what enables them to offer their apps for free and pays their bills. Already, a number of ad blocking apps have been released and shot up the app charts – it’s only a matter of time before we start to see the impact (if any).

For advertisers, the most interesting feature released with iOS9 is the ability for deep linking within apps and that will give mobile marketers more options around retention, managing churn and customer lifetime value. This will open opportunities for increased spend from marketers around managing the sales funnel and mobile commerce. The deep linking concept is also applied to the new search feature, giving users relevant results within the section of an app – search will behave more like a (local) search engine.

From an industry perspective this is a smart move by Apple because it puts the focus on higher value marketing that’s about revenue and not about acquisition – and good news for publishers as it could lead to higher average CPMs. App installs are easy, the challenge is now on for mobile marketers to drive revenues streams from installs.