What Did Apple Want With AdMob?

Before AdMob accepted Google’s $750 million takeover offer, it was approached by Apple. This according to “people familiar with the matter,” who tell Bloomberg that Cupertino was also interested in the mobile advertising company.

Odd to learn that Apple (AAPL) was considering such a move. After all, advertising isn’t exactly one of its core businesses, though it might have become one had it managed to buy AdMob, which is one of the largest sellers of advertisements on the iPhone.

“If a lot of traffic goes through my devices, why can’t I become the middleman that serves ads against that inventory?” said IDC analyst Karsten Weide. “AdMob would have allowed them to do that quickly.”

Indeed. If that’s what Apple wanted. And perhaps the company is interested in expanding into online advertising, as this “Advertising in Operating System” patent seems to suggest.

That said, it’s equally conceivable that Apple met with AdMob hoping to temper Google’s (GOOG) fast-expanding footprint in the mobile space and on the iPhone. With the acquisition of AdMob, the search sovereign is now the Internet’s largest mobile advertising company, with a dominant presence on the iPhone and any handset running its Android OS. Perhaps Apple’s intent was simply to make this a more costly endeavor for Google. But perhaps it was something more.