Windows Phone 8 app developers have been waiting for nearly a year for Google to make its promised AdMob SDK available to the platform. Late on Thursday, Google finally released its first AdMob SDK public beta for Windows Phone 8 which should be a huge boost for developers making apps for the mobile OS.
The announcement was made on Google's Ad Developer Blog, with the first beta allowing Windows Phone 8 app makers to create an AdMob banner view from code. It will also allow app developers to embed an AdMob banner directly in an XAML file and show full-screen interstitial ads. The SDK lets app developers register for ad events such as succeeding or failing to receive an ad.
That's the good news. The bad news is that this is still the first public beta and as such the SDK does not support all of the AdMob features that can be accessed by iOS and Android apps, such as support for DoubleClick for Publishers, MRAID support and more. Google also notes that Windows RT is not supported in this new beta. That's likely a reference to the Modern apps that are found on both Windows 8/8.1 and Windows RT/RT 8.1.
However, this is certainly a welcome first step by Google and should allow for Windows Phone 8 app developers who use ads in their programs to gain more income. However, Google and Microsoft are still at odds on other mobile device matters, such as the YouTube app for Windows Phone 8 that Microsoft keeps trying to launch and Google keeps blocking. Part of their dispute was that Microsoft released a version that did not run YouTube ads. Maybe this AdMob SDK release will help bring the YouTube app back.
Source: Google via WMPowerUser | Image via Google
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