An iAd is essentially a rich dynamic webpage contained within an application a user has installed. For the most part, we don't need to be concerned with what's going on, as the tools Apple provides manage this for us. That having been said, it is good to have an understanding of the magic that powers your iAd.
HTML5 is the underlying technology of the iAd framework. It is based on the future of the web with the next generation of HTML (and mistakenly marketed as including enhancements to JavaScript and CSS). Our iAds can use HTML5 in conjunction with many of the latest features in JavaScript and CSS.
HTML5, the fifth generation of HTML (Hypertext Markup Language), is the content and semantic structure of your page.
Video, audio, and other things that traditionally would require a plug-in, such as Flash (which iOS famously doesn't support), can now be done with HTML5.
The third revision of CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) allows visual styling in your iAd. With CSS3, styling of rounded corners and background gradients can be done without images, which means that your iAd is lightweight and delivers your brand message much faster to the user. CSS3 has rich animation capacity, which can bring life to your iAd and banner.
CSS3 has smooth, hardware-accelerated 3D effects that you can apply to your iAd assets, combined with animations. Rich 3D motion adds to the interactivity of your ad.
JavaScript is a programming language used to control the interactivity inside your iAd. Whenever tapping or pinching somewhere causes interaction with your iAd, behind the scenes, JavaScript will be controlling this. JavaScript is able to access user location to find local stores and provide location-sensitive promotions. JavaScript can be used to remotely fetch the latest offers and information from your website, using a technology called AJAX to create a dynamic, up-to-date experience.
Each iAd is a folder full of the HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and media used for your banner and ad unit. In the following screenshot, we can see the file structure of a typical iAd:
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If you wanted to, you could create an entire iAd using just a text editor to manipulate these files. Luckily, iAd Producer creates and updates these files for us, when we're using it to create our iAd.