This week we released Beta 8 of the IMA SDK for iOS (not to be confused with support for iOS 8 -that was added in the previous release, Beta 7). This release adds a new object, IMAUIElements, which allows you to customize which parts of the ad UI are shown while an ad is playing. Currently, this customization is limited to the countdown timer and ad attribution. By default, all available UI elements will be displayed by the SDK. We anticipate another iOS SDK release shortly; unless you plan on taking advantage of this new functionality immediately, we recommend hold off on upgrading until we release Beta 9 in the coming weeks.

To configure the ad UI, modify the members of the uiElements property on the adsRenderingSettings like so:

- (void)adsLoader:(IMAAdsLoader *)loader 
    adsLoadedWithData:(IMAAdsLoadedData *)adsLoadedData {
  self.adsManager = adsLoadedData.adsManager;
  // …
  self.adsRenderingSettings = [[IMAAdsRenderingSettings alloc] init];
  // Show no attribution or countdown timer.
  self.adsRenderingSettings.uiElements = @[];
  // Or, show only ad attribution.
  self.adsRenderingSettings.uiElements = @[kIMAUiElements_AD_ATTRIBUTION];
  // Or, show both countdown timer and ad attribution.
  self.adsRenderingSettings.uiElements =
      @[kIMAUiElements_AD_ATTRIBUTION, kIMAUiElements_COUNTDOWN];
  // ...
  [self.adsManager initializeWithContentPlayhead:self.contentPlayhead
                           adsRenderingSettings:self.adsRenderingSettings];
}

This configuration will not always be honored; some ad formats (e.g. AdSense and YouTube-hosted ads) require that certain UI elements be displayed. Also note that displaying the countdown timer requires ad attribution - if you want to display a countdown timer, you must also display ad attribution. You can check which UI elements are being displayed by using the uiElements property of the IMAAd object tied to the STARTED event.

As always, if you have any questions feel free to contact us via the support forum.