The new ad blocker for native apps on iPhone is too good at its job

Apple has just approved a long awaited app that blocks all those annoying ads in native mobile apps.

Been Choice lets you choose whether to let ads and trackers on certain apps through, and will pay you $20USD a month if you opt to watch them, thus sharing your behavioural data with advertisers, publishers and developers.

It works by running all of your internet browsing through their own VPN (virtual private network), which scrambles your IP address so it can't be tracked by others. Been Choice then looks at the data to decide what is an ad and what isn't to filter what you see on your mobile screen.

It's so effective it even removes ads in, er, Apple's own News application.

The move is a big threat to tech firms like Google and Facebook as well as media companies that rely heavily on user data for their business models.

At TechCrunch, writer Sarah Perez has noted that although users consent to let ads through, they might not realise they actually give up more data than they would otherwise, since the app will share device, carrier and network information and IDs, as well as data and app usage.

It's also unclear what impact app ad blockers like Been Choice could have on the existing market - assuming Apple don't cotton on and remove it.

More: Apple added this Orwellian-looking emoji to iOS 9.1 and no one knows why