Apple has released a new major update to its iAd Producer application. iAd Producer 3.0 includes a slew of new templates, new workflows, a new application user interface to work in, and shared layers between projects. However, it seems that the most notable – and most necessary enhancement – is much deeper integration with iOS.

While iAd Producer is an iOS mobile advertising system at heart, iAds never integrated well into the iPad, iPhone, and iPod touch operating system’s native functionality. iAd Producer 3.0 will now allow iAd developers to touch many more aspects of iOS. For example, iAds will now be able to let a user send a phone call, email, take a photo, add a calendar event and more. Here’s the list of new iOS-integrated functions from the release notes:

iAd has never been one of Apple’s strongest businesses, with shifts happening often at the top of the group. iAd came over to Apple by way of an Apple acquisition of mobile advertising firm Quattro. Quattro CEO Andy Miller became iAd VP, then left soon after. He was then temporarily replaced by Eddy Cue, in the role of SVP of Internet Services. Recently, Apple hired a former Adobe executive to run iAds.

Full release notes:

iAd Producer 3.0 This major release contains a number of new features and improvements, including:

• New templates • New project overview user interface • New layer list with search, re-ordering, and the ability to hide layers • Project-wide shared layers • Auto-advance between pages • New built-in actions, including: ⁃ Add calendar event ⁃ Send email ⁃ Place a call ⁃ Add contact ⁃ Add ringtone ⁃ Take screen shot ⁃ Set content offset for scrollView ⁃ Add PDF to iBooks ⁃ Set wallpaper ⁃ Save to photo library ⁃ Open URL ⁃ Take photo • iAd JS updated to version 1.6