Twitter Announces Digits for tvOS to Simplify the App Login Process

[MacRumors]

Following in Facebook's footsteps, Twitter today announced plans to make some of its Fabric developer toolkit available for tvOS apps. Developers will be able to integrate Twitter's Digits feature into apps, allowing end users to securely sign into tvOS apps using SMS verification.

With Digits, customers can sign up for an app or service using a phone number with Digits providing a confirmation code used for verification purposes in lieu of a password, a feature that's likely to be handy on the new fourth-generation Apple TV. Entering lengthy passwords using the new Apple TV remote is a hassle and the Digits login feature will remove that pain point in apps that use it.

Using Digits' device authorization, your app on the Apple TV will show a short alphanumeric code. Your user then simply enters the code on digits.com/appletv via their laptop or smartphone to authorize the device to their account. Once that's done, the TV device receives a Digits session for the user's account which you can use to instantly identify your user and personalize their experience.

Along with Digits, developers can also integrate Twitter's data analysis service, Crashlytics, into apps to track install numbers and crash instances.

Last week, Facebook announced a Facebook SDK for tvOS, designed to allow developers to access Facebook Login, Share to Facebook, and Facebook Analytics for Apps. With Facebook login, customers can sign up for services and log into apps using a similar confirmation code system.

Article Link: Twitter Announces Digits for tvOS to Simplify the App Login Process

 

[sniffies]

I bet we'll see MySpace come back from the dead before Apple decides to update their useless Remote app.

 

[GeneralChang]

And we could do away with all of this if we just had the remote app back.

 

[mw360]

Nothing but spyware. Would rather type my password on the glass trackpad with my teeth.

 

[macfacts]

Steve Jobs: What is touchID suppose to do? ...... Then why the fu*k doesn't it do that.

 

[Peepo]

Maybe Twitter can use Facebook Login and Facebook can use Twitter Digits to authenticate for their respective apps.

 

[LordBeelzebub]

Any apps that require any kind of regular typing is going to be a hassle on this new AppleTV if it never supports keyboards. Sure they could make a new app but not everyone who owns an AppleTV also owns an iPhone or iPad to use with it.

This new AppleTV isn't anything special over the previous model other than the ability to play ignorant b rated games.

I bought one, and I've barely used it since I've set it up. I thought it would have great potential having downloadable apps, but having to use the remote for text entry is s pain in the ass and no keyboard support completely eliminates the possibility for a lot of apps, or at least makes them cumbersome to use. Can you imagine using a Twitter app and having to use the remote to try to type a tweet? Nobody is going to screw around with that.

Other than play games I can't do anything more than I could with my old AppleTV.

As of yet, this new AppleTV isn't worth the asking price.

 

[Jeremy1026]

Nothing but spyware. Would rather type my password on the glass trackpad with my teeth.

If only you realized how many apps use tracking libraries.

 

[acegreen]

Nothing but spyware. Would rather type my password on the glass trackpad with my teeth.

Ah got to love when NON-developers comment on a developer tool. If you are not a developer ST*U!

Thanks you

 

[VeryVito]

I know it's trendy to proclaim that Apple is "losing it" every time it comes out with a new device/update, but in the case of the TV remote, there truly does seem to be an arrogance in play: In the past, Apple may have been accused of choosing form over function, but in this particular case, neither form nor function seem to be at hand. It truly is something to be tolerated and/or worked around, and it seems so unnecessary.

 

[mw360]

Ah got to love when NON-developers comment on a developer tool. If you are not a developer ST*U!

Thanks you

Or you could have explained how I was wrong and provided the real reason why both Facebook and Twitter seem to be in an urgent hurry to babysit our TV viewing experience.

 

[mgmusicman94]

Or you could have explained how I was wrong and provided the real reason why both Facebook and Twitter seem to be in an urgent hurry to babysit our TV viewing experience.

I think its just easier for developers to use a facebook or twitter login instead of implementing their own login system. Or even with apps that share to facebook and twitter, there needs to be a way to authenticate those services and this is much easier than entering a username & password with a remote. Its extremely common for tv based apps to use a code like this with a web login on a separate device.

 

[acegreen]

Or you could have explained how I was wrong and provided the real reason why both Facebook and Twitter seem to be in an urgent hurry to babysit our TV viewing experience.

Unfortunately you didn't ask for an explanation, you simply made a blunt statement without any real info. You are not a developer and clearly suffer from the same stigma that most customers do. Not everything is meant to track you or profit from you.

Just to be clear Twitter in this case as well as Facebook don't DIRECTLY profit from providing these tools to developers. They develop these tools for their own needs and open source them so that smaller developers (like myself) who don't have the means or capabilities to do it, can do it. Of course INDIRECTLY, other parts of the SDK can benefit either provider but its not in the case here. Twitter does NOT track your login for themselves, Apple makes sure of that. This will only benefit the developers who enable this part of the SDK in their app.

As a matter of fact this maybe even safer for you and I, since If I as a developer had to authenticate you on my server, your information maybe breached and stolen.

Checkout @mgmusicman94 reply as well.

Disclaimer: I do NOT work for Facebook or Twitter or anyone else for that matter.

 

[zed1291]

Honestly, I think his is harder. If I'm trying to use my AppleTV then I don't want to have to pick up anther device to log in to an app. I have never thought these codes were a better experience than just typing in the password.

 

[Reason077]

Apple need to implement something like this universally across the Apple TV interface.

The current method of text entry - which you need to use everytime you sign in to an app, or make a purchase on the iTunes store, is so slow and annoying!!

In fact, my LG Smart TV (with a "Wii-style" smart remote) has a far easier and faster on-screen keyboard for text entry.

Did Apple deliberately cripple text entry to "encourage" Siri use?

 

[mw360]

Unfortunately you didn't ask for an explanation, you simply made a blunt statement without any real info. You are not a developer and clearly suffer from the same stigma that most customers do. Not everything is meant to track you or profit from you.

Just to be clear Twitter in this case as well as Facebook don't DIRECTLY profit from providing these tools to developers. They develop these tools for their own needs and open source them so that smaller developers (like myself) who don't have the means or capabilities to do it, can do it. Of course INDIRECTLY, other parts of the SDK can benefit either provider but its not in the case here. Twitter does NOT track your login for themselves, Apple makes sure of that. This will only benefit the developers who enable this part of the SDK in their app.

As a matter of fact this maybe even safer for you and I, since If I as a developer had to authenticate you on my server, your information maybe breached and stolen.

Additionally see the explanation below:



Disclaimer: I do NOT work for Facebook or Twitter or anyone else for that matter.

Alright, as a stupid stigmatised consumer I'll have to take your word for all that. The SDK may be open source, but are they really opening up what happens on their servers when we enter our data? And I'm not sure how Apple can block Twitter's tracking in this case. When signing into your app, I take the code (which I presume encodes your app identity) and enter it alongside either my phone number or email address into a Twitter owned website. Apple can't stop me doing that and it's hard to imagine Twitter aren't building a profile of me and my app choices right at that moment. Once they start providing you with tools to 'remember my preferences' and 'serve customised content' then they'll be profiling my movements within your app too. Sorry if this sounds paranoid, but if I'm not paying for the service and you're not paying for the service, where's the money coming from?

You might think these articles are a bit on the FUDdy side, and I wouldn't take a journalists word for anything but they're both linked proudly on the Digits website itself, despite the less than reassuring headlines. The wired article paints a particularly unpleasant picture for any of us who would rather have these people keep their noses out of our business. I don't think I want Twitter, a company I have zero respect for, to be sitting at the foundations of every app I use.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/10/22/why-twitter-is-paying-for-your-cell-phone-number/

http://www.wired.com/2014/10/twitter-fabric-sdk/

The payoff for Twitter will come if it can get developers to embrace MoPub,, its advertising product, because it gets a cut of any ad revenue. So it gives developers these nice tools to sign people up and improve their apps’ performance—and oh yeah, here is a click-to-install ad plug-in to go along with that, which happens to make us money.

 

[CFreymarc]

Any apps that require any kind of regular typing is going to be a hassle on this new AppleTV if it never supports keyboards.

I had some friends and family over a few weeks ago to check out my AppleTV and get their reactions. One thing that really surprised me was most expected to use Siri to fill in a highlighted text field. It can be done technically but not implemented. Perhaps there is IP for voice recognition into a text field on a TV UI that Apple hasn't licensed.

 

[acegreen]

Alright, as a stupid stigmatised consumer I'll have to take your word for all that. The SDK may be open source, but are they really opening up what happens on their servers when we enter our data? And I'm not sure how Apple can block Twitter's tracking in this case. When signing into your app, I take the code (which I presume encodes your app identity) and enter it alongside either my phone number or email address into a Twitter owned website. Apple can't stop me doing that and it's hard to imagine Twitter aren't building a profile of me and my app choices right at that moment. Once they start providing you with tools to 'remember my preferences' and 'serve customised content' then they'll be profiling my movements within your app too. Sorry if this sounds paranoid, but if I'm not paying for the service and you're not paying for the service, where's the money coming from?

You might think these articles are a bit on the FUDdy side, and I wouldn't take a journalists word for anything but they're both linked proudly on the Digits website itself, despite the less than reassuring headlines. The wired article paints a particularly unpleasant picture for any of us who would rather have these people keep their noses out of our business. I don't think I want Twitter, a company I have zero respect for, to be sitting at the foundations of every app I use.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/parmyolson/2014/10/22/why-twitter-is-paying-for-your-cell-phone-number/

http://www.wired.com/2014/10/twitter-fabric-sdk/

I looked at the wired article and though some of it is fact, other is just journalism. Based on the guys bio, he has no development experience and can only speculate on development tools

https://about.me/mathonan

To touch on Twitter's Fabric SDK. I use in both my apps. Its a FANTASTIC analytics tool. Attached is a copy of what I see. I can track new users, daily users, monthly users, crash percentage, session and a few other things. Nor I or Twitter know who is really behind these devices. I can get your deviceID WITHOUT Fabric just by you accepting user notification. If I implement a Twitter/Facebook login like I do on StockSwipe. THEY give ME your information based on you accepting what I ask for. And based on my network usage, I don't see any data being sent to them on any interval basis.

So the question is why do they offer this, along with the other parts of the SDK? It all boils down to them wanting a getaway from a developers app into their apps. Lets take a look at Fabrics.

The SDK consists of a few parts but here are the main ones:
- Crashalytics
- Answers
- Twitter integration
- Digits
- MoPub

So lets take a look at how I use it. The screenshot below is basically Answers dashboard. So I integrate Fabric and with a few lines I can track a ton of things (anonymously, unless I choose to log you in and do more)
So almost instantly I get Crashalytics, now I can track you and when you crash I know about when and where (again anonymously, unless I want otherwise)

So I already integrated the Fabric SDK and am familiar with it. Now comes the choice, Google Ads, iAds or MoPub. Guess what I would choose? Ring ring ring, MoPub!! Why? Because I don't need to integrate Google Ads SDK or even use iAds and have another SDK.

But then you ask: But why does Chronic use iAds then? Well two things, 1. I added iAds BEFORE discovering the wonders of Fabric. 2. iADs is Apples own and really requires one line of code:
self.canDisplayBannerAds = true
Thats all it literally takes to implement a basic version of iAds. And like magic they appear from the bottom. Thats the only reason iAds are worth it.

So going back to Fabrics. By giving you two useful parts of the SDK (Crashalytics, Answers) which they already use but just make pretty and user friendly for developers, they open a getaway into MoPub and thats where the money lies as the article implied.

Lets take another example. Notice sometimes a few blogs have Facebook comments? Thats a feature Facebook gives out? Why? Because its convenient for the user and blog owner. The user logs everywhere using Facebook (where applicable), the blog owners just adds a few lines of code and has a full-fledged multi-thread comment system. So whats the benefit for Facebook in that case? Well lets say you see a super interesting article and the top comment is awesome, what are you going to do? click the users name and BOOM!! you are on Facebook.com. Back to their ecosystem and where they can deserve you ads and track ALOT more than they could using their SDK

Overall thats how I see it as a developer but I appreciate it, Fabric is a fantastic tool and users should not be worried about these development tools or social media login on third party apps. In my opinion this well controller by Apple and the SDK owners and mostly information flows towards the developer then backwards. Some developers you might not trust with your information. For example StockSwipe logs the user in and I have their email on my server. I could technically go sell it and profit just from that but I as a developer respect this information like I would expect other developers to.

I really could go on and on and I'm NOT defending Facebook/Twitter/Google or the NSA. I definitely agree they are tracking and tracking and building profiles behind our backs. I'm just saying these developer tools DIRECTLY benefit us and INDIRECTLY benefit them.

PS writing this long explanation may INDIRECTLY cause you or other users to download my apps. See how that works?

 

[mw360]

I really could go on and on and I'm NOT defending Facebook/Twitter/Google or the NSA. I definitely agree they are tracking and tracking and building profiles behind our backs. I'm just saying these developer tools DIRECTLY benefit us and INDIRECTLY benefit them.

Okay, so we agree on most things, the contentious part being that I said 'Nothing but spyware'. I'll concede it's lots of compelling developer tools for you, but I'll maintain that they are are made public and free in solely to extend Twitter's reach into your customers lives and habits.

 

[godrifle]

Just give me back my ***** $800 iPhone remote, Apple, you bunch of f-tards. I'm starting to really hate Apple under Tim Cook.