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Apple Phasing Out Developer Access to UDIDs in iOS 5

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Apr 12, 2001
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TechCrunch reports that Apple is making an interesting change in iOS 5, phasing out the ability for developers to access a device's Unique Device Identifier (UDID). Apple is instead asking developers to create unique identifiers specific to their apps in order to tie installations to specific users.
This is a big deal, especially for any mobile ad networks, game networks or any app which relies on the UDID to identify users. Many apps and mobile ad networks, for instance, uses the UDID or a hashed version to keep track of who their users are and what actions they have taken. App publishers are now supposed to create their own unique identifiers to keep track of users going forward, which means they may have to throw all of their historical user data out the window and start from scratch.
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Apple and a number of app developers have been sued over their handling of UDIDs. While UDIDs can't directly be linked with a specific users, information tied to a device can be passed along to advertisers to help them in targeting their advertisements, with some privacy advocates objecting to the practice.

With the UDID, ad networks can track what apps are being used on a given device, enabling them to piece together a valuable picture of activity conducted on a specific device. Apple's move seems to specifically address that concern, breaking down identifiers to the app level to limit the ability to put together such a complete picture.

Article Link: Apple Phasing Out Developer Access to UDIDs in iOS 5
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/08/19/apple-phasing-out-developer-access-to-udids-in-ios-5/
Last edited by a moderator:
Squatting access to UDIDs? This should've been done back in iPhone OS 2, not right now. Although I can see why they didn't do it before, you know, easy access to a specific device.
 
Apple and a number of app developers have been sued over their handling of UDIDs. While UDIDs can't directly be linked with a specific users, information tied to a device can be passed along to advertisers to help them in targeting their advertisements, with some privacy advocates objecting to the practice.
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This passes the blame to the developers and not Apple now. :D

Apple's just protecting themselves on this one.;)
 
This could be interesting. Is this restricting access to the UDID on all levels? Or just forbidding people to use it as a identifying marker? If its the former, this could mean a bit of reworking for certain apps...
 
Just to clarify for everyone. UDIDs are still used and available but are not to be used by developers as a means to identify users.

I believe the Pandora app is one app that uses UDID to keep track. Let's say I was logged into pandora on my iPhone and then compeltely wiped the device. I could download and install Pandora and not have to login. Pandora would recognize the UDID and authenticate.

Other applications utilize UDID as a sole means for authentication, in other words your account and info with that app is tied to your device(s) UDIDs.
 
When developers update their app, can't they just generate a new ID for that person and map it to their old UDID information? If each developer or ad network creates their own id for a device, and they can still monitor the activity of that device, then does that really change anything? Or is that new assigned number not going to be transferable between apps? So say the first time you use an app in iOS 5, like a game that has ads, it gives you a new ID. Then you switch to another game that has ads, will it have no way to tell that it already gave you an id and have to give you an new id for each app or can apps "read" that new ID somehow? Which I suppose would be pointless for security concerns?
 
Hopefully Apple provides the SDK tools for developers to easily create/store/manage these app-specific IDs, and then we’ll have the best of all worlds!
 
Good. Developers just need to identify a user of that app. There's no reason for them to need access to the UDID or any other universally unique identifier. I really don't care what the advertisers need or want; they want to covertly make money off me without providing me a service or a product, and by watching me "over my shoulder" (so to speak). I don't care for that at all. Find another way that isn't so objectionable.
 
...which means they may have to throw all of their historical user data out the window and start from scratch.
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No. Since Apple is phasing out access, that implies developers will have a window of time during which they can reassociate historical user data with their new app-specific id.

This is good for privacy.
I'm sure many developers use these ids for legitimate purposes, but it's a nasty whole an unscrupulous developer or ad network could exploit in ways users might be very uncomfortable with.

Anyway, a service should really be associating user data with a user not a device... Otherwise it will be lost when the user switches devices anyway.
 
mactmaster said:
Just to clarify for everyone. UDIDs are still used and available but are not to be used by developers as a means to identify users.
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Source? The reported information is that developers will no longer have access to the UDID.
 
Sorry, I just meant that they are still available to the user or to Apple itself. But no, they will not accessible by developers as they were before.
 
This doesn't change the way Game Center Authorization works at all, does it? Given I've just started learning about all of it, I'd rather not have to relearn a new system in the next two months...
 
Wouldn't banning app store reviews under any beta OS be easier to assuaging developer concerns?
 
So before an unscrupulous developer could, say, tie your UDID to the personal information it pulls from you and then ... what, provide the information to an advertiser using that UDID to serve contextual ads to that user based on the UDID?

My real question is, where would that unscrupulous advertiser be putting the ads that the developer is providing the context for that's so unscrupulous? Obviously they're still going to be identifying users *within* their own apps and serving context-based ads to them there, no? Is this just a matter of who is providing the infrastructure for the in-app ads or is there some larger play that advertisers have been making to get UDIDs for other purposes?
 
JosephDuffy said:
Another new iOS5 Update: When you install an app from the app store, the app doesn't close, but the app still downloads in the background.
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I just registered an account to say FINALLY!!! Damn it was annoying to be trying to install updates/apps and it minimized while I was looking at something.

Btw, /wave MacRumors
 
The UDID is a terrible way to identify a user. There a many reasons for that including the device is:
  • stolen,
  • replaced,
  • sold or
  • given to someone else

Cheers,

Stu
 
It's more than just about ads, the ads thing is just one example. It's just not secure to be storing and matching data based on a unique id (previously) available to all apps.

It's kind of a security issue at the user level as well, if another user spoofed your UDID they could gain access to your data if that's how an application was matching data to it's users.
 
Identifying a device and identifying its user and his location is not a far apart as one might think.

Marketing people dream of watching us 24/7.

I'm sure they'd like it if we'd go past an ice cream store and our phone rings with the ad message: "Hey, motherf***, how about a cone?" ;)

Employers could watch where there people are at any given moment - during work hours and beyond.
 
I guarantee that they are doing this for two reasons:

1) To finally put an end to incentivized installs through networks like TapJoy and Flurry (they currently are able to track installs by users' UDIDs)

2) To begin the change to associate all of the app's content to the user's Apple ID through iCloud

It will be a bit of a pain as a developer, but it makes sense.

EDIT: As some people have noted, I do NOT think that the large number of people getting pre-access to iOS 5 has to do with this. They can solve that by a much simpler solution.
 
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