iOS devices have forward facing cameras on them don't they? Heard of Kinect? That's not "imagine" that's "absolutely 100% possible right now" lol.
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Apple Phasing Out Developer Access to UDIDs in iOS 5
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Cross platform??? UDIDs are unique to a device meaning change platform and ur info Is gone..... Everyone is missing the point one perso I saw mention this ties in with icloud come on now they won't track u in 1 device they can use ur apple id to keep all the info on all ur devices quite genius and a lot more effortless they need ppl to do this so that ur apps in ur iPhone iPad and itouch can be in sync they can also use it to now gather info across ur other cloud devices too even ur Mac remember that uses the same id system wide now with lion being on the AppStore and all this is a good thing u ppl whine about privacy but get on with it ads will stay so might as well get ads you'd enjoy instead of completely unrelated crap... Ie. Google "surf boards" and get an ad for a dog park :/ lol
Cross platform??? UDIDs are unique to a device meaning change platform and ur info Is gone..... Everyone is missing the point one perso I saw mention this ties in with icloud come on now they won't track u in 1 device they can use ur apple id to keep all the info on all ur devices quite genius and a lot more effortless they need ppl to do this so that ur apps in ur iPhone iPad and itouch can be in sync they can also use it to now gather info across ur other cloud devices too even ur Mac remember that uses the same id system wide now with lion being on the AppStore and all this is a good thing u ppl whine about privacy but get on with it ads will stay so might as well get ads you'd enjoy instead of completely unrelated crap... Ie. Google "surf boards" and get an ad for a dog park :/ lol
Yep! That's why ads on gmail strangely (quite scary) knows about what I need and where I am.
Yes and no... There's nothing Apple can do to force developers to remove that information they already have, but once Apple makes the change, the developer won't have access to the device's UDID anymore and they won't know if you're still using the same device or not. So, keeping that old UDID doesn't do them any good anymore. Saving the user's device UDID only works while you can still continue to access it for verification. When that access is removed it becomes dead, pointless data.
All app developers will have to create their own UDIDs for each app, meaning that it will not be a global value that other apps can access. UDIDs will be unique to each and every instance of an app, unless the developer has the ability to tie it into a user database, whereby, when you log in to an app, it can pull a previously generated UDID and save it locally - but just for that app.
What this really prevents, is the ability for a 3rd party to build a profile of you, by mining data from disparate sources based on your device's UDID.
Cross platform as in iOS to Android. It requires a lot more work on the devs part having to deal with it.
I am not sure. Right now ad networks do not have access to something like UDID for your computer, but by using cookies they can make profiles aggregated across many websites. They can show you shoe ads on CNN, just because you searched for sneakers on Amazon. (Just an example, I don't know if these two sites use the same ad network.) Ad networks can create some sort of an API to accomplish the same for apps. It will not be as simple as before, but I don't think it gets rid of cross-app profile building, unless Apple forbids that, too.
First of all, Apple doesn't need to use a device UDID to access your data, they have a much more universal ID, your iTunes account, which is cross-device and cross-platform.
Second, how does removing access to the UDID make cross-platform development harder? If anything, it forces a developer to create their own IDs, that they can then use across different devices and platforms.
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You're absolutely right about cookies being used in the same manner, which is why most web browsers have the ability to block cookies from certain organizations and also require cookies to expire after a certain amount of time.
I also am not sure how ads in iOS apps are treated, they may not have any access to any information other than what the developer supplies them with. The ads presented in iOS apps are more targeted to people that would use that type app, not necessarily to that individual and the same goes for advertising in general; it's related to the content, not the individual.
Target advertising can only exist when they have information about an individual and can verify you are that individual. Google excels at this (As does Amazon) because, more than likely you have some kind of user account where all your information can be stored. Every time you log into a Google account a cookie could be updated. Later a Google ad will see the cookie and can simply add whatever website your visiting to your user account - tracking your usage habits and building a profile on you. You can't build these types profiles without knowing for sure who you are, but you can build semi-anonymous, temporary profiles based on IP addresses, UDIDs, etc.
Again you are proving my original point. Apple keeps all the info and competitors do not gain access to it. This is about iAds and Apple selling ads. It is looking out everyone else.
Hurts programs like open feint which use the UDID to get accounts set up so again forcing game center on people.
As for cross-platform harder things like openfait no longer work. Having to mess with multiple platforms.
Oh lastly direct insults are against forum rules.
What info!? The UDID isn't some magical key that grants developers access to all your data. It's just a number. If developers want user data, they should ask for it. Apple does when you create your AppleID, iTunes account, MobileMe account, or developer account, etc.
Apple HAS to use the UDID for hardware related purposes though, that's the point of a hardware UDID... identifying hardware, not users.
How does it hurt OpenFeint!? I can't believe OpenFeint needs a device ID for users to use the system. I'm guessing there's some sort of login just as with iOS Game Center (I have to log in using my AppleID).
Would you mind installing a camera in your bedroom please? After all, you have nothing to hide.
How so? I don't understand what exactly you mean by that?
Do you mean the developer will have to write different code for iOS than they will for Android now?
No but UDID is good for selling ads as it collect better metrics off a single user that can be linked together. For individuals apps not so much but for say any that sell ads a lot more info or it can be used to help track if a user is using different apps from same dev. Yeah having an App generated an ID key is easy but having that key shared between apps not so much, big time in Apple's wall garden approach. UDID got around that issue as they did not need to share and access data from each App.
As I pointed out UDID is great for things like Google Ad words for tracking user data. Apple blocking it means Apple gets all that data Google gets none. I know Google ads and Apple ads are not the only 2 companies that sell ads but guess who gets better user metrics to sell ads with due to this blocking. You guess it Apple. You have failed to address that argument.
As for Openfeint. I think you can created an account but it defaults creating one based on the UDID.
You have not coded much have you. A lot of the code can be transferred between devices and not a large amount of things have to be changed. Losing the UDID means you have to now changed even more things in the code and their might not be an equivalent other platforms. That is where you have to do the extra coding. Modern IDE make the basic stuff really easy to do. It the fine tuning and testing that takes a little longer but most of the stuff is able to be transferred straight over.
Great News
This is great news! I don't understand why people are crying fowl over this. Any developer that uses this for login/identification is being incredibly sloppy. I've encountered at least one app that relied solely on the UDID for login and it creates a nightmare if you want to sell your iOS device.
And this has nothing to do with Apple trying to create an artificial advantage for iAds. Think of the privacy concerns (see: Pandora app and its advertising controversies). Apple gets into enough heat with non-issue privacy concerns ("Location-gate") so I can't imagine they're head-over-heels to jump into another privacy nightmare.
This is great news! I don't understand why people are crying fowl over this. Any developer that uses this for login/identification is being incredibly sloppy. I've encountered at least one app that relied solely on the UDID for login and it creates a nightmare if you want to sell your iOS device.
And this has nothing to do with Apple trying to create an artificial advantage for iAds. Think of the privacy concerns (see: Pandora app and its advertising controversies). Apple gets into enough heat with non-issue privacy concerns ("Location-gate") so I can't imagine they're head-over-heels to jump into another privacy nightmare.
Right -- A cross-app tracking system just needs to find a shared (accessible to multiple apps) place on a device to store a uuid of their own and they won't need the UDID anymore. Cookies, file-system, a field in an address book entry, whatever... a lot of things could work. Actually they don't need to generate and store a uuid if they can find one that already exists (e.g., if an app can read the address book -- no idea if one can this is just an example -- a cross-app tracking system would be able to do a statistical hash on in to generate an "id" that could be matched -- with a reasonably high level of confidence -- to a hash on a modified version of the same address book.)
But iOS is already pretty locked down. I don't know what shared locations still exist, but assuming they do, I'll bet Apple has their eye on them. If (when) an ad network begins exploiting one Apple will shut it down or cripple it.
Or just ban it and use the app review process to enforce it.
Citation please. That seems to be a false statement unless you have some kind of proof that Apple is planning on continuing to use the UDID for iAds. Passing along speculation as fact isn't very fair.
When apple marks an API as "deprecated" it does not actually become inaccessible to the developers. Deprecated in Apple-land only means discouraged.
It is just marked as a function that has been phased out, but is still available in the API. The only time developers can no longer call functions is when the are marked "removed" between beta versions of iOS.
Furthermore, blocking access to the UDID would create a major problem for HUNDREDS/THOUSANDS of apps that use UDID for legitimate purposes.
It is just marked as a function that has been phased out, but is still available in the API. The only time developers can no longer call functions is when the are marked "removed" between beta versions of iOS.
Furthermore, blocking access to the UDID would create a major problem for HUNDREDS/THOUSANDS of apps that use UDID for legitimate purposes.
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It's not like it's their livelihoods or anything...
marksman said:
It's not like it's their livelihoods or anything...
I've just published an article about why UDID is a terrible way to track a user and how iCloud offers far better alternatives.
Love apple
1234 went down to the apple store bought myself and iPod that I paid 400 dollars for and just the when purchase was done those apple bastards introduce a new one ohhh oh oh they keep changing the iPod oh oh oh I keep blowing my wad 2468 iPods that are out of date sold it on an eBay store and made a 1.94 ohh oh oh they keep changing the iPod ohh oh oh I'm gonna kill someone I swear to god 3456 100 dollars lay down quick bought myself the iPhone then they dropped the price and I got boned ohh oh oh they got my money and then ohh oh oh they screwd me again they Iscrewd me again ABCD went and got a plain PC I know PC's are pretty lame but at least they will always stay the same 
1234 went down to the apple store bought myself and iPod that I paid 400 dollars for and just the when purchase was done those apple bastards introduce a new one ohhh oh oh they keep changing the iPod oh oh oh I keep blowing my wad 2468 iPods that are out of date sold it on an eBay store and made a 1.94 ohh oh oh they keep changing the iPod ohh oh oh I'm gonna kill someone I swear to god 3456 100 dollars lay down quick bought myself the iPhone then they dropped the price and I got boned ohh oh oh they got my money and then ohh oh oh they screwd me again they Iscrewd me again ABCD went and got a plain PC I know PC's are pretty lame but at least they will always stay the same
I experienced this sort of change last year. Microsoft made the same UDID change in one of the 6.x versions of Windows Mobile. I used the UDID to licence our application on devices. It was a minor inconvenience to us when we had to switch to using an app specific unique device identifier, but nothing more. I was then wondering how long it would be before Apple made the switch too.
Glad this is being done. Will cause a few initial headaches, but worth it in the long run.
Off the top of my head, I'd imagine the following will be affected:
Titanium Mobile's stats tracking
OpenFeints auto login
AdMob
MobClix
Probably all other ad providers excluding iAds
Any app with an automated online login system that doesn't use username/password.
Things such as Evernote and Dropbox may even be affected in the short term, but as I said it'll be worth it in the long run.
Off the top of my head, I'd imagine the following will be affected:
Titanium Mobile's stats tracking
OpenFeints auto login
AdMob
MobClix
Probably all other ad providers excluding iAds
Any app with an automated online login system that doesn't use username/password.
Things such as Evernote and Dropbox may even be affected in the short term, but as I said it'll be worth it in the long run.