A major change has been noticed in Apple’s latest operating system iOS 5 with the way that developers access an iDevice’s unique identifier number.
For those who are not developers or unfamiliar with the concept, the ‘UDID’ allows developers to identify app users on a specific device by device basis. Many apps and mobile ad networks use the UDID or hashed version to keep track of who their users are and what actions they have taken.
As Techcrunch points, App publishers and developers 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 date out of the window and start from scracth again.
Apple describes the change in its developer documentation:
Deprecated in iOS 5.0
uniqueIdentifier
An alphanumeric string unique to each device based on various hardware details. (read-only) (Deprecated in iOS 5.0. Instead, create a unique identifier specific to your app.)
This major change indicates Apple’s approach towards security and privacy concerns.
Developers and other readers: What do you think of this change in iOS 5? Security consciousness? Or just a small change?
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