I'm trying to learn about iCloud. I've read that there's
ubiquityIdentityToken and it's used to determine if iCloud is available or if the user changed the account signed in. Also, this is only available in ios 6+
But what i need to know is the unique data for every iCloud user. What i'm saying is, after the user logs into iCloud, is there a way for us developers to know who that persons is/who the account belongs to like a username or id (similar to Facebook's fbid/identiferForVendor)? Could we even get the iCloud account of the user in code?
The reason why I want to know this is because i want to check if it's possible to use the user's iCloud account(or whatever unique data we could get from them) as the user's unique identifier on our server.
I hope I could get some answers. Thank you so much!
You can use CKContainer.fetchUserRecordID(completionHandler:)
Returns the user record ID associated with the current user.
https://developer.apple.com/documentation/cloudkit/ckcontainer/1399191-fetchuserrecordid
This article shows example of practical usage of record ID retrieved in this way: Onboarding without Signup Screens.
Apple don't want you to do this. That is why they give you a unique token that is opaque. You can't use it as an id on your server. Apple do not allow iTunes accounts to be used in that way at this point in time.
I suggest you use your own account names, or you use accounts from Facebook or Twitter, which are accessible via system APIs on iOS.
Related
I know that apple do not permit to get programmatically details about phone's owner account. I can't have the email or any others personal informations, it's all about privacy.
If i want to identify a device instead of a user account, there is a similar situation, but in this case Apple is trying to fill this "lack of funcionality". From ios 11 there is a system that create a way to identify ( without show any personal informations ) a device.
DeviceCheck
So my question is: There is something similar but centered to user's identification ?
I don't need to collect/see personal info (lik emails,name,ecc..) , i need only an unique id that identify an apple user account. I have to store it in my system to check "if a user has did an action".
There's no way to do that. If you need to uniquely identify your users, create a UUID when your app starts the first time after installation.
I went through almost all the related SO questions, googled lot, but I can't get help.
There are lot many posts and SO answers which states to use [UIDevice identifierForVendor], but as this Id is not visible to user, I want different way to uniquely identify the device.
Basically I am developing Enterprise app which will not going to App Store(no need to worry about private APIs).
I am having server which has all users details including device id(don't know what to use as device id) already entered.
When device launches app, web service will be called and it needs to send device id to authenticate the device.
That's why I need device id which will be visible to user as well as programmer.
Any help is appreciated!!!
Update
'Visible to user' means user can see this unique id before installing app, so as he/she can send this number to admin to register it on server.
If this unique id is registered on server then and then only access will be given to application, otherwise app will not connect to server.
Use
NSString* uniqueIdentifier = [[[UIDevice currentDevice] identifierForVendor] UUIDString];
NSLog(#"UDID:: %#", uniqueIdentifier);
You've to put a small case to check the app is running on simulator or on device.
You can no longer get a unique ID of device. "identifierForVendor"
is the best you're going to get. Apple has systematically disabled
identifying a specific device.
Though, "identifierForVendor" value also changed after every new installation of application.
for more info visit.
You're also confusing me with this line "visible to user", could you please be more specific about it?
There's also one more way - Using icloud kit you can get a unique token of currently logged In icloud user account. This is unique per application on device.
It seems you want to track user using unique ID or UDID and Apple doesn't like this so before moving forward please visit.
Update:
If Apple is preventing tracking users using Unique Id, you shouldn't be using it then.
You simply want to validate user on your server. The best solution for you is iCloud token,
Fetch it and store it in User defaults or Keychain and use anywhere you want.
In this way you can also track single user on different devices if he/she is using multiple devices with same iCloud account.
You can try obtain UDID of device via service http://get.udid.io and then authenticate this device on your server.
But after this you will need to obtain the same UDID in your apps to pass it to server... It is possible to pass UDID to app via specific URL schema.
What do you think about this idea? I can share more details if you like it.
As I understand it now can not get apple id in iOS 7.
iOS 8 has many edits to work with iCloud and adding iCloudKit. Will I be able to get Apple id from API and use it, for example, for registration in own server?
No, you cannot get the user's Apple ID.
What you can do with CloudKit is get an opaque user record ID. This object will be the same for the user for your app on all of their devices, but it will be different for other apps or other users. You can save that on your server and use it as something like a "log in with CloudKit" feature. This was described in the WWDC 2014 intro to CloudKit session. Basically, you use the fetchUserRecordIDWithCompletionHandler: method on CKContainer. But there's no way to link this to the Apple ID automatically-- you still need to ask the user if you want that.
Not that I am aware of. That's kind of "invading" the user's privacy because you'd be getting his Apple ID (which is an email) without his consent.
What I do, using Parse SDK, is to make the user log in anonimously at my Parse App, then save his automatically generated User ID in a iCloud Key-Value container. Whenever the user deletes the app and reinstalls it (or simply install in another device of his), my app knows that he has an username saved on iCloud and then uses that instead of creating a new user. This way, I get to keep track of my users without invading nobody's privacy.
According to this CloudKit overview:
CloudKit also enables your users to anonymously sign in to your apps with their iCloud Apple IDs without sharing their personal information.
I can't find anything else in their documentation about this capability. I already have an app with my own backend, so I wouldn't need any of the back-end-as-a-service features that CloudKit offers, but I would like to take advantage of logging a user in with their iCloud account, much the same way we currently do with Facebook and Twitter.
Is that possible with CloudKit, or do you also have to leverage their BAAS features in order to take advantage of login?
From what they discussed at WWDC, you'd do this using the fetchUserRecordIDWithCompletionHandler: method on CKContainer. That returns a CKRecordID that corresponds to the current user. This ID will be stable across devices but different for each app-- so if the same person uses your app on multiple devices, your app will get the same result everywhere, but other apps would get different results from yours.
Once you have the CKRecordID you can look up limited other user data (their name and email, I think) using fetchRecordWithID:completionHandler:. This request will trigger a permission alert to the user, so you only get it if they allow it.
This doesn't require you to use anything else in CloudKit. It does require that the user actually have an iCloud account configured on the device.
The permission alert will only pop if you call -[CKContainer requestApplicationPermission:CKApplicationPermissionUserDiscoverability...].
If the user grants permission (CKApplicationPermissionStatusGranted) then you can get the user's first and last name by running a CKDiscoverUserInfosOperation.
Requesting discoverability means that you can see the user's first and last name, and that any other user of the container can find their user record ID via an email address or look up their first and last name via a user record ID.
I want to create a social networking ios app which costs money, and when the user buys it they are allowed to create only one account on the app. So the purchase is associated with the account somehow... or the app has a specific id on each device its bought on... would I need to use gamecenter somehow...
How would I approach something like this?
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
First of all, more than one person may use the device (think a family with an iPad) so what your doing is inherently a bad idea.
That said, you can use an in-app purchase to let them buy account access - check with the server first to make sure a desired username is available, then let them use an in-app purchase to buy access, and on your server tie that purchase ID to the user name. Even if they deleted the app and tried to re-purchase (while logged into the same iTunes store account) it would see a purchase had been made and essentially be the same user. It even does kind of work with multiple users as they could switch iTunes accounts (though that is a pain).
I would also suggest trying to tie it to the users iCloud account in some way, which is easier for users to switch between on an device (a family might use one iTunes account but have separate iCloud accounts).
If you don't want to give Apple 30% of the registration fee, your only option is to have users sign up on the web and pay there, then have a login they can use in your app. Then it's a matter of trying to prevent duplicate logins on you server, although as a last point of thought, I can't remember a business that succeeded by refusing people's money.
You could generate an unique id on the phone, store it in the keychain, and use that to communicate with the server.
Since you are creating your own account management system, just save the user information once they do the account creation bit and never show the option again. Because developers no longer have access to the device id, you may have problems identifying an existing user if they delete and re-install the app, but I am not sure that there is a solution to that problem.
Edit: As a commenter to this question mentioned, you can save things to the keychain. Check out this link for a good lib for modifying the keychain.