I am developing a iOS/OS X application with a very "nice to have" feature: possibility to sync with non-iCloud clouds.(through web server in example).
The app design already is completely based on iCloud so I was thinking there might be a workaround I could use instead of writing code for one more data marshaling.
Basically what I need is to make some iCloud stored data available to the public OR get user's e-mail/password used for iCloud on iOS/OS X.
The reason why I need it - I'll have to sync data with another cloud and I want to keeps the app lightweight and so move everything to the server (I think I might need OS X server).
Anyways, any suggestion are appreciated a lot!
I can understand wanting to do that, but just because you want to do it doesn't mean that you can.
Basically what I need is to make some iCloud stored data available to the public
I don't believe that there's a way to do that. iCloud isn't a generalized internet hosting service; it's a service designed to make it easy for an individual user to share his/her private information among several devices. Creating the possibility of making information public would only undermine the trust that people put in the service.
OR get user's e-mail/password used for iCloud on iOS/OS X.
That'd put your users in direct violation of the iCloud TOS, which state in part:
You further acknowledge and agree that the Service is designed and
intended for personal use on an individual basis and you should not
share your Account and/or password details with another individual.
If you want users to be able to sync their data with other hosting services and you don't want to build that functionality into your mobile app, you might consider building a MacOS X app that the user could run to sync the data.
Related
The question might seem weird (and stupid) at first, but keep reading...
I used iCloud Key-Value Storage in one of my apps and now I need to Transfer this app to another Developer Account. But it's, for some reason, impossible to transfer apps if they've used iCloud Entitlements (why no warning?!?!).
So...In other words, I need to remove my original app and create a new one in my new Developer Account. But before that happen, I want my existing users to be able to sync their data to a common iCloud Key-Value Storage, but directed at the new app "container".
If, the "new" app is Live, would it be possible to point at that app Cloud Container (from my old one)? (e.g. my old app saves iCloud data to the new container).
When reading my own question I just think "this sounds like a big security breach if possible", so my guess is, no. But there's nothing in the Apple Documentation that says that this is not possible.
I'm not interested in solutions that involves users saving data on an external db (I know this is possible, but not what I'm looking for right now). Is there some way to save the data locally on disk (without being removed when app is removed) and then read it from the other app?
I am trying to build a mobile monitoring tool/app for iOS without Jailbreak. The only possible way to perfectly access all installed app's content is through iCloudKit.
Also I found Apple's MDM come a little close to this for BYOD devices but yet accessing individual application's data is not possible.
During all this process, I came across some website fonemonitor and phonemonitor (with and without) who claim to do the same without Jail Break.
So here is my question is it possible to take any application's data if we get access to the users iCloud account? Also, are all public, private and shared data accessible via iCloudKit? As the documentation clearly states private data is untouched.
How does app monitoring work for any iOS Devices through these websites. Any lead would actually help!
Scenario:
I "control" two different apps, App A and App B, both which the user has installed
App A is running
App A needs to obtain a string that was set by App B when App B last ran.
After obtaining the string, App A will still be running
User should not receive any feedback this communication is happening. E.g. no "switching animations" between A or B, no pop-ups, etc.
Constraints:
Apps are released under different vendors
Apps are already in the app store; updated versions will have this communication ability.
It is acceptable for the data stored in App B to be accessible to other apps on the device.
It is not acceptable for the data stored in App B to be visible to general third parties (e.g. if an external server is used, there needs to be some sort of secured scheme)
The data read should be able to occur immediately upon App A being opened after install. For instance, I cannot require the user of App A to enter log in credentials for an external communication service.
Must work on non-jailbroken devices.
This is seeming rather difficult to pull off in iOS7. Help is appreciated.
Tricky work around. Not recommended, but it will get the job done if you can't afford servers.
On the first app create a contact in the user's contacts book. Give it a generic name like "000 - NameOfAppB Data - Don't Delete" (I start with "000" so it goes to the bottom of the users contact book so they never see it, I also add "don't delete" so if the user does somehow find it they don't delete it hahaha) (who looks at contact books anyways). In the contact info under notes add your NSData in string format.
Then when app A is opened search for that contact, read the data, then delete the contact.
Apple does allow you to create and delete users contacts without their permission. (At least in 2011 they did, this may have changed).
This might serve your purpose
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Security/Reference/keychainservices/Reference/reference.html
I am not sure of its limitations though, i have seen implementations where credentials have been shared between apps.
I know there are quite a few threads on this, but it seems none of them would satisfy what I am trying to look for. Here's my constraints:
not a hack that uses private API/framework or undocumented
directory access that would run the risk of app being rejected
because of that
being able to share data across different
vendors / app developers
data can persist outside the lifecycle
of the app (even after app is deleted)
UPDATED: I was in general trying to stay away from using a 3rd party cloud-based service to achieve the goal as this would introduce additional external dependency. But if I have to, I was hoping it could satisfy this one constraint
being able to tell which iOS device it is communicating with. It shouldn't have to uniquely identify the device (which will go into that evil UDID discussion route as we all experienced ). But as long as it can differentiate among different iOS devices it should be fine.
I kind of need this too. I use Parse.com as the backend of all my apps — their free tier should satisfy your development needs.
Parse has APIs available for iOS, Android, Windows 8, OS X, JavaScript and .NET, with all your data available on the cloud on any platform (contrary to Core Data and iCloud). They also offer "Cloud Code," which is code you can execute remotely, to process information remotely and get the data back to your app.
You should definitely check Parse.com out for cloud storage for your app. In my experience, it really gets the job done.
For Data Persistence, I think you might want to take a look at FMDB (although if you decide to persist data locally, it will get deleted with your app, but it might help you, anyways). Core Data is an overkill in many cases.
Edit: Parse.com has an "Installation" class, in which all the devices that have your app installed get listed (wether they're running iOS or Android), uniquely, without you having to type any code.
Maybe this blog post by TextExpander authors will help:
Smile has responded to this by discussing the issue with Apple
engineers at WWDC, filing a bug (#14168862), and checking up on the
status of that bug. We also developed a workaround by storing the
TextExpander data in a new place. Reminders requires user consent to
store and retrieve data. Completed reminders are not normally shown in
its interface. Long-past reminders appear at the bottom of the
completed reminders.
TextExpander touch 2.1 (and later) supports storing shared snippet
data in a long-past, completed reminder. We produced an updated SDK
and kept our developers posted on its progress. Our final SDK was
ready within a few hours of the end of Apple's official iOS 7
announcement.
UPDATE (22.11.2013)
This might not be the best way to do that, because TextExpander's team recently had problems with the App Review Team.
Edit: this only works for apps with the same vendor.
You can save a password to the device's keychain, then access that password from any app.
Using the SSKeychain library...
NSString *service = #"com.yourcompany.yourservice";
// read
NSString *password = [SSKeychain passwordForService:service account:#"user"];
// write
[SSKeychain setPassword:password forService:service account:#"user"];
The password string doesn't have a length limit, so encode all your data as a string and save it there. The keychain entry will persist after the user deletes the app.
One of the ways to do this is using THRIFT. This is a data communication protocol that would need a back end server (private) and THRIFT can be compiled into many languages / platforms. There is a meta language to describe the data and then can be thrift compiled into many languages. Write the data definition once and can be used on many platforms.
More information at.
http://thrift.apache.org/
for me (I have 2 apps and a widged) the best solution is using SSKeyChain and do not forget to add Capabilities for your apps like here
or if you don't wanna to use 3rd party library you can use NSUserDefaults and set the group identifier like here but again do not forget to add the group identifier in Capabilities in AppGroups section for all your apps that have share data.
I have an app that is uniquely branded for each customer (think restaurants, etc.) I need to have the user be able to click on a link to my server that contains a unique code, stores that temporarily on the iOS device (cookie, etc.) and then directs them to the app store to download the app. Then when it is downloaded, the app grabs that cookie or temp. data on launch and brands the app for that customer. I know this is possible on Android, but is it on iOS?
Downloading the app first and then selecting the brand (or restaurant) is not feasible in this case, as the url wil be shared with other customers of the same business and we want to create a fluid experience, where they won't be able to "see behind the scenes" and choose a different branding.
Thanks
Edit
Thank you for all the replies. We've reevaluated and are considering having the url be opened on the device and grabbing the IP address or another unique id, and saving that along with the correct brand to a database. The app will then connect to the database on launch, and if the IP's match, will brand accordingly. We're looking for a more reliable identifier than IP, however. Now that UDID is deprecated, are there any other identifiers we can use?
I think the design you propose of a webserver link creating the code that needs to be read by the iOS app later is the issue. You should have a solution that is entirely app based. Perhaps you can have the same services on the website be available as one app which then sets up the code in pasteboard. The user then launches the actual app that looks at the pasteboard and skins itself accordingly.
That being said, data can be shared between apps from the same app seed ID by using UIPasteboard in addition to a few other ways.
I use the pasteboard to share info between apps quickly and easily using this class.
You can use identifierForVendor (UDID replacement) to identify individual devices. Are you planning on harvesting those identifiers prior to the end user "registering" the device at the final location? If not you'll never be able to determine which device belongs where.
What about having the end-user logging into your server as that restaurant? It can be a somewhat generic login per restaurant like "Wendys/Wendys5?" and "McDonalds/McDonalds7!" to determine their App Store URL. As long as the password is easy and non-programmatic to guess it would be unlikely they figure out how to register as a different restaurant. You could also do a simple restaurant selection screen coupled with a password specific to each chain but this would expose the user to which other restaurants are using the app. This way you won't have to continually add IPs if they expand locations and can revoke credentials if the login is compromised.
One question, though: Do all of your clients understand that they'll have to have an AppleID tied to each device? You can only shared a single AppleID across 20 devices.