For those with a long memory, much of April, May and June was punctuated with debate about the timing of Apple's decision to actually deprecate UDID.

Much brain power was - as it now seems - wasted on a replacement for what had become the industry's de facto device tracking metric; something Apple had promised to remove.

Lifting the curtain

Now with iOS 6 inbound, Apple's plans for what follows UDID will finally be made public.

However, French company Appsfire is pointing out that the transitionary period will not be immediate.

Appsfire was one of the companies at the heart of the UDID debate, thanks to its cross-platform OpenUDID standard.

It ended up being adopted by many ad networks and monetisation companies, if not always exclusively.

Seamless

And now in a blogpost, it's arguing that OpenUDID - which has been radically updated in light of iOS 6 - will provide a good solution for the industry in the coming months.

"OpenUDID remains especially relevant in this transition period, i.e. the period during which lots of apps are written for both iOS 5 and iOS 6, where devices gradually upgrade from iOS 4 & 5 to 6, etc" it states.

"It is a fair assumption that iOS 6 won't obliviate iOS 5 for many months to come, so OpenUDID should remain the go-to solution of UDID handling well into 2013."

What next?

With iOS 6 expected sometime in the fall - likely alongside the next iPhone - it could prove an uncertain time for companies which don't have a transition plan in place.

Although, given the fuss earlier in 2012 and the many working groups and proposed standards which arose, there's not a lack of options for dealing with the situation. 

[source: Appsfire]