With Apple all but certain to finally announce the deprecation of its UDID hardware identifier during the WWDC keynote on Monday, the speculation is rising over its replacement.
The latest round of rumours have been triggered by an article in the Wall Street Journal, although it says nothing that we don't already know i.e. Apple has a UDID replacement in the works; no one will say what.
Something we don't know
The past couple of months have seen plenty of confusion and conjecture concerning how the industry will deal with the issues arising from the end of UDID.
Various alternatives from fairly direct replacements such as OpenUDID to more exotic tools like digital fingerprinting and first party cookies have been suggested.
Yet, without Apple to-date anointing a replacement, many companies have been taking something of a proprietary approach in terms of suggesting and/or supporting UDID replacements that play to their particular strengths.
Same but better
Digital fingerprinting outfit AdTruth has broken cover early, however, suggesting that Apple will announce an identifier much like UDID for iOS app tracking but with tougher privacy restraints.
James Lamberti, AdTruth's VP and MD says he believes Apple's replacement will be what he calls " a privacy assured replacement for UDID".
"This news from Apple essentially negates the need for replacements such as ODIN and OpenUDID and we expect they will disappear quickly," Lamberti claims, adding, "it's highly unlikely that it will provide cookie-like functionality."
Indeed, AdTruth - which is a new division of online fraud detection outfit 41st Parameter - is keen to stress how its technology would work well with this approach because it goes beyond just the app tracking side of the business that much of the UDID replacement debate has focused on.
Its digital fingerprinting is based on a probabilistic approach to tracking hardware and hence avoids many privacy issues.
Play well
"Our value proposition is universal tracking technology that is privacy assured, comprehensive, and vastly superior to the cookie," Lamberti says.
Unsurprisingly, not everyone else agrees with this assessment. The ODIN industry grouping is promoting its own technology, while others, including user acquisition outfit Fiksu, suggest that the longterm solution for the industry's problems are first party cookies.
Hopefully, everything will be resolved somewhat on Monday at 10am Pacific Time.
News
Contributing Editor
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.
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