Yesterday, on 26th of April, Apple finally released iOS 14.5 worldwide after a longer-than-usual beta period.
Testing of the update took more than two months, which is not typical. However, iOS 14.5 is the largest update Apple has had since the release of iOS 14, so it’s no surprise that it took so long to test the version.
In addition to various custom updates, the introduction of new functions for the users, the X-day has come for mobile app developers because it means that ATT (App Tracking Transparency) and the SKAdNetwork (SKADN) frameworks now are live.
The most significant change for many is ATT, a new policy whereby app developers are required to get user opt-in to track users among apps. Starting with iOS 14.5 app developers will need to receive the user’s permission through the AppTrackingTransparency framework to track them or access their device’s advertising ID.
What about SKAdNetwork? The main function of SKAdNetwork is to notify the ad network how the user behaves in the downloaded app, send conversion values. SKAdNetwork allows registered advertising networks to attribute app installs to a particular campaign by receiving a signed signal from Apple. According to this update Apple will take attribution functions on their own side. In fact, a postback about any event (sending and updating the conversion value) is received only 24 hours after taking place, which makes the process more complex to set up. We wrote an article on how the mobile adtech ecosystem will be handling this change.
Also, read more about Apple’s release here.
