CODEWITHSUNDEEP
iosobjective-ciphonemac-address
ThE uSeFuL
ThE uSeFuL

Reputation: 1534

Apple's advertisingIdentifier vs mac address?

What are the differences between Apple's advertisingIdentifier and the mac address? Can it replace the mac address? Can Routers read it? e.g. advertisingIdentifier is in the application layer of the stack.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 94

Answers (1)

Cristik
Cristik

Reputation: 32853

From the Apple documentation on this topic:

Unlike the identifierForVendor property of the UIDevice, the same value is returned to all vendors. This identifier may change—for example, if the user erases the device—so you should not cache it.

If the identifier can change, then there are little chances to be equivalent of the mac address of your device.

If the value is nil, wait and get the value again later. This happens, for example, after the device has been restarted but before the user has unlocked the device.

So Apple computes this value when iOS starts, it might use the mac address when computing the identifier (among other info), however this doesn't guarantee the two are the same.

Routers might see it as part of the network traffic (if you're not using SSL) but they can't know that thats an advertisingIdentifier.

Upvotes: 1

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