by Jim Lundy
Apple’s long awaited iOS 14.5 release is now available. While there’s many new features such as the ability to unlock your phone from your Apple Watch and new emojis, the big news is App Privacy.
iOS 14.5 Stops the Data Pirates
14.5 has a very important capability that allows users to stop apps from monitoring what you’re doing on your device and stealing your data. The new capability is called ATT—AppTrackingTransparency. This is a victory for enterprises and users worldwide and quite frankly should have been done a long time ago.
As we discussed on Wednesday at our Aragon live meeting, it isn’t just for the sake of ad tracking that other firms use applications such as Facebook to monitor your behavior and steal all kinds of information.
Apple is making it easier to stop these bad guys, which is why others such as Facebook are so infuriated. See the video below:
The Impact on Facebook
Facebook has indicated that there will be significant impacts on the levels of tracking it can offer to advertisers—note it is about tracking. It specifically said, we “can expect to see changes in Facebook’s business and advertising tools, including ad set up, audience selection, delivery, measurement, and reporting.” For more on what was said, see this related article.
iOS 14.5 brings dramatic new security improvements to Apple’s platform.
Bottom Line
iOS 14.5 is a big win for enterprises and for users. While it doesn’t replace the need for endpoint and privacy security tools, this is a big step forward that others, such as Google, need to emulate.