[RELEASED] iOS 14 IDFA - App Tracking Transparency for Unity

Hi guys,

Do you know if iOS app updates are already required to have ATT request?
I thought that this message from Apple https://developer.apple.com/news/?id=hx9s63c5 means that ATT will be required early next year. But recently we have submitted update of our game (without ATT) to Apple and it was rejected with issue "Guideline 2.1 - Information Needed. .... Please provide the steps to locate AppTrackingTransparency in the app."
I asked them in the reply about it, but no message from Apple since 2 days.

Previously, one week ago we have published new game. They refused build with the same message asking for ATT, but in this game we have ATT implemented because we want to see how many people accept it, so we explained where it is displayed and it was accepted.

[Update] I've got reply from Apple:
"Regarding guideline 2.1.0, If your app does not include AppTrackingTransparency functionality, please indicate this information in the Review Notes section for each version of your app in App Store Connect when submitting for review."

 

Hi again,

One more update about ATT and erratic Apple reviewers.

As I wrote above, recently we've published new game with ATT implemented.
Following AdMob guidelines we were displaying explanation message before displaying ATT request. It was displayed using our game UI, we don't use Google UMP SDK. Message was nice and quite begging - "We would like to ask you for permission to show you personalized advertisements. Tap "Allow" on the next screen to help us make this and our next games free for you.".
Initial release and first update passed submission without problems.

And now Apple rejected second update because of that explanation message:
"Guideline 5.1.1 - Legal - Privacy - Data Collection and Storage
We noticed that your app urges or manipulates users into granting consent to access the AppTrackingTransparency framework. Specifically, your app displays its own permission request prompt to the user before presenting the iOS permission request.
The permission request process on iOS is designed to give users control of their personal information. It is important to respect the user's decisions about how they want their data used. If they decide to not grant permission to your app, they should not be prompted to change their mind or be forced to reject the request multiple times. You can provide users with additional information about why you’re requesting access to their data before the iOS permission request appears, as long as you don’t include your own custom permission request.
Next Steps
To resolve this issue, please remove any permission requests in your app that appear before the iOS permission request."

So now we have submitted new build without this message.

If someone is interested, here are first ATT stats from our game (yet from very small players base):
iOS 14 share: 43%
ATT RESTRICTED (from iOS settings): 11%
ATT DENIED: 67%
ATT AUTHORIZED: 22%
It is too early to judge, we have little ads displays, but it seems that it definitely have negative impact on eCPM - it is now ~60% of our current weakest app.

 

Thanks for the very detailed information! Such a valuable input, indeed

 

@manelizzard can this be supported on Unity 2017.4.30f1 LTS version?
[UPDATE]
It works well

 

We have some problem to work with the iOS Simulator. With this plugin, the application crash.
We're using Xcode 12.4 and unity 2019.2...

All fine on real device.

anyone else tested on simulator?

 

Hello all!

Happy to announce since version 2.2 this plugin will also work on simulator! Unity is reviewing the new update and should be available soon within these days!

UPDATE: Version 2.2 already live

Thanks!

 

@manelizzard I have a suggestion. Can you make the popup message setting be optional - add a checkbox to disable. And do the same with the SKAdNetwork additions, and the framework additions. I prefer to have full control and not have third-party code making modifications to my Xcode project.

 

Sure @andymads, will work on it for the next release. Thanks for your suggestions!

 

Very thanks, appreciated

 

Hi. Does your asset has some differencies with this solutiuon?
https://alanyeats.com/post/unityapptrackingtransparencypopup/

 

Just had a look at the Unity solution. It doesn't appear to provide an event when the request is completed.

 

App crashes when selecting either option (track/don't track). Built with Unity 2019.4.8f1 and version 2.2 of the plugin on iOS 14.5.

Unfortunately I don't have more details from Xcode. Just this:

Code (CSharp):

1. UnityAppTrackingTransparencyCallback received: 2
2. Balaso.AppTrackingTransparency:appTrackingTransparencyCallbackReceived(Int32)
3. (Filename: ./Runtime/Export/Debug/Debug.bindings.h Line: 35)
4.  
5. libc++abi: terminating with uncaught exception of type Il2CppExceptionWrapper
6. terminating with uncaught exception of type Il2CppExceptionWrapper
7. (lldb)

Code (CSharp):

1. libsystem_kernel.dylib`__pthread_kill:
2.     0x1c885432c <+0>:  mov    x16, #0x148
3.     0x1c8854330 <+4>:  svc    #0x80
4. ->  0x1c8854334 <+8>:  b.lo   0x1c8854354               ; <+40>
5.     0x1c8854338 <+12>: pacibsp
6.     0x1c885433c <+16>: stp    x29, x30, [sp, #-0x10]!
7.     0x1c8854340 <+20>: mov    x29, sp
8.     0x1c8854344 <+24>: bl     0x1c882fe28               ; cerror_nocancel
9.     0x1c8854348 <+28>: mov    sp, x29
10.     0x1c885434c <+32>: ldp    x29, x30, [sp], #0x10
11.     0x1c8854350 <+36>: retab
12.     0x1c8854354 <+40>: ret    

 

Hello!

I test show this popup and I wonder.. How to reset authorization status for user? Reinstall don't help.

 

Somehow it fixed.
I think this was an ios bug.

What I done:
1) I uninstall app
2) Reboot device
3) Change version of app

And now after I reinstall app - new popup always shows.

 

Yes, delete and reinstall app to repeat process.

 

Hi, we just purchased your plugin and was wondering how we can repeat a few tests. Is there a way to cancel the 'Auth' so we get to request permission again?

You can follow the thread about this issue here.

 

Hi,
This is a great asset and worked well for us to safely get over this IOS 14 chaos.
I have one thing to ask, will there be an option to localize the description through the "Settings" ScriptableObject?
Currently I write the description localization to InfoPlist.strings and that works fine but if there was an option inside the asset to localize it, that would be great!

 

Did you solve this?

 

Once I get a response from the user with regards to their decision, will Unity Ads automatically serve ads based on their response, or do I have to pass the information on to Unity Ads?

 

you should probably put the price up today

 

My understanding is that ad networks will query the IDFA so you don't need to do anything.

 

Hello!

Happy to announce we've just released v2.3.

Here is the changelog:
- Fixing crash callback was not invoked in main thread
- Added support for localizing the popup message

Hope you find it useful and thanks for all the feedback!

 

Also seeing this crash running from Xcode, but I'm updating to the new version 2.3

Now Xcode is having some build issues because it can't find the ko, ja, zh, and fr .proj files?

Thoughts?

 

Hello,

Version 2.3.1 is already live on Asset store fixing the Chinese pop-up message while device is set to English.

Sorry for any inconvenience this might have caused.

Thanks all for your feedback

 

I updated and the crash is gone ✅ and also have set Use Localization Value = False, and the language .proj errors are gone. Will verify this with 2.3.1 too. Thanks.

 

@ElanGr I don't think Unity Ads will consider the user's decision to ATT because even after I've added the prompt using this plugin, Unity Ads keep showing its own prompt at the time of the first initialization which asks again if user allows collecting his data for ad personalization.

This means Unity Ads will for example not use the IDFA if the user answers yes to the ATT window but then no to Unity's own request.

But the bigger issue is that Apple now rejects apps showing this 2nd data collection permission prompt by Unity Ads.

See the thread I've started here:
https://forum.unity.com/threads/app...sion-request-violates-att-guidelines.1103065/

 

Hi, I'm a beginner at unity so please forgive me if my question sounds stupid. I bought your plugin in the asset store but I have no idea how to use it. Is there a step by step instruction on how to use it?

 

Hello,

Find here the complete documentation: https://github.com/Balaso-Software/app-tracking-transparency-for-unity

Also you can find a complete example inside the plugin folder: AppTrackingTransparencyExample.cs script

Hope this helps!

 

Thank you for the very quick response. I checked it already but im still super lost though. Should I put the sample script on a game object in my splash screen?

 

For a very basic integration, just add this to a script running at the very beginning of your game:

Code (CSharp):

1.     void Start()
2.     {
3. #if UNITY_IOS
4.         AppTrackingTransparency.AuthorizationStatus currentStatus = AppTrackingTransparency.TrackingAuthorizationStatus;
5.         Debug.Log(string.Format("Current authorization status: {0}", currentStatus.ToString()));
6.         if (currentStatus != AppTrackingTransparency.AuthorizationStatus.AUTHORIZED)
7.         {
8.             Debug.Log("Requesting authorization...");
9.             AppTrackingTransparency.RequestTrackingAuthorization();
10.         }
11. #endif
12.     }

 

Thank you so much. May I ask when I can see the popup message? Will i only see it when I build my game to ios or should I see it even if I just connect my phone to my computer and press play in unity?

 

You will see it in your iOS build. Also notice you will need a fresh install to see it again, as Apple will only show it once per install even if you rquest it multiple times.

 

@manelizzard if I uncheck Use Localization Values I still get the English string added to my info.plist. I feel that unchecking that option should prevent that from happening.

 

Yes, the default value is always added to the main Info.plist. Would you want a similar toggle to disable adding it to the main Info.plist?

 

Yes, I would prefer this as I want to set all my strings from the same location in code.

 

Noted. Meanwhile we develop and relaese this change, please comment or delete line 64 on AppTrackingTransparencyPostProcessor.cs script. That will prevent the default NSUserTrackingUsageDescription to be set

 

@manelizzard some more feedback for you.

I don't think that the settings files should be inside the plugin folder. When updating the plugin there's the risk of overwriting it, and also sometimes it may be necessary to delete the whole plugin folder before importing. How about autogenerating it as required and saving to Assets/Resources?

 

Indeed, the overwrite problem has also been identified. Altough I am not a big fan of Assets/Resources folder, definitely will improve this behavior

Thanks for your valuable feedback!

 

@manelizzard Just got this plugin from Asset store, I have a question, what do these following two methods do?

Code (CSharp):

1. AppTrackingTransparency.RegisterAppForAdNetworkAttribution();
2. AppTrackingTransparency.UpdateConversionValue(3);

I use AdMob plugin, so the SkAdNetwork IDs are added by that plugin. I read in your webpage that these two methods are for SkAdNetwork, so do I need to use these or not, and I am not sure what these methods do, please let me know.

 

Hello,

Those two methods are a bridge to Apple's new App Tracking Privacy framework. You can find the official documentation here:

• RegisterAppForAdNetworkAttribution: https://developer.apple.com/documen...work/2943654-registerappforadnetworkattributi
  
• UpdateConversionValue: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/skadnetwork/3566697-updateconversionvalue

Very briefly, those two methods are required if you plan to attribute your installs, calculate the value of the user for your adquisition campaigns, etc... for a very basic integration and if you don't have a strong user acquisiton strategy, you can ignore those two methods and not use them.

Hope this clarified your concerns

Best

 

Thanks for the info, I just read the Apple documentation you provided. Actually I am not sure am I required to call these methods or not, as I am using the official AdMob plugin for Unity, they have not mentioned anywhere whether I need to call these methods or not for AdMob to work properly, or if they call these from the plugin. Also in your docs these are called from Awake everytime the app is started, do these need to be called only on the first startup of the app? Sorry for asking so many questions. I am not able to figure out if it is good to call these or not call these when using the AdMob plugin.

 

Hi everyone, my game has Unity Ads and was rejected by Apple. So I purchased iOS 14 IDFA - App Tracking Transparency for Unity. I added the AppTrackingTransparencyExample script to my game. Build the game with Xcode but nothing happens yet.

There are some settings in Unity Editor for Language and SkAdNetwork. Do I need to add something here for Unity Ads?

 

Hello,

Are you running on an iOS 14+ device? Do you have the "Allow Apps to Request to Track" global setting enabled?

 

Hello @Sailendu,

Based on your words, I think you do not need to call those methods. If you are using the example script, just remove those lines from it.

Best

 

Hi, I enabled the "Allow Apps to Request to Track" and now the question appeared! Thank you.

Do I need to do something else, or is this enough? I can just add the example script and that's it?

There is this switch(status) but is this for Debug reasons only? And Apple/xCode handles the rest?

Code (CSharp):

1.     private void OnAuthorizationRequestDone(AppTrackingTransparency.AuthorizationStatus status)
2.     {
3.         switch(status)
4.         {
5.             case AppTrackingTransparency.AuthorizationStatus.NOT_DETERMINED:
6.                 Debug.Log("AuthorizationStatus: NOT_DETERMINED");
7.                 break;
8.             case AppTrackingTransparency.AuthorizationStatus.RESTRICTED:
9.                 Debug.Log("AuthorizationStatus: RESTRICTED");
10.                 break;
11.             case AppTrackingTransparency.AuthorizationStatus.DENIED:
12.                 Debug.Log("AuthorizationStatus: DENIED");
13.                 break;
14.             case AppTrackingTransparency.AuthorizationStatus.AUTHORIZED:
15.                 Debug.Log("AuthorizationStatus: AUTHORIZED");
16.                 break;
17.         }

Right now I'm only using Unity Ads, but if I want to add Facebook SDK or something in the future, do I need to make changes?

 

You don't need to forward the authorization request result to any SDK. Ad networks will gather it automatically.

Whenever you integrate a new Ad SDK, just make sure to add its SkAdNetworkId to the list available in the plugin window. You can quickly obtain those IDs by searching on the internet, like `Unity Ads SkAdNetworkID` or `AdMob SkAdNetworkId`

Best of luck!

 

Hi
Thank you for the asset.
Is this asset check version of IOS? I mean if the version is under 14, what is the result of AppTrackingTransparency.TrackingAuthorizationStatus?
dose the asset return AppTrackingTransparency.AuthorizationStatus.AUTHORIZED if the version of the device is under 14?

 

Quoted for info.

 

Hi again
I have a second question.
How can i Disable Facebook SDK to collect data if the user not allow?

I asked it before and I am asking it again. Should i Check if ios version is under 14? so i active my SDKs without asking?

what is SkAdNetwork in the setting menu.
I used facebook sdk and sdk of my customer; What should i add here?

 

Hello,

For iOS < 14, the prior privacy framework will be used, and it will reuurn AUTHORIZED or NOT_AUTHORIZED depending on users decision. You do not need to check for iOS version, the plugin does.

On the SkAdNetwork list, if your are just using Facebook, add the IDs provided here: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/setting-up/platform-setup/ios/SKAdNetwork/

Best