I've guessed the Users Address from their GPS, looking up their location using Google's Places, but the output of that is pretty variable (no locality oftentimes, outside cities a consistent locality field would be helpful to my app). The thing is I do NEED the users home address for my app to work, but they may not be at home when they download the app.
I'd prefer to get their address from contacts. I've looked at a couple of Flutter plugins for accessing the address book, flutter_contacts, etc., but I can't see how you simply get the users details. So how do I request the Users HOME address, HOME email, MOBILE phone, whatever I can get from the device? Age might actually be beneficial too, so I could pivot the app to the needs of those who are using it.
I feel this is such a commonly useful thing it should have its own special permission, rather than the blunt one of exposing their entire contacts address book. So is there a better way of doing it? Less invasive so the user can more easily consent?
There's a special contact called "Profile" that contains the user's details if they bothered to add them on their phones, but in most cases it'll be empty, and anyway, accessing the user's profile requires the "Read Contacts" permission.
It'll be strange to ask the user for the "Read contacts" permission without they understanding why on earth would your app require such a permission "to guess your address" is not a very good reason.
And I suppose might cause some users to uninstall and/or flag your app as potential spyware.
If you app relies on having the user's address, you should instead simply pop a dialog with a question to the user to fill out their address manually.
Related
Assuming the user has granted permission for the app to access contacts, is there any way to determine which record belongs to the phone owner? For example if you browse the list of contacts on your phone, you will see a little "me" beside the record that is identified as the owner's record. So the phone clearly knows this, but is there any programmatic way to determine this? Or is that considered a privacy violation?
I know on a Mac you can use [[ABAddressBook sharedAddressBook] me]. For iOS, take a look at how Square's CardCase app does it.
My app is a sync solution (imagine dropbox).
The user needs to sign in to access the app's features, and if he does not have any account already created, he can sign up.
The sign up asks for email id verification, and this email id is also used if the user has forgotten his password to send him one.
but Apple has rejected this app saying:
17.2: Apps that require users to share personal information, such as email address and date of birth, in order to function will be rejected
We found that your app requires customers to register with personal information to access non-account-based features, which is not in compliance with the App Store Review Guidelines.
Apps cannot require user registration prior to allowing access to app features and content that are not associated specifically to the user. User registration that requires the sharing of personal information must be optional or tied to account-specific functionality. Additionally, the requested information must be relevant to the features.
Although guideline 11.6 of the App Store Review Guidelines requires an application to make subscription content available to all the iOS devices owned by a single user, it is not appropriate to force user registration to meet this requirement; such user registration must be made optional.
It would be appropriate to make it clear to the user that registering will enable them to access the content from any of their iOS devices, and to provide them a way to register at any time, if they wish to later extend access to additional iOS devices
Please help me solve this. Many apps like dropbox/facebook require login.
I don't get the exact reason why they rejected my app.
Also, please guide about the in app purchase, why registering cannot be mandatory
Asked App Store Review people for clarification on their rejection.
They accepted it. and the app got approved :D
Its on Appstore now :)
I also Faced this kind of Problem and my app also Rejected due to this.And Again I Changed my App flow Like User Registration will be Optional. User can See all the Feature of the app with out Registration by skipping this step.If he want to do something user-specific then you can ask to register such as : (user like,comment,photo upload etc) or else he can use the contents and features which are public.
in Case of in-app Purchase You can Prompt user that if He will Register with your app he can able to use this Content in his all devices.
It would be appropriate to make it clear to the user that registering will enable them to access the content from any of their iOS devices, and to provide them a way to register at any time, if they wish to later extend access to additional iOS devices
Apple does not allow apps that require you to share person information to work, like an e-mail address.
You options are, remove the need for an e-mail address or remove account creation form you app and move it to a website.
It also states that you app is asking to create an account to access the full app and even needs the account or acces features that do not require the user to have an account. You can make those features available with out the account creating you might be able to get thru the review.
The reason apps like Facebook and Dropbox got thru the review proces is because they don't have a register option which is in app only. They redirect to a website.
I recently spoke to an Apple Rep over the phone in regards to an app of mine that was also accused of violating clause 17.2.
I explained to him that the email would be used for password recovery, monitoring transactions within the marketplace, and managing any inappropriate behavior (such as users uploading offensive or copyrighted content). The rep responded, "Sir, the clause states 'Apps that require users to share personal information, such as email address and date of birth, in order to function will be rejected'. I cannot allow you to require your users to submit their emails if its not account-based". He did not seem to understand that the emails are account-based for the very sole purpose of security.
I did mention to him that Instagram and Facebook alike require logins at startup. He simply replied, "Yes but those apps are entirely account-based."
Honestly, I felt he was blindly following Apple's Guidelines ("Because that's what it says we must strictly follow!"). He had little understanding of how social networking apps operate, and even less understanding of the law (specifically the DMCA - on a separate issue). Explaining to them how all that works proves to be futile; they wont budge because they are asked to follow Apple's BROAD Clauses as strictly as they do.
My conclusion: I had to compromise the app's user flow such that the app's registration page can be skipped, and all other functions within its marketplace were locked to non-registered users. It makes no sense.
The sign up asks for email id verification, and this email id is also used if the user has forgotten his password to send him one.
Apps cannot require user registration prior to allowing access to app features and content that are not associated specifically to the user.
It seems to me that the point is that you are asking the user to provide his email address as a step towards the creation of a user account. This is different from what dropbox and other apps do (i.e, you provide your credentials for your dropbox account, which is different from your email address, although it can be the same).
You may either remove altogether email verification, or you could postpone it to a later point when you have made clear to the user that this is required to access private information.
I got the same thing last week and this is Apple's reply:
As for the 17.2 issue, a nickname, avatar, or sharing are not inherent or specific features of those social networks, and thus, the user should not be required to register with those services, or provide you with access to their social network accounts. The user should not be prevented from using your app and service if they do not provide this information.
Instead, it would be appropriate use your own authentication method and give users the option to create a nickname and upload an avatar, independent from those networks.
Moreover, we realize that these social networks may be very popular. However, the popularity of the social network is not an appropriate reason to force a user who has not, or chose not to register and provide their personal information to those services, before they can use your app.
Therefore, we ask that you to include your own authentication mechanism to allow the user the option to register only with you, creating an account with only the information needed and relevant to your app's features.
Best regards,
App Store Review
So in short, you have to provide custom authentication and not just use Facebook. Although I've seen many Apps who do require you to login with Facebook.
Thanks,
James
It happened same for me, although the first version was approved, the second version was rejected for this reason, I added the Skip button at the landing view.
It's all summarized in the last paragraph. Apparently, your application doesn't inform the user (in a clear way) that registering is for syncing and from their reply, it seems that your application is useless without the Sign Up.
If that's the case, you should be more specific why you need the user to register.
On a side note, I personally don't like the applications/websites that force you to register before you see or try anything. I hope your application isn't the same.
I have a web app that you can currently log into with either your email address or your username.
I'm developing an iPhone application and I'm just wondering if I should offer the ability to log in with your phone number. If this is the case, a user would first have to provide the service with a number on the web (an optional parameter).
I find it convenient on other services I use where I might not remember what email I have connected to it.
Is this a good idea?
Would you offer it in a service you were
building?
I'm trying to decide if its worth the trouble to build.
NOTE: This number would strictly be used for authentication.
I think that if your service is not about phone numbers (calling, texting, etc., e.g., whatsapp, etc.) I would not add phone number authentication for a few reasons:
Some users might be deterred to provide a phone number due to privacy concerns (no matter how hard you try to explain them that you will keep it safe)
With the phone number you will now have 3 options to login with, which is way too much. You want to keep your mobile login screen very simple
Some people may think that they might get SMSs from you or get their phone bill charged somehow
Overloads your backend
Just keep it simple...:)
To add to that, I personally prefer just email, without a user name. So many sites require user names AND impose restrictions on how this user name should be structured, so you end up with tons of them. With emails, you can't go so wrong - most people use a primary one to sign up for sites.
Hope that helps.
I hope this is allowed but I have a number of questions regarding Facebook Connect, I'm quite unsure on how I should approach implementing it.
I am working on a live music type service and currently have user registration, etc. If I were to implement Facebook Connect alongside this, would I still be able to email the Facebook Connect users as if they were on my database?
Also, would it instead be possible to let users who have Facebook "link" their accounts once registered so I am able to give them the benefits of sharing via Facebook and inviting friends while still having an actual registered user on my system.
I have tried to read up answers to the above questions but what I've found is quite ambiguous.
Thanks, look forward to your views.
Facebook's documentation process is very poor, so don't feel bad about having a hard time getting started. Their wiki-style approach to documentation without any real official documents tends to leave the "process flow" tough to grasp, and requires piecing together parts of a bunch of randomly scattered docs.
Facebook has an obligation to protect privacy, so they never make a user's actual email address available to application developers, through Connect or normal applications. They do have a proxied email system in place that you can use, however, you must get explicit permission from a user in order to email them. There's a decent document on proxied email here. You can get permission by prompting for it; there's several methods for doing so linked in that document.
In regards to linking Facebook and local accounts, this would definitely be the way to go. Once a Connect user logs in, you want to store that fact for that user so you can provide the Facebook-specific functionality. I would simply create a normal user account in the database for every new Connect user that came by, with it's own local id, so that you don't have to do special handling of two different types of user accounts all over the site. That being said, the account would obviously have to be marked as a Facebook user's account (I use an externalId column in my users table), and any part of the site that relied on information you might otherwise have locally would have to handle the Facebook aspect properly (such as using proxied email instead of normal email).
For existing users, you could arrange an "account link" by having a process whereby they log into FB Connect after they've logged into the site already, and you could detect that and simply add their FB id to your users table. After that, they could log in through Connect in the future, or through your normal process. I've never done this, but it should be possible.
If you write the account handling code generically enough, your site will be able to function well no matter what kind of user you throw at it.
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I'm creating a web app that requires registration/authentication, and I'm considering using an email address as the sole user id. Here are what I see as the pros and cons (updated with responses):
PROS
One less field to fill out during registration (it would just be email address, password, and verify password). I'm a big fan of minimalistic registration.
An email address is easier to remember. (thanks Mitch, Jeremy)
You don't have to worry about your favorite username being taken already - you're the only one who uses your email address. (thanks TStamper)
CONS
User has more to type every time they log in.
What if a user wants multiple accounts? They'll need another email address. (Do I even want a user to be able to create multiple accounts?)
Easy for a potential attacker to guess (if they know the target's email address, they know the login id). (thanks Vasil)
Users may be tempted to use the same password they use for their email account, which is bad security. (thanks Thomas)
If you change email addresses frequently, it may be difficult to remember which address you used to sign up for a site after a long hiatus. (thanks Software Monkey)
A hacker could spam the registration form and use "email already taken" responses to generate a list of valid emails. (thanks David)
Not everyone has an email address. (thanks Nicholas)
If I went with email as id, I would provide a mechanism to allow it to be changed in the event a user changes address. In this case users would not be posting content to a public site, so a separate username won't be necessary to protect the email addresses (but it is something to consider for other sites).
Another option is to implement OpenID (which is a whole other debate).
This seems to work for Google, but their services are tightly integrated. What have I missed in my analysis? Do you have any recommendations? Does anyone have experiences to share?
FINAL EDIT
Thank you all for your responses. I have decided to use email as an id, but then allow the creation of a username for login purposes after registration. This allows a little flexibility while keeping registration as short as possible. It also prevents problems when a user changes email addresses (they can just log in with their username and update it). I will also be implementing methods to prevent brute-forcing of email addresses out of the registration and login systems (mainly a cool-down period after repeated attempts).
Personally, I prefer just using my email address as a username. It's one less thing to remember, and I never have to worry about my preferred name being already taken.
Just my 2 cents!
I think you missed a PRO:
Users are likely to remember their email address; and as email addresses are unique, they never have to worry about their preferred username being taken already.
As a user of websites, I can tell you that I hate memorizing unnecessary usernames. I don't use a unique handle or anything so I can never remember which variation of my name I used that wasn't already taken. I'd much rather type my email address.
Also, I like OpenID.
CONS
When the same password is used for the e-mail account, compromising the one automatically means compromising the other.
CON: Not everyone has an e-mail address. Consider if your database is ever accessed by an internal application. If you are running a store, people will call up and place an order by phone and refuse to provide an e-mail address. So while having an e-mail address as the default user ID is cool, be sure to allow alternates to get into the system. (Of course, this depends on the context.)
Learned this one the hard way.
I tend to not prefer pro/con lists, and instead try to think of benefits and challenges.
Challenge:
Some users will be tempted to use their email address from their ISP. Linking to an email alone, may be difficult for the users who forget to update their email in all the web sites they have signed up for before they change ISPs.
Instead:
You should consider allowing a user to provide multiple addresses, as well user-selected id and then let the user decide what they want they wish to do. Perhaps also consider allowing the user to provide an OpenID account.
CON: If I change my email address, suddenly all my account names are invalid. My name doesn't change, but my email often does. I have occasionally revisited a site after a number of years, and been stuck... what was my email address two years ago???
One setup you may want to consider: Have both a username and an email. The email is used to login and is always kept private, the username is used to identify the user in any public interaction, such as posting a comment. It winds up being slightly more secure as both halves of the user login credentials are kept private, whereas if you use a username for both login and public identification, half of the login is already known.
I definitely agree with you about having minimal registration for most cases, but depending on what you're doing you may want to balance that against added security for your users. Four fields isn't outrageous for registration, (username, email, password, confirm password), and if you're feeling particularly adventurous, you could cut it down to three by dropping the confirm password field, or two by emailing them a password that they can change later.
PRO
People hate having to create a unique name that fits their id and that has not already been taken to register for a site..So this is why the user id as EMAIL ADDRESS is so embraced.
ex:TStamper1930, who actually wants to remember 1930 at the end of my name that I really wanted
CON: If a hacker can try registering random email addresses en masse, he or she will be able to figure out which of those addresses are valid based on which registrations fail. This is a tactic that can be used to put together lists of known valid email addresses, which are a hot commodity on the spam black market.
Although now that I think about it, that's a problem that affects any website which asks for an email address as part of the registration process, regardless of whether or not there's a separate username. But it's still something to think about.
Stick to email addresses they are used everywhere, actually most of the major websites use them, they are unique so they save the user from struggling to find a name that's not used by others, also users won't forget their email addresses (in most cases at least :)), which is unlike usernames that they will keep on forgetting if they don't visit your site very often.
You shouldn't be worried about them being too long as all the major browsers (IE, FF .. etc) offer autocomplete to forms which is enabled by default, so you type the first letters in your email and you get a drop down list (ie. autocomplete list) where you just click to enter the whole email, personally I almost never type the email address in full, I always type the first letters then select the email from the autocomplete drop down list. Besides, if you allow users to be remembered (using a Remember Me checkbox and persistent cookies), it will be another reason to not worry about it.
I don't know about your app but usually users having multiple accounts is not desirable in most apps.
One con might be that if it's an email address the login can be guessed by people and brute force attacks attempted. Which is not really a big issue, since on most sites today the logins are publicly displayed.
The biggest pro is that logins are easier to remember this way.
A good setup is to require username and email. Allowing the user to login with either email address or username is very user friendly. An added benefit is the user can change their email address. It would also allow multiple accounts for one email.
To solve your con item of the email being too long to type in every time. I have implemented the StringScan Ruby library.
require 'strscan'
def signup!(user, &block)
self.email = user[:email] unless user[:email].blank?
str = StringScanner.new(self.email)
str.scan_until(/#/)
str.pre_match
self.login = str.pre_match
etc..
Then just change login method to allow either email or login to match password.
This works just like google or mobileme. A user can choose to just type in their email username (ie. username instead of username#gmail.com.)
I'm fighting with removing this right now. Here's a newer CON from the current era.
An email address is considered Personal Identifiable Information (PII) by many governments. Hence extra care needs to be taken any time you display it on a page, or even return it from an end-point.
Consider that many sites allow interactions between different users. This often means the site will provide a list of users to choose from (e.g. a drop-down list, or search results). This ca actually enable the leaking of PII by the site.
Usernames, on the other hand, can be completely anonymous. Given the prevalence today of password managers, users really don't need to actually remember their username and password.
If you don't care about forcing your users to login to your application with Facebook or some other social network (most people don't seem to care), then you can just use their social network email as their 'user id' when referencing other tables/documents (MySQL, Mongo, etc).
I've noticed the bonus to using social media logins is that all the security has been taken care of by said social network, including not allowing 2 users to have the same email or username in their database thus saving you the hassle of having to code for all of that. This is just my personal preference.