iPhone World

A few days ago I posted about Tapulous and the potential to have your associated Facebook / Twitter accounts hacked. There is another potential problem here. Let’s say you sell your phone. The UDID has not changed, so whoever you sell it to, if they install an app that you used that identifies you only by UDID, you’ve just given them access to your “account”. Now, it is possible to change the UDID (jailbroken users only), but it appears Apple may use this for verifying warranty coverage so if you change the UDID of a phone still under warranty and then sell it, the buyer may not be able to use the warranty. Likewise, it may be possible to change the UDID of a phone that is no longer under warranty, to one that is in order to have it serviced.

What I would recommend, is if you are going to sell your phone, email the contact for any apps you use that store settings on a server but don’t require a login, and ask them to remove your UDID from their system, or change it to your new one.

To see your UDID, just hold shift and click the serial number in iTunes.

What does this have to do with Push? Not much. In fact Push notifications are not sent based on UDID. They are sent based on a device token that is generated.

There is an issue that has cropped up that some people have stopped receiving push notifications. Apple has confirmed that in certain cases, your token can change when you sync with iTunes. When this happens, you will no longer receive any Push notifications. Their solution is to simply launch any apps that use Push and they will update the token.

Has anyone run into this? Has opening the app once resolved it for you?