When should I give out my iPhone UDID?

Question

When should I give out my iPhone UDID? A company is developing an application for my company for the iphone wants my UDID. Are there any risks to me as an individual giving this out? Many thanks

Answer 1

You should give out your device ID whenever you want an application that is not in the store (or a version not in the store) to run on your iPhone. The developer needs to add that device ID to a list of devices that can run the test version he builds.

(And it's a distracting process for him, so best answer right away before he gets involved in something else.)

The worst thing that can be said about the device ID is that it absolutely identifies your device. No other iPhone will ever have that device ID.

Answer 2

There are not really any privacy risks in giving out a phone ID, and as noted you need to give it out to be able to run test builds on your phone.

I would say though, that if you want to hire someone to develop an app for you you should certainly trust them enough to give them what they ask for, since you are going to be running an application on your phone from them that has not gone through any approval process (though the sandbox helps a lot there as there's not much harm they can do).