title: UIDevice uniqueIdentifier deprecated - What to do now?
body: <p>It has just come to light that <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20140703160701/https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/UIKit/Reference/UIDevice_Class/DeprecationAppendix/AppendixADeprecatedAPI.html" rel="noreferrer">the UIDevice uniqueIdentifier property is deprecated</a> in <strong>iOS 5</strong> and unavailable in iOS 7 and above. No alternative method or property appears to be available or forthcoming.</p>
  
  <p>Many of our existing apps are tightly dependent on this property for uniquely identifying a particular device.  How might we handle this problem going forward?</p>
  
  <p>The suggestion from <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20120415215854/http://developer.apple.com:80/library/ios/documentation/uikit/reference/UIDevice_Class/DeprecationAppendix/AppendixADeprecatedAPI.html" rel="noreferrer">the documentation in 2011-2012</a> was:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p><strong>Special Considerations</strong></p>
    
    <p>Do not use the uniqueIdentifier property. To create a unique identifier specific 
    to your app, you can call the <code>CFUUIDCreate</code> function to create a <code>UUID</code>, and write 
    it to the defaults database using the <code>NSUserDefaults</code> class.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>However this value won't be the same if a user uninstalls and re-installs the app.</p>