Some apps on iOS are capable of tracking the user’s behavior, even if they switch to certain other apps, in a way that might be hard to control without a deep dive into an Apple device’s settings. However, the recent 14.5 update made the process much easier with App Tracking Transparency.
The new feature can bring up a window informing the use of a given app’s tracking potential on opening it, and offers the option to turn it off at the touch of a button. Now, Flurry Analytics, a Verizon Media-owned group that conducts research based on its code’s integration into “over 1 million” apps “across 2 billion mobile devices per month”, has reported that only 11% of iOS users worldwide left this app-tracking on upon discovering App Tracking Transparency after installing the 14.5 update.
The same number was just 2% in the US market, although this rose to about 4% over the ~2 weeks post-update. iOS 14.5 also integrates a setting that obliges apps to send the user requests to track them prior to doing so; apparently only about 5% of users continued to allow them to do so on updating their devices worldwide, or 3-4% in the US. All in all, this is news unlikely to make companies such as Facebook very happy these days.
