Apple, Privacy, and What’s my phone’s name?!

Apple has a strong focus on privacy and we believe that’s a good thing. For example, all third-party apps need to ask for permission to access your personal information such as location, contacts, calendars, and photos. An app using the microphone or camera requires your permission as well. And iOS 16 debuts a new feature called Safety Check that allows you to quickly stop sharing your private information if your personal safety is at risk.

We believe in privacy too, especially in our eWallet app where the whole point is keeping your information private. Sometimes though, privacy can (at least temporarily) make things more difficult…

Before iOS 16, apps could get the name of the device by by asking it (using an API), "hey, what’s your name?" Pre iOS 16, the actual name of the device would come back, something like "Mary’s Awesome iPhone". When iOS 16 was released, a new privacy feature in iOS kicked in, and instead of getting back "Mary’s Awesome iPhone", iOS just returns "iPhone" regardless of the actual name. Normally that might not be a big deal, but for our customer families using local Wi-Fi sync with multiple iPhones (rather than cloud sync), they couldn’t tell from their Mac or PC which phone they were connecting with — every phone reported itself as "iPhone".

The story has a happy ending though. Although Apple has a strong policy, we were happy to see that they had an exception process for certain situations, including eWallet’s. We applied for the special permission to get be able to get the real phone name and were approved, so now when eWallet asks iOS what the iPhone (or iPad) name is, it get’s back the real name on iOS/iPadOS 16 (and newer) as well.

If you’ve run into this problem, just check to make sure you’re using the latest version of eWallet for iPhone & iPad, 8.7.1. The update is free for all users who already have purchased eWallet 8 for iPhone & iPad.

eWallet 8.7.1 for iPhone & iPad runs on iOS 11 and greater, including iOS 16 and iPadOS 16. The latest version is available via the on-device App Store. Get all the info about eWallet for iPhone & iPad here on our site.