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iOS SDK

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This is the official documentation for the Amplitude Analytics iOS SDK.

Warning

This is the time tested iOS SDK, however here is a new version in beta that is highly recommended for all customers using Swift. The latest iOS Swift SDK has additional features such as plugins and more. See the Migration Guide for more help. For customers beginning with Amplitude Experiment, please note that the beta iOS SDK does not support the Amplitude Experiment integration.

Please note that the latest iOS Swift SDK is NOT compatible with Objective-C projects. Use this SDK if your project requires compatibility with Objective-C.

iOS SDK Resources

GitHub · Releases · API Reference

Ampli Wrapper versus the Amplitude SDK

The Ampli Wrapper is an autogenerated library based on your pre-defined tracking plan. This is a lightweight wrapper over the Amplitude SDK that provides type-safety, automatic code completion, linting, and schema validation. The generated code replicates the spec in the Tracking Plan and enforces its rules and requirements. This guide is about the Amplitude SDK. To learn more about Ampli Wrapper, see Ampli Wrapper Overview and examples. Click here for more documentation on Ampli for iOS.

Getting started

Use this quickstart guide to get started with Amplitude iOS SDK.

Core functions

The following functions make up the core of the Amplitude Analytics iOS SDK.


Initialize

You must initialize the SDK before you can instrument. The API key for your Amplitude project is required.

Usually, you can initialize the SDK in the application:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions: method of your YourAppAppDelegate.m file.

- (BOOL)application:(UIApplication *)application didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:(NSDictionary *)launchOptions {
  // Enable sending automatic session events
  [Amplitude instance].trackingSessionEvents = YES;
  // Initialize SDK
  [[Amplitude instance] initializeApiKey:@"API_KEY"];
  // Set userId
  [[Amplitude instance] setUserId:@"userId"];
  // Log an event
  [[Amplitude instance] logEvent:@"app_start"];

  return YES;
}
func application(_ application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey: Any]?) -> Bool {
  // Enable sending automatic session events
  Amplitude.instance().trackingSessionEvents = true
  // Initialize SDK
  Amplitude.instance().initializeApiKey("API_KEY")
  // Set userId
  Amplitude.instance().setUserId("userId")
  // Log an event
  Amplitude.instance().logEvent("app_start")

  return true
}

Configuration

Configuration Options
Name
Description Default Value
eventUploadPeriodSeconds The amount of time SDK will attempt to upload the unsent events to the server or reach eventUploadThreshold threshold. 30
eventUploadThreshold SDK will attempt to upload once unsent event count exceeds the event upload threshold or reach eventUploadPeriodSeconds interval. 30
eventUploadMaxBatchSize The maximum number of events sent with each upload request. 100
eventMaxCount The maximum number of unsent events to keep on the device. 1000
minTimeBetweenSessionsMillis When a user closes and reopens the app within minTimeBetweenSessionsMillis milliseconds, the reopen is considered part of the same session and the session continues. Otherwise, a new session is created. The default is 5 minutes. 5 minutes
trackingSessionEvents Whether to automatically log start and end session events corresponding to the start and end of a user's session. NO
setServerUrl Sends events to a custom URL. Amplitude HTTP API URL
setOptOut Opt the user out of tracking. NO
setTrackingOptions By default the iOS SDK will track several user properties such as carrier, city, country, ip_address, language, platform, etc. You can use the provided AMPTrackingOptions interface to customize and disable individual fields. NO
setOffline Disables sending logged events to Amplitude servers. Events will be sent when set to true. NO
setIdentifyUploadPeriodSeconds The amount of time SDK will attempt to batch intercepted identify events. 30

EU data residency

Beginning with version 8.5.0, you can configure the server zone after initializing the client for sending data to Amplitude's EU servers. The SDK sends data based on the server zone if it's set. The server zone configuration supports dynamic configuration as well.

For earlier versions, you need to configure the serverURL property after initializing the client.

Note

For EU data residency, the project must be set up inside Amplitude EU. You must initialize the SDK with the API key from Amplitude EU.

// For versions starting from 8.5.0
// No need to call setServerUrl for sending data to Amplitude's EU servers

[[Amplitude instance] setServerZone:AMPServerZone.EU];

// For earlier versions
[[Amplitude instance] setServerUrl: @"https://api.eu.amplitude.com"];
// For versions starting from 8.5.0
// No need to call setServerUrl for sending data to Amplitude's EU servers

Amplitude.instance().setServerZone(AMPServerZone.EU)

// For earlier versions

Amplitude.instance().setServerUrl("https://api.eu.amplitude.com")

Send events

Basic events

Events represent how users interact with your application. For example, "Button Clicked" may be an action you want to note.

[[Amplitude instance] logEvent:@"Button Clicked"];
Amplitude.instance().logEvent("Button Click")

Events with properties

Events can also contain properties, which give more context about the event. For example, "hover time" may be a relevant event property for "button click".

NSMutableDictionary *eventProperties = [NSMutableDictionary dictionary];
[eventProperties setValue:@"100ms" forKey:@"Hover Time"];
[[Amplitude instance] logEvent:@"Button Clicked" withEventProperties:eventProperties];
Amplitude.instance().logEvent("Button Clicked", withEventProperties: ["Hover Time": "100ms"] )

User properties

User privacy warning

Don't track any user data that may be against your privacy terms.

User properties help you understand your users at the time they performed some action within your app. For example, you can learn about their device details, their preferences, or language.

Amplitude-iOS's AMPIdentity class manages these features. Identify is for setting the user properties of a particular user without sending any event. The SDK supports these operations on individual user properties: set, setOnce, unset, add, append, prepend, preInsert, postInsert, and remove. Declare the operations via a provided Identify interface. You can chain together multiple operations in a single Identify object.

The AMPIdentify object is passed to the Amplitude client to send to the server. Starting from release v8.15.0, identify events with set operations will be batched and sent with fewer events. This change doesn't affect the result the set operations. The flush interval for batched Identify's can be managed with setIdentifyUploadPeriodSeconds.

Set a user property

set

set sets the value of a user property. You can also chain together multiple identify calls.

AMPIdentify *identify = [[[AMPIdentify identify] set:@"gender" value:@"female"] set:@"age"
    value:[NSNumber numberWithInt:20]];
[[Amplitude instance] identify:identify];
let identify = AMPIdentify()
    .set("gender", value: "female")
    .set("age",value: NSNumber(value: 20))
Amplitude.instance().identify(identify)
setOnce

setOnce sets the value of a user property only once. Subsequent calls using setOnceare ignored.

AMPIdentify *identify1 = [[AMPIdentify identify] setOnce:@"sign_up_date" value:@"2015-08-24"];
[[Amplitude instance] identify:identify1];

AMPIdentify *identify2 = [[AMPIdentify identify] setOnce:@"sign_up_date" value:@"2015-09-14"];
[[Amplitude instance] identify:identify2]; // Is ignored
let identify1 = AMPIdentify().setOnce("sign_up_date", value: "2015-08-24")
Amplitude.instance().identify(identify1)

let identify2 = AMPIdentify().setOnce("sign_up_date", value: "2015-09-14")
Amplitude.instance().identify(identify2) // Is ignored
add

add increments a user property by some numerical value. If the user property doesn't have a value set yet, it's initialized to 0 before being incremented.

AMPIdentify *identify = [[[AMPIdentify identify] add:@"karma" value:[NSNumber numberWithFloat:0.123]]
    add:@"friends" value:[NSNumber numberWithInt:1]];
[[Amplitude instance] identify:identify];
let identify = AMPIdentify()
    .add("karma", value: NSNumber(value: 0.123))
    .add("friends",value: NSNumber(value: 1))
Amplitude.instance().identify(identify)
preInsert and postInsert

See the arrays in user properties section for information.

remove

Remove a value or values from a user property. If the item doesn't exist in the user property, nothing is removed.

NSMutableArray *array = [NSMutableArray array];
[array addObject:@"some_string"];
[array addObject:[NSNumber numberWithInt:56]];
AMPIdentify *identify = [[[AMPIdentify identify] remove:@"ab-tests" value:@"new-user-test"]
    remove:@"some_list" value:array];
[[Amplitude instance] identify:identify];
Set multiple user properties

You can use setUserProperties as a shorthand to set multiple user properties at once. This method is a wrapper around Identify.set and identify.

NSMutableDictionary *userProperties = [NSMutableDictionary dictionary];
[userProperties setValue:@"VALUE" forKey:@"KEY"];
[userProperties setValue:@"OTHER_VALUE" forKey:@"OTHER_KEY"];
[[Amplitude instance] setUserProperties:userProperties];
var userProperties: [AnyHashable : Any] = [:]
userProperties["KEY"] = "VALUE"
userProperties["OTHER_KEY"] = "OTHER_VALUE"
Amplitude.instance().userProperties = userProperties

Arrays in user properties

Arrays can be used as user properties. You can directly set arrays or use append to generate an array.

NSMutableArray *colors = [NSMutableArray array];
[colors addObject:@"rose"];
[colors addObject:@"gold"];
NSMutableArray *numbers = [NSMutableArray array];
[numbers addObject:[NSNumber numberWithInt:4]];
[numbers addObject:[NSNumber numberWithInt:5]];
AMPIdentify *identify = [[[[AMPIdentify identify] set:@"colors" value:colors] append:@"ab-tests"
    value:@"campaign_a"] append:@"existing_list" value:numbers];
[[Amplitude instance] identify:identify];
var colors: [AnyHashable] = []
colors.append("rose")
colors.append("gold")
var numbers: [AnyHashable] = []
numbers.append(NSNumber(value: 4))
numbers.append(NSNumber(value: 5))
let identify = AMPIdentify().set("colors", value: colors)
    .append("ab-tests", value: "campaign_a")
    .append("existing_list",value: numbers)
Amplitude.instance().identify(identify)
prepend and append
  • append appends a value or values to a user property array.
  • prepend prepends a value or values to a user property.

If the user property doesn't have a value set yet, it's initialized to an empty list before the new values are added. If the user property has an existing value and it's not a list, it's converted into a list with the new value added.

Note

append and prepend doesn't check for duplicates. Please see preInsert and postInsert for that.

NSMutableArray *array = [NSMutableArray array];
[array addObject:@"some_string"];
[array addObject:[NSNumber numberWithInt:56]];
AMPIdentify *identify = [[[AMPIdentify identify] append:@"ab-tests" value:@"new-user-test"]
    append:@"some_list" value:array];
[[Amplitude instance] identify:identify];
var array: [AnyHashable] = []
array.append("some_string")
array.append(NSNumber(value: 56))
let identify = AMPIdentify()
    .append("ab-tests", value: "new-user-test")
    .append("some_list",value: array)
Amplitude.instance().identify(identify)
preInsert and postInsert
  • preInsert inserts a value or values to the front of a user property array if it doesn't exist in the array yet.
  • postInsert inserts a value or values to the end of a user property array if it doesn't exist in the array yet.

If the user property doesn't exist, it's initialized to an empty list before the new values are pre-inserted. If the user property has an existing value, nothing is inserted.

NSMutableArray *array = [NSMutableArray array];
[array addObject:@"some_string"];
[array addObject:[NSNumber numberWithInt:56]];
AMPIdentify *identify = [[[AMPIdentify identify] preInsert:@"ab-tests" value:@"new-user-test"]
    preInsert:@"some_list" value:array];
[[Amplitude instance] identify:identify];
var array: [AnyHashable] = []
array.append("some_string")
array.append(NSNumber(value: 56))
let identify = AMPIdentify()
    .preInsert("ab-tests", value: "new-user-test")
    .preInsert("some_list",value: array)
Amplitude.instance().identify(identify)

Remove user properties

Clear all user properties

clearUserProperties removes all the current user's user properties.

This action is irreversible

If you clear user properties, Amplitude can't sync the user's user property values from before the wipe to any future events.

[[Amplitude instance] clearUserProperties];
Amplitude.instance().clearUserProperties()
remove

remove removes an existing value or values from a user property. If the item doesn't exist in the user property, nothing is removed.

NSMutableArray *array = [NSMutableArray array];
[array addObject:@"some_string"];
[array addObject:[NSNumber numberWithInt:56]];
AMPIdentify *identify = [[[AMPIdentify identify] remove:@"ab-tests" value:@"new-user-test"]
    remove:@"some_list" value:array];
[[Amplitude instance] identify:identify];
var array: [AnyHashable] = []
array.append("some_string")
array.append(NSNumber(value: 56))
let identify = AMPIdentify()
    .remove("ab-tests", value: "new-user-test")
    .remove("some_list", value: array)
Amplitude.instance().identify(identify)

Set user groups

Feature availability

This feature is available in accounts with a Growth or Enterprise plan with the Accounts add-on.

Amplitude supports assigning users to groups and performing queries, such as Count by Distinct, on those groups. If at least one member of the group has performed the specific event, then the count includes the group.

For example, you want to group your users based on what organization they're in by using an 'orgId'. Joe is in 'orgId' '10', and Sue is in 'orgId' '15'. Sue and Joe both perform a certain event. You can query their organizations in the Event Segmentation Chart.

When setting groups, define a groupType and groupName. In the previous example, 'orgId' is the groupType and '10' and '15' are the values for groupName. Another example of a groupType could be 'sport' with groupName values like 'tennis' and 'baseball'.

Setting a group also sets the groupType:groupName as a user property, and overwrites any existing groupName value set for that user's groupType, and the corresponding user property value. groupType is a string, and groupName can be either a string or an array of strings to indicate that a user is in multiple groups.

Example

Joe is in 'orgID' with the groupName 15. He is also in "sport" with groupNames "tennis" and "soccer". Here is what your code might look like:

[[Amplitude instance] setGroup:@"orgId" groupName:[NSNumber numberWithInt:15]];
[[Amplitude instance] setGroup:@"sport" groupName:[NSArray arrayWithObjects: @"tennis", @"soccer", nil];
Amplitude.instance().setGroup("orgId", groupName: NSNumber(value: 15))
        Amplitude.instance().setGroup("sport", groupName: NSArray(objects: "tennis", "soccer"))

You can also use logEventWithGroups to set event-level groups, meaning the group designation only applies for the specific event being logged and doesn't persist on the user unless you explicitly set it with setGroup:

NSDictionary *eventProperties = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys: @"value", @"key", nil];
NSDictionary *groups = [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:[NSNumber numberWithInt:10],
    @"orgId", @"soccer", @"sport", nil];
[[Amplitude instance] logEvent:@"initialize_game" withEventProperties:eventProperties withGroups:groups];
let eventProperties: [String: Any] = ["key": "value"]
let groups: [String: Any] = ["orgId": 10]

Amplitude.instance().logEvent("initialize_game", withEventProperties: eventProperties, withGroups: groups)

Group identify

Feature availability

This feature is available in accounts with a Growth or Enterprise plan with the Accounts add-on.

Use the Group Identify API to set or update properties of particular groups. These updates only affect events going forward.

The groupIdentifyWithGroupType method accepts a group type string parameter and group name object parameter, as well as an Identify object that's applied to the group.

NSString *groupType = @"plan";
NSObject *groupName = @"enterprese";
AMPIdentify *identify = [[AMPIdentify identify] set:@"key" value:@"value"];
[[Amplitude instance] groupIdentifyWithGroupType:groupType groupName:groupName groupIdentify:identify];
let identify = AMPIdentify()
    .set("key", value: "value")
Amplitude.instance().groupIdentifyWithGroupType("plan", groupName:NSString(string:"enterprise"), groupIdentify:identify)

You can add an optional outOfSession boolean input as a fourth argument to groupIdentifyWithGroupType

Track revenue

Instances of AMPRevenue stores revenue transactions and defines special revenue properties (such as revenueType) used in Amplitude's Event Segmentation and Revenue LTV charts. Each instance is passed to Amplitude.logRevenueV2. This allows Amplitude to automatically display data relevant to revenue.

To track revenue from a user, call logRevenueV2 each time a user generates revenue. Here is an example:

AMPRevenue *revenue = [[[AMPRevenue revenue] setProductIdentifier:@"productIdentifier"] setQuantity:3];
[revenue setPrice:[NSNumber numberWithDouble:3.99]];
[[Amplitude instance] logRevenueV2:revenue];
let revenue = AMPRevenue()
revenue.setProductIdentifier("productIdentifier")
revenue.setQuantity(3)
revenue.setPrice(NSNumber(value: 3.99))
Amplitude.instance().logRevenueV2(revenue)

Calling logRevenueV2 generates up to 2 different event types in the platform:

  • [Amplitude] Revenue: This event is logged for all revenue events, regardless of whether verification is turned on.
  • [Amplitude] Revenue (Verified/Unverified): These revenue events contain the actual $revenue property.

You can't change the default names given to these client-side revenue events in the raw data, but you can change the display name. Learn more about tracking revenue in the Help Center.

Note

Amplitude doesn't support currency conversion. Normalize all revenue data to your currency of choice before being sent.

Each revenue event has fields available, and each field has a corresponding set method (such as price and setPrice). See the API docs for AMPRevenue for a full list of fields.

Like logEvent, you can attach event properties for each call to logRevenueV2 . However, these event properties only appear in the Event Segmentation chart and not in the Revenue charts.

Name
Description
productId Optional. NSString. An identifier for the product. Amplitude recommends something like the "Google Play Store product ID". Defaults to null.
quantity Required. NSInteger. The quantity of products purchased. Note: revenue = quantity * price. Defaults to 1.
price Required. NSNumber. The price of the products purchased, and this can be negative. Note: revenue = quantity * price. Defaults to null.
revenueType Optional, but required for revenue verification. NSString. The revenue type. For example tax, refund, income. Defaults to null.
receipt Optional, but required for revenue verification. NSData. Defaults to null
receiptSignature Optional, but required for revenue verification. Defaults to null.
eventProperties Optional. NSDictionary. An object of event properties to include in the revenue event. Defaults to null.

Info

Price can be negative, which may be useful for tracking revenue lost (such as refunds or costs)

Advanced topics

User sessions

A session is a period of time that a user has the app in the foreground. Events that are logged within the same session has the same session_id. Sessions are handled automatically so you don't have to manually call an API like startSession() or endSession().

You can adjust the time window for which sessions are extended by changing the variable minTimeBetweenSessionsMillis.

Amplitude groups events together by session. A session represents a single period of user activity, with a start and end time. Different SDKs track sessions differently, depending on the requirements of the platform. The minimum duration of a session can be configured within the SDK.

[Amplitude instance].trackingSessionEvents = YES;
[[Amplitude instance].minTimeBetweenSessionsMillis = 10 * 60 * 1000; // 10 minutes
[[Amplitude instance] initializeApiKey:@"API_KEY"];
Amplitude.instance().trackingSessionEvents = true
Amplitude.instance().minTimeBetweenSessionsMillis = 10 * 60 * 1000 // 10 minutes
Amplitude.instance().initializeApiKey("API_KEY")

You can also log events as out-of-session. Out-of-session events have a session_id of -1 and aren't considered part of the current session, meaning they don't extend the current session. This might be useful if you are logging events triggered by push notifications, for example. You can log events as out-of-session by setting the input parameter outOfSession to true when calling logEvent

[[Amplitude instance] logEvent:@"EVENT_TYPE" withEventProperties:nil outOfSession:YES];
Amplitude.instance().logEvent("Push Notification", withEventProperties: nil, outOfSession: true)

You can also log identify events as out-of-session. This is useful if you are updating user properties in the background and don't want to start a new session. Do this by setting the input parameter outOfSession to true when calling identify.

AMPIdentify *identify = [[AMPIdentify identify] set:@"key" value:@"value"];
[[Amplitude instance] identify:identify outOfSession:YES];
let identify = AMPIdentify()
    .set("key", value: "value")
Amplitude.instance().identify(identify, outOfSession: true)

You can use the helper method getSessionId to get the value of the current sessionId.

long long sessionId = [[Amplitude instance] getSessionId];
Amplitude.instance().getSessionId()

Set custom user ID

If your app has its own login system that you want to track users with, you can call setUserId at any time.

[[Amplitude] instance] setUserId:@"USER_ID"];
Amplitude.instance().setUserId("USER_ID")

You can also add the User ID as an argument to the init call.

[[Amplitude] instance] initializeApiKey:@"API_KEY" userId:@"USER_ID"];
Amplitude.instance().initializeApiKey("API_KEY", userId: "USER_ID")

Don't assign users a user ID that could change, because each unique user ID is a unique user in Amplitude. Learn more about how Amplitude tracks unique users in the Help Center.

Debug logging

By default, only critical errors are logged to console. To enable debug logging in iOS, change AMPLITUDE_DEBUG from 0 to 1 at the top of the Objective-C file you wish to examine. Error messages are printed by default. To disable error logging, change AMPLITUDE_LOG_ERRORS from 1 to 0 in Amplitude.m.

Logged out and anonymous users

Amplitude merges user data, so any events associated with a known userId or deviceId are linked the existing user. If a user logs out, Amplitude can merge that user's logged-out events to the user's record. You can change this behavior and log those events to an anonymous user instead.

To log events to an anonymous user:

  1. Set the userId to null.
  2. Generate a new deviceId.

Events coming from the current user or device appear as a new user in Amplitude. Note: If you do this, you can't see that the two users were using the same device.

[[Amplitude instance] setUserId:nil]; // not string nil
[[Amplitude instance] regenerateDeviceId];
Amplitude.instance().setUserId("userId")
Amplitude.instance().regenerateDeviceId()

Log events to multiple projects

// existing project, existing settings, and existing API key
[[Amplitude instance] initializeApiKey:@"12345"];
[[Amplitude instanceWithName:@"new_project"] initializeApiKey:@"67890"]; // new project, new API key

[[Amplitude instanceWithName:@"new_project"] setUserId:@"123456"]; // need to reconfigure new project
[[Amplitude instanceWithName:@"new_project"] logEvent:@"Clicked"];

AMPIdentify *identify = [[AMPIdentify identify] add:@"karma" value:[NSNumber numberWithInt:1]];
[[Amplitude instance] identify:identify];
[[Amplitude instance] logEvent:@"Viewed Home Page"];
// existing project, existing settings, and existing API key
Amplitude.instance().initializeApiKey("12345")
Amplitude.instance(withName: "new_project").initializeApiKey("67890") // new project, new API key


Amplitude.instance(withName: "new_project").initializeApiKey("123456") // need to reconfigure new project
Amplitude.instance(withName: "new_project").logEvent("Clicked")

let identify = AMPIdentify()
    .add("karma",value: NSNumber(value: 1))
Amplitude.instance().identify(identify)
Amplitude.instance().logEvent("Viewed Home Page")

Disable tracking

By default the iOS SDK tracks several user properties such as carrier, city, country, ip_address, language, platform, etc. You can use the provided AMPTrackingOptions interface to customize and disable individual fields.

Each operation on the AMPTrackingOptions object returns the same instance, letting you chain multiple operations together.

To use the AMPTrackingOptions interface, first include the header:

#import "AMPTrackingOptions.h"

Before initializing the SDK with your apiKey, create a AMPTrackingOptions instance with your configuration and set it on the SDK instance

AMPTrackingOptions *options = [[[[AMPTrackingOptions options] disableCity] disableIPAddress] disablePlatform];
[[Amplitude instance] setTrackingOptions:options];

Tracking for each field can be individually controlled, and has a corresponding method (for example, disableCountry, disableLanguage).

Method
Description
disableCarrier Disable tracking of device's carrier.
disableCity Disable tracking of user's city.
disableCountry Disable tracking of user's country.
disableDeviceManufacturer Disable tracking of device manufacturer.
disableDeviceModel Disable tracking of device model.
disableDMA Disable tracking of user's DMA.
disableIDFA Disable tracking of user's IDFA.
disableIDFV Disable tracking of user's IDFV.
disableIPAddress Disable tracking of user's IP address.
disableLanguage Disable tracking of device's language.
disableLatLng Disable tracking of user's current latitude and longitude coordinates.
disableOSName Disable tracking of device's OS Name.
disableOSVersion Disable tracking of device's OS Version.
disablePlatform Disable tracking of device's platform.
disableRegion Disable tracking of user's region.
disableVersionName Disable tracking of your app's version name.

Note

AMPTrackingOptions only prevents default properties from being tracked on newly created projects, where data has not yet been sent. If you have a project with existing data that you would like to stop collecting the default properties for, please get help in the Amplitude Community. Note that the existing data is not deleted.

Carrier

Amplitude determines the user's mobile carrier using CTTelephonyNetworkInfo, which returns the registered operator of the sim.

COPPA control

COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act) restrictions on IDFA, IDFV, city, IP address and location tracking can all be enabled or disabled at one time. Apps that ask for information from children under 13 years of age must comply with COPPA.

[[Amplitude instance] enableCoppaControl];
Amplitude.instance().enableCoppaControl()

Advertiser ID

Advertiser ID (also referred to as IDFA) is a unique identifier provided by the iOS and Google Play stores. As it's unique to every person and not just their devices, it's useful for mobile attribution.  Mobile attribution is the attribution of an installation of a mobile app to its original source (such as ad campaign, app store search). Mobile apps need permission to ask for IDFA, and apps targeted to children can't track at all. Consider using IDFV, device ID, or an email login system when IDFA isn't available.

amplitude.adSupportBlock = ^{
    return [[[ASIdentifierManager sharedManager] advertisingIdentifier] UUIDString];
};
//  Converted to Swift 5.3 by Swiftify v5.3.22312 - https://swiftify.com/
amplitude.adSupportBlock = {
    return ASIdentifierManager.shared().advertisingIdentifier.uuidString
}

Note that you need to also add AdSupport.framework to your project

Set IDFA as device ID

Amplitude uses the IDFV as the device ID by default, but you can change this behavior. After you set up the logic to fetch IDFA, you can also call this useAdvertisingIdForDeviceId API to set the IDFA as your deviceId.

Location tracking

Amplitude converts the IP of a user event into a location (GeoIP lookup) by default. This information may be overridden by an app's own tracking solution or user data.

Carrier information

Amplitude-iOS can help report carrier information

If you want to enable SDK to report this information from devices, add CoreTelephony.framework as a dependency.

Dynamic configuration

The iOS SDK lets you configure your apps to use dynamic configuration. This feature finds the best server URL automatically based on app users' location.

To use, enable the useDynamicConfig flag.

  • If you have your own proxy server and use apiEndPoint API, leave dynamic configuration off.
  • If you have users in China Mainland, then Amplitude recommends using dynamic configuration.
  • By default, this feature returns server URL of Amplitude's US servers, if you need to send data to Amplitude's EU servers, use setServerZone to set it to EU zone.
[Amplitude instance].useDynamicConfig = YES;
Amplitude.instance().useDynamicConfig = true

SSL pinning

SSL Pinning is a technique used in the client side to avoid man-in-the-middle attack by validating the server certificates again after SSL handshaking. Only use SSL pinning if you have a specific reason to do so. Contact Support before you ship any products with SSL pinning enabled.

If you installed the SDK using CocoaPods, you must enable the preprocessor macro via your Podfile by adding this post install hook:

PodFile
post_install do |installer_representation|
   installer_representation.pods_project.targets.each do |target|
      target.build_configurations.each do |config|
         config.build_settings['GCC_PREPROCESSOR_DEFINITIONS'] ||= ['$(inherited)', 'AMPLITUDE_SSL_PINNING=1']
      end
   end
end

If you installed the SDK directly from the source or Swift Package Manager, you can enable SSL pinning by adding the following preprocessor macro. See this StackOverflow post to see how to add preprocessor macro.

xCode Settings
AMPLITUDE_SSL_PINNING=1

Opt users out of tracking

Users may wish to opt out of tracking entirely, which means Amplitude won't track any of their events or browsing history. setOptOut provides a way to fulfill a user's requests for privacy.

[[Amplitude instance] setOptOut:YES]; // disables instrumentation
[[Amplitude instance] setOptOut:NO]; // enables instrumentation
Amplitude.instance().optOut = true // disables instrumentation
Amplitude.instance().optOut = false // enables instrumentation

tvOS and watchOS

This SDK works with tvOS and watch OS apps. To begin, follow the same setup instructions for iOS apps.

Note

tvOS apps don't have persistent storage (they only have temporary storage), so for tvOS the SDK is configured to upload events as soon as they're logged. This means eventUploadThreshold is set to 1 by default for tvOS. it's assumed that Apple TV devices have a stable internet connection and as a result, uploading events immediately is reasonable. If you wish to revert back to the iOS batching behavior, you can do so by changing eventUploadThreshold (this is set by default to 30 for iOS).

[[Amplitude instance] setEventUploadThreshold:30];

iOS extensions

The SDK allows for tracking in iOS extensions. To set up tracking in iOS extensions, follow the same setup instructions but initialize the SDK in your extension's viewDidLoad method instead from application:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions:.

There are a few things to note:

  • The viewDidLoad method gets called every time your extension is opened. This means that the SDK's initializeApiKey method gets called every single time. However, this is okay because it safely ignores calls after the first one. You can protect the initialization with something like a dispatch_once block.
  • Amplitude's sessions are defined for an app use case. Depending on your expected extension use case, you might not want to enable trackingSessionEvents, or you may want to extend the minTimeBetweenSessionsMillis to be longer than five minutes. You should experiment with these two settings to get your desired session definition.
  • If you don't expect users to keep your extension open long, you can decrease eventUploadPeriodSeconds to something shorter than 30 seconds to upload events at shorter intervals. You can also manually call [[Amplitude instance] uploadEvents]; to manually force an upload. Here is a simple demo application showing how to instrument the iOS SDK in an extension.

App Clips

The SDK also allows for tracking in App Clips. To set up tracking in App Clips, you need to install Amplitude-iOS under your App Clip target. Make sure the amplitude-iOS SDK is installed on your main app first.

CocoaPods

After creating an App Clip target, open your project Podfile and append the following code:

Podfile
target 'appClipTarget' do
  # Comment the next line if you don't want to use dynamic frameworks
  use_frameworks!
  pod 'Amplitude', :git => 'https://github.com/Amplitude/Amplitude-iOS.git'
end

Save the Podfile and run pod install

Swift Package Manager

  1. Open your App Clip target in Xcode. And click the + button under Framework, Libraries, and Embedded Content section
  2. Select Amplitude under Amplitude Package and click add button

Push notification events

Don't send push notification events client-side via the iOS SDK. Because a user must open the app to initialize the Amplitude SDK in order for the SDK to send the event, events aren't sent to the Amplitude servers until the next time the user opens the app. This can cause data delays.

You can use mobile marketing automation partners or the HTTP API V2 to send push notification events to Amplitude.

Middleware

Middleware lets you extend Amplitude by running a sequence of custom code on every event. This pattern is flexible and can be used to support event enrichment, transformation, filtering, routing to third-party destinations, and more.

Each middleware is a simple interface with a run method:

- (void)run:(AMPMiddlewarePayload *_Nonnull)payload next:(AMPMiddlewareNext _Nonnull)next;

The payload contains the event being sent and an optional extra that lets you pass custom data to your own middleware implementations.

To invoke the next middleware in the queue, use the next function. You must call next(payload) to continue the middleware chain. If a middleware doesn't call next, then the event processing stop executing after the current middleware completes.

Add middleware to Amplitude via client.addEventMiddleware. You can add as many middleware as you like. Each middleware runs in the order in which it was added.

You can find examples for Objective-C and Swift.

Learn more about Middleware.

More resources

If you have any problems or issues with the SDK, create a GitHub issue or submit a request on Amplitude Help.


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