Platform and application data tracking

Platform and application data tracking features capture information about the device and the app.

They are enabled by default. But the setting can be changed through TrackerConfiguration like in the example below:

iOS

let trackerConfig = TrackerConfiguration()
    .platformContext(true)
    .applicationContext(true)

Android (Kotlin)

val trackerConfig = TrackerConfiguration("appId")
    .platformContext(true)
    .applicationContext(true)

Android (Java)

TrackerConfiguration trackerConfig = new TrackerConfiguration("appId")
    .platformContext(true)
    .applicationContext(true);

Application context

The application context entity contains two properties:

Property	Type	Description	Required in schema
version	String	Version number of the application e.g 1.1.0	Yes
build	String	Build name of the application e.g s9f2k2d or 1.1.0 beta	Yes

Platform (mobile) context

The platform context entity contains the following properties:

Property	Type	Android	iOS	Description	Required in schema
osType	String	✅	✅	Type of the operating system (e.g., "ios", "tvos", "watchos", "osx", "android")	Yes
osVersion	String	✅	✅	Version of the mobile operating system	Yes
deviceManufacturer	String	✅	✅	Device vendor	Yes
deviceModel	String	✅	✅	Model of the device	Yes
carrier	String	✅	✅	Carrier of the SIM inserted in the device	No
networkType	String	✅	✅	One of: "mobile", "wifi", "offline"	No
networkTechnology	String	✅	✅	Radio access technology that the device is using	No
openIdfa	String	❌	❌	Deprecated property	No
appleIdfa	String	❌	✅	Advertising identifier on iOS	No
appleIdfv	String	❌	✅	UUID identifier for vendors on iOS	No
androidIdfa	String	✅	❌	Advertising identifier on Android	No
physicalMemory	Integer	✅	✅	Total physical system memory in bytes	No
systemAvailableMemory	Integer	✅	❌	Available memory on the system in bytes	No
appAvailableMemory	Integer	❌	❌	Amount of memory in bytes available to the current app	No
batteryLevel	Integer	✅	✅	Remaining battery level as an integer percentage of total battery capacity	No
batteryState	String	✅	✅	Battery state for the device. One of: "unplugged", "charging", "full"	No
lowPowerMode	Boolean	❌	✅	A Boolean indicating whether Low Power Mode is enabled	No
availableStorage	Integer	✅	❌	Bytes of storage remaining	No
totalStorage	Integer	✅	❌	Total size of storage in bytes	No
isPortrait	Boolean	✅	✅	A Boolean indicating whether the device orientation is portrait (either upright or upside down)	No
resolution	String	✅	✅	Screen resolution in pixels. Arrives in the form of WIDTHxHEIGHT (e.g., 1200x900). Doesn't change when device orientation changes. See note below.	No
scale	Number	✅	✅	Scale factor used to convert logical coordinates to device coordinates of the screen (uses UIScreen.scale on iOS and DisplayMetrics.density on Android)	No
language	String	✅	✅	System language currently used on the device (ISO 639)	No
appSetId	String	✅	❌	Android vendor ID scoped to the set of apps published under the same Google Play developer account (see https://developer.android.com/training/articles/app-set-id)	No
appSetIdScope	String (either "app" or "developer")	✅	❌	Scope of the appSetId. Can be scoped to the app or to a developer account on an app store (all apps from the same developer on the same device will have the same ID)	No

Android screen resolution

The screen resolution for the platform entity is obtained from the Android context resources. The height value will likely be lower than that reported in the canonical dvce_screenheight event property, which is fetched from WindowManager, an older API that still includes the menu bar.

To standardize the screen resolution between event and entity properties, provide a SubjectConfiguration with useContextResourcesScreenResolution(true) flag at tracker initialization. This flag is false by default, and available from Android tracker v6.0.3 onwards. Read about configuring Subject properties here.

Choosing which properties to track

You can choose which properties should be added to the platform context entity. By default, all available properties are tracked in the entity. In case you don't want certain properties to be tracked, you can choose the ones to track using TrackerConfiguration.platformContextEntities:

iOS

let trackerConfig = TrackerConfiguration()
    .platformContextProperties([.batteryLevel, .isPortrait, .language])

Android (Kotlin)

val trackerConfig = TrackerConfiguration("appId")
     .platformContextProperties(listOf(PlatformContextProperty.BATTERY_LEVEL, PlatformContextProperty.IS_PORTRAIT))

Android (Java)

TrackerConfiguration trackerConfig = new TrackerConfiguration("appId")
    .platformContextProperties(Collections.singletonList(PlatformContextProperty.BATTERY_LEVEL, PlatformContextProperty.IS_PORTRAIT));

Overriding platform context properties

In case you want to override the values for certain properties of the platform context (or provide ones that are not tracked by default, such as the totalStorage on iOS), you can set the platformContextRetriever in TrackerConfiguration to provide these values.

iOS

let trackerConfig = TrackerConfiguration()
    .platformContextRetriever(
        PlatformContextRetriever(deviceVendor: { "my-custom-vendor" })
    )

Android (Kotlin)

val trackerConfiguration = TrackerConfiguration("appId")
    .platformContextRetriever(
        PlatformContextRetriever(deviceVendor = { "my-custom-vendor" })
    )

Android (Java)

PlatformContextRetriever platformContextRetriever = new PlatformContextRetriever();
platformContextRetriever.setDeviceVendor(() -> "my-custom-vendor");
TrackerConfiguration trackerConfiguration = new TrackerConfiguration("appId")
    .platformContextRetriever(platformContextRetriever);

Identifier for Advertisers (IDFA/AAID)

The IDFA advertising identifiers are only added to the platform context if you fulfill the following requirements. Otherwise, their values will be NULL.

iOS

The Apple advertising identifier is stored in the appleIdfa property.

Starting with iOS 14, one has to request user consent through the App Tracking Transparency framework in order to access the advertising identifier.

1. Add and follow the guidelines of App Tracking Transparency Framework in your app.
2. Pass a callback to your TrackerConfiguration that retrieves the identifier:

import AdSupport

let tracker = Snowplow.createTracker(namespace: "ns", network: networkConfig) {
    TrackerConfiguration()
        .advertisingIdentifierRetriever {
            ASIdentifierManager.shared().advertisingIdentifier
        }
}

note

The simulators can’t generate a proper IDFA, instead they generate a sequence of zeros. If you want to test IDFA with a real code, please use the physical device.

The user has the ability to limit ad-tracking from the device’s Settings. If the user enable the limitations the tracker will not be able to track the IDFA.

Android

The AAID (Android Advertising ID) is a unique user-resettable identifier, which uniquely identifies a particular user for advertising use cases, such as ad personalization. The tracker allows retrieval of the AAID, sending it as property androidIdfa.

For privacy purposes the user can reset the identifier at any moment. In that case the tracker will report a new AAID, despite the device and user being the same as before. Also, the user can "Opt out of Ads Personalisation" from the Android settings menu. In that case the tracker will report an empty string in place of the AAID.

If you want to track the AAID, you need to add the Google Mobile Ads library to your app. If it isn’t included, the tracker will not send the AAID with the events.

The Google Mobile Ads can be imported in the dependencies section of the build.gradle adding:

dependencies {
    ...
    implementation 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-ads:22.6.0'
    ...
}

The Google Mobile Ads SDK v.17.0.0 introduced some changes requiring a tag in the androidManifest.xml explained below.

Manifest tag for AdMob publishers

AdMob publishers have to add the AdMob app ID in the AndroidManifest.xml file:

<manifest>
    <application>
        <!-- TODO: Replace with your real AdMob app ID -->
        <meta-data
            android:name="com.google.android.gms.ads.APPLICATION_ID"
            android:value="ca-app-pub-################~##########"/>
    </application>
</manifest>

Failure to add this tag will result in the app crashing at app launch with a message starting with "The Google Mobile Ads SDK was initialized incorrectly".

Manifest tag for Google Ad Manager publishers

Publishers using Google Ad Manager have to declare the app an "Ad Manager app" in the AndroidManifest.xml file:

<manifest>
    <application>
        <meta-data
            android:name="com.google.android.gms.ads.AD_MANAGER_APP"
            android:value="true"/>
    </application>
</manifest>

Failure to add this tag will result in the app crashing at app launch with a message starting with "The Google Mobile Ads SDK was initialized incorrectly".

Read more about Google Play Data safety here.

App set ID (Android only)

To identify a set of apps owned by an organization, Google provides the app set ID. Read more about it here.

An extra dependency is required to populate the Android-specific properties appSetId and appSetIdScope within the platform context entity.

dependencies {
    ...
    implementation 'com.google.android.gms:play-services-appset:16.0.2'
    ...
}