iOS App Analytics a Necessary Evil, or Maybe Just an Evil

I have yet to see an iOS project where implementing client-side analytics (page loads, event logging, behavior tracking) wasn’t unspeakably awful to implement. A litany of sins:

And these are just the problems with implementation details. Let’s not forget how morally and/or legally perilous the entire enterprise is, stockpiling user data without regard for its half-life — which is effectively infinite — or for all the incalculable damage that can be done in five, ten, twenty years when Faild Strtup Dotcom goes bellyup and all it’s data gets dumped onto the lap of the highest bidder.

There are many reasons to just abandon this foul mess, and only one indestructible, immovable reason not to: you can’t run a business if you don’t know what your customers want. We all understand this dilemma, but understanding it doesn’t make it any easier to stomach.

|  19 Mar 2019