How to Prepare for Apple’s UIWebView Deprecation

We wanted to provide guidance in light of Apple’s recent notification that the App Store will begin rejecting submissions of apps using UIWebView.

The Timeline of Events

• In June 2018, Apple announced their intent to deprecate a class called UIWebView.
• As of August 29, 2019, Apple began informing developers that they would stop accepting App Store submissions of apps using UIWebView.
• Apple did not provide a concrete timeline for implementing this change in policy, but with this recent notification, we wanted to make sure you are prepared for when it does take effect.

UIWebView: What is it and How Does it Relate to Branch?

UIWebView is an embedded browser used by iOS apps to display web content and has long been used by many SDKs, on the market, including Branch and TUNE’s iOS SDKs. Starting with the Branch iOS SDK version 0.28.0 and TUNE iOS SDK version 6.2.0, Branch no longer uses UIWebView. 

Your Next Steps

We strongly recommend upgrading to a new version of the SDK at your earliest convenience.

Since Apple has not provided a timeline for when they would stop accepting apps using UIWebView, this is not urgent, but it is important that you either make this change or are prepared to make this change.

This is also a way to get ahead of staying compliant with the launch of iOS 13.

Further Notes

Older versions of the SDK will continue to function normally. Therefore, attribution should not be impacted for end users who haven’t updated to the newest version of your app, and are thus using a version with an older version of the Branch SDK — even if the user upgrades to iOS 13.

It is our commitment to provide customer updates as Apple shares more concrete information.

Please reach out by contacting our support team if you have further questions.