ubiquityIdentityToken vs. CKContainer accountStatusWithCompletionHandler

Question

Which method is better to decide which user is logged in?

let ubiquityIdentityToken = NSFileManager.defaultManager().ubiquityIdentityToken

returns a token, and client can compare wether it is the same than last time. The advantage that it returns token if device is offline too.

accountStatusWithCompletionHandler returns only a status value, but not an ID or token about who is logged in. So in offline mode it is useless.

Am I right?

My other problem, that sometimes even user is logged in and online ubiquityIdentityToken returns nil.

How do you retrieve user ID at launch?

Answer 1

If you're using CloudKit then the CKContainer accountStatusWithCompletionHandler method is how you should check whether the user is logged into iCloud or not (supported since iOS 8.0). The CloudKit Quick Start shows an example of how to use it.

fetchUserRecordIDWithCompletionHandler is how you should get the user's record ID, which is scoped to that CloudKit container but the same for that iCloud account across devices.

In iOS 9.0, you'll also have CKAccountChangeNotification, which will notify your app when the iCloud status on the device changes.