Before, Zuckerberg had advised Facebook employees not to use iPhones although the claimed was said to have a valid reasons.
But now Apple might be backfiring by blocking the social network’s internal-use only application from it’s app store making the company’s employees for example to be blanked out because Apple had revoked Facebook’s Enterprise Certificate.
In a report by Bloomberg’s Sarah Frier who confirmed that the lock-out impacts transportation, product testing and other functions. That likely means no software updates to its iOS apps and loss of productivity for the time being.
Facebook confirms that ALL its employee-only internal iOS apps (the apps testing every product in the works, as well as internal employee resource apps, for transportation etc) are offline. They say they're trying to negotiate with Apple right now.
— Sarah Frier (@sarahfrier) January 30, 2019
While Facebook and it’s sister applications such as WhatsApp and Instagram are all available on the Apple’s App store, Reports came that Facebook’s distribution of a VPN app called “Research” that was seeded to beta program recruitment sites like Applause and BetaBound. The app collected all device and internet traffic data including private messages and geolocation.
Now the revoke of certificate came when Beta testers were made to use the App Store’s Enterprise Certificate which was intended for members of a designated organization and for app internal use only.
This violation had caused Apple to revoke the certificate and therefore those enterprise based solution won’t work again for Facebook employees who are officially working with the company.
In 2017, Facebook shut down its public data-collecting VPN app, Onavo, when the App Store began requiring app publishers to post privacy policies within their products.
The renegotiation Facebbok is having with Apple is to reinstate it’s revoked license so that it’s employees can use those privileges to utilise the App Store’s updating features.
This afternoon, the company reported operating income of $6.88 billion for the fourth quarter, about $1 billion above market forecasts. FB shares are up by more than 12 percent at press time on that news.