What is “Keys” in Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles section of Apple Dev center

Question

Today I noticed a new section named "Keys." I don't know which services uses this? Anybody have any idea? Or I'm the beta user to see this?

Answer 1

I noticed it also quite recently and used it right away for push notification configuration of a 3rd party service. In my case I created a key and then added it to the Visual Studio Mobile Center push notification configuration site along with the BundleID and the TeamID. Additional to this you still have to configure Push Notification on your App Identifier in the corresponding section. It looks like the keys here are a new and more convenient way for passing push authentication info like the PEM files before. But can't actually find and official docs on this topic by Apple :( by now.

Answer 2

Found this info https://developer.clevertap.com/docs/how-to-create-an-ios-apns-auth-key

If you'd like to send push notifications to your iOS users, you will need to upload either an APNs Push Certificate, or an APNs Auth Key.

We recommend that you create and upload an APNs Auth Key for the following reasons:

No need to re-generate the push certificate every year One auth key can be used for all your apps – this avoids the complication of maintaining different certificates When sending push notifications using an APNs Auth Key, we require the following information about your app:

Auth Key file Team ID Your app's bundle ID

This sounds like a convenient way to send APN as no need to keep renew annually, but the 1 key is used for all your apps and the p8 file can only be downloaded once after generated. Not sure if the APN still work if I delete the key afterward.

Answer 3

Keys are used for a variety of Apple services. Here's a screenshot: