Snapchat on an iPhone. (credit: Maurizio Pesce )

Social media company Snap (which runs Snapchat) and game development software company Unity have joined Facebook in warning their investors that Apple's imminent ad-tracking change will negatively impact their businesses.

As previously reported, Apple plans to use the next iOS update (iOS 14.5, due out in early spring) to implement a requirement that all apps on the platform gain user opt-in to track users with IDFA (ID for Advertisers) tags. IDFA tags are used to track what users do across multiple apps in order to target advertising more effectively.

Social media giant Facebook has told its own investors that the coming change to Apple's operating system could very negatively impact its advertising revenue, because this kind of tracking-based ad targeting is one of Facebook's main ingredients for success.

Enlarge / Apple CEO Tim Cook delivers a speech on privacy at a virtual conference. (credit: CPDP )

Today, Apple announced plans to finally roll out its previously delayed change in policy on apps' use of IDFA (ID for Advertisers) to track users for targeted advertising. The feature will be in the next beta release of iOS 14 (the company just rolled out the public release of iOS 14.4 this week) and will reach all iOS devices supported by iOS 14 "in early spring."

Apple made the announcement with a white paper and Q&A targeted at its users. To illustrate the benefits Apple claims the change will offer to users, the document describes in detail a typical scenario where a father and daughter would have data about them tracked and updated while doing normal, everyday things in the current digital ecosystem.

Apple's document goes on to explain Apple's stated philosophy on user data protection and privacy, and it announces the release window for this upcoming change. The document explains the change this way: