[liampronan]

I've never gotten a chance to try out CloudKit but it has always looked pretty cool to me, especially after previous experiences with Parse. However, it seems like it'd reallllly tie the app developer in to iOS -- e.g., let's say I launch on iOS, how do I handle Android and/or web? I understand a lot of apps go iOS-first/focused, but to tie your entire backend to Apple is a bit much (unless you have no plans to expand beyond the CloudKit offerings). From a quick Google search, it seems like there is a JS implementation but I don't see an easy way on Android. This might work great for iOS-specific apps but seems like a bit too much risk vs. other, cross-platform solutions. I do appreciate how the free tier scales with number of users -- think that's a cool approach.

Having said the above, I've always wondered why Apple doesn't have an iOS SDK for user-auth (or if they do, why isn't it more prevalent outside of the Game Center stuff). I'd much prefer to one-touch sign up for an app using FaceId (if needed/user-approved, the app could access user info, like email), then have to signup with an email/username or use another 3rd party like Google. This is especially perplexing to me after the addition of the iOS password manager (https://www.cnet.com/how-to/how-to-use-ios-11s-password-auto...) -- I think it'd be more compelling to offer password management behind the scenes in iOS (e.g, sign up with FaceId and have credentials generated/stored in password manager for off-device access; this could also encourage iOS generated passwords). There's a large chance I'm overlooking something here though, so who knows.