Mobile Device = None on App

[YingLiuOptum]

Hi team,

Want to bounce off some ideas with you. We have a very small amount of traffic from our App saying Mobile Device = None.

In theory these are Desktop users, as per https://experienceleague.adobe.com/en/docs/analytics/components/dimensions/mobile-dimensions

What are the other possibilities here?

Could be our testers using app simulators on their desktops?

Could be a WebView experience on the App?

Could be a tracking issue? As the monitor resolutions are pretty low? 

Anything else? 

Thanks all. 

[SamuelPaulPeter]

Yes! “Mobile Device = None” in app data is expected in a few cases, and it doesn’t automatically mean bad data.

The most common reasons are:

> Simulators / emulators
iOS Simulator or Android Emulator often report no concrete device model, so Analytics falls back to None. Very common in test traffic.

> Desktop-hosted app runtimes
Apps running via Electron, Catalyst, or desktop wrappers can appear as “None” because there’s no mobile device signature.

> WebView / hybrid containers
If parts of the app render via WebView and the SDK can’t resolve a device model, Adobe won’t classify it as a mobile device.

> Missing or stripped device headers
If the SDK call lacks OS / device metadata (older SDK, custom network stack, privacy stripping), device lookup fails.

> Internal / QA traffic
The low screen resolutions you’re seeing strongly suggest test environments, not real end users.

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Low resolutions like that might indicate smart watches? I don't know how smart watches might be identified... also what version of the SDK are you running? It's possible that if you are running an older version, the proper identification for these devices aren't available?

You should be able to tell if this is web or app traffic by checking if the calls have an "App Id" (which is a standard dimension that should be set by the app SDK)

[YingLiuOptum]

Thanks Jen. Strangely I didn't see App Id in my dimension, let me ask my implementation team. 

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Double check that the dimension is also added to permissions in the admin console... it may have been an oversight when setting up all the suite permissions.

Edit: particularly if you have curated access rules and didn't just put "All Metrics and Dimensions"

[YingLiuOptum]

Yep thanks Jun, I will check with two implementation teams. My team only looks after the authentication part of user journey, so I need to double check with another implementation team who owns the App journey. 

Maybe that App ID dimension is in their report suite, not mine. 

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Good luck!

Personally, I am not a fan of curating access... everyone has access to all metrics and dimensions in our organization.

It's just tools and permissions to create things like permanent segments / calculated metrics, etc that I curate to ensure that our components list stays organized.

But I know a lot of companies do this different.