Here is the code that Reto Meier used in the google i/oGoogle I/O presentation this year to get a unique id for the user:
private static String uniqueID = null;
private static final String PREF_UNIQUE_ID = "PREF_UNIQUE_ID";
public synchronized static String id(Context context) {
if (uniqueID == null) {
SharedPreferences sharedPrefs = context.getSharedPreferences(
PREF_UNIQUE_ID, Context.MODE_PRIVATE);
uniqueID = sharedPrefs.getString(PREF_UNIQUE_ID, null);
if (uniqueID == null) {
uniqueID = UUID.randomUUID().toString();
Editor editor = sharedPrefs.edit();
editor.putString(PREF_UNIQUE_ID, uniqueID);
editor.commit();
}
}
return uniqueID;
}
If you couple this with a backup strategy to send preferences to the cloud (also described in Reto's talk, you should have an id that ties to a user and sticks around after the device has been wiped, or even replaced. I plan to use this in analytics going forward (in other words, I have not done that bit yet :).