question

Hi @drew,

>> What's the best workflow for onboarding new users with the least friction, but allowing for IAPs to be purchased as well as having those IAPs linked to a permanent account? What is the best workflow that people are using for a socially driven game?

You can use an anonymous login mechanism (using Device ID) to provide a frictionless experience when a new player joins your game for the first time, after this, you should guide the players to recoverable login systems especially when he/she wants to make some purchases because both you and the player don’t want to lose a paid account. You can navigate to this doc for more details: Login basics and best Practices.

>> Would it be to have the user login using GameCenter, and then create an account from there? This way their PlayFab account was linked permanently to the Apple account? Or should I use DeviceID?

In fact, Game Center is considered an insecure login mechanism, and you should use it with extreme care (or not at all). More details can be found in here: Insecure recoverable login mechanisms. Therefore, using DeviceID first and then add some recoverable credentials is a better approach.

>> I suppose the disadvantage to DeviceID is that if the user loses their phone, they would lose access to their account. This means IAP would be unrecoverable. Does this mean that I need to use Game Center?

Like I mentioned above, you should guide the players to recoverable login mechanisms and provide some explanation regarding the benefits when they want to pay for some contents.