Our business model is to identify Frauds using our advanced AI/ML model. However, in order to do so we need to collect many device information which seems to be ok according to https://developer.apple.com/app-store/user-privacy-and-data-use/
But it's also prohibited to generate a fingerprint, so I need more clarification here.
Does it mean I can only use the data to identify that a user if either fraud or not but I cannot generate a fingerprint to identify the device?
If so, I can see many SKD in the market that generates Fingerprints like https://fingerprint.com/blog/local-device-fingerprint-ios/
and https://shield.com/?
Device Activity
RSS for tagMonitor web and app usage through custom time windows and events.
Posts under Device Activity tag
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I am able to block apps using FamilyControl and Shield. Unblocking is also simple—just assign nil to store.shield.applications. However, I want to unblock them even when the app is not open.
Use case: Let's say the app allows users to create a session where a particular app is blocked for a specific duration. Once the session starts, the app should remain blocked, and as soon as the session time ends, it should automatically be unblocked.
Please help me with this. Thank you!
After reading Apple documentation (FamilyControls, DeviceActivity, ManagedSettings, ManagedSettingsUI, ScreenTime) and testing the API, I do not find a way to get the child's device apps on the parent device in order to block them or disable them for a certain time.
Is there a way of doing it?
Or can it only be done locally on the child device?
I am developing a parental control app using Apple’s Screen Time API and FamilyControls Framework. My goal is to allow parents to remotely block apps on their child’s device from their own phone. Anyone have any idea how can i do that?
I am developing a parental control app using Apple’s Screen Time API and FamilyControls Framework. My goal is to allow parents to remotely block apps on their child’s device from their own phone. Does anyone have any idea how I can achieve that?
I'm trying to build an app with a DeviceActivityMonitor extension that executes some code after 15 minutes. I can confirm that the extension is set up correctly and that intervalDidStart is executed, but for some reason the intervalDidEnd method never gets called. What I'm doing in both is just registering a local notification.
class DeviceActivityMonitorExtension: DeviceActivityMonitor {
let store = ManagedSettingsStore()
override func intervalDidStart(for activity: DeviceActivityName) {
createPushNotification(
title: "Session activated!",
body: ""
)
super.intervalDidStart(for: activity)
}
override func intervalDidEnd(for activity: DeviceActivityName) {
createPushNotification(
title: "Session ended",
body: ""
)
super.intervalDidEnd(for: activity)
}
private func createPushNotification(title: String, body: String) {
let content = UNMutableNotificationContent()
content.title = title
content.body = body
// Configure the recurring date.
var dateComponents = Calendar.current.dateComponents([.era, .year, .month, .day, .hour, .minute, .second], from: Date().addingTimeInterval(1.0))
dateComponents.calendar = Calendar.current
dateComponents.timeZone = TimeZone.current
// Create the trigger as a repeating event.
let trigger = UNCalendarNotificationTrigger(dateMatching: dateComponents, repeats: false)
let uuidString = UUID().uuidString
let request = UNNotificationRequest(identifier: uuidString, content: content, trigger: trigger)
// Schedule the request with the system.
let notificationCenter = UNUserNotificationCenter.current()
notificationCenter.add(request)
}
}
And this is the method that is starting the monitoring session:
@objc public static func startSession() -> String? {
// Calculate start and end times
let center = DeviceActivityCenter()
let minutes = 15
let startDate = Date().addingTimeInterval(1)
guard let endDate = Calendar.current.date(byAdding: .minute, value: minutes, to: startDate) else {
return "Failed to create end date?"
}
// Create date components and explicitly set the calendar and timeZone
let startComponents = Calendar.current.dateComponents([.era, .year, .month, .day, .hour, .minute, .second], from: startDate)
let endComponents = Calendar.current.dateComponents([.era, .year, .month, .day, .hour, .minute, .second], from: endDate)
// Create schedule
let schedule = DeviceActivitySchedule(
intervalStart: startComponents,
intervalEnd: endComponents,
repeats: false
)
print("Now", Date())
print("Start", startDate, startComponents)
print("End", endDate, endComponents)
print(schedule.nextInterval)
do {
// Use a consistent activity name for our simple implementation
let activity = DeviceActivityName("SimpleSession")
try center.startMonitoring(activity, during: schedule)
return nil
} catch {
return "Failed to start monitoring: \(error)"
}
}
I can confirm my dates & date components make sense with the 4 print statements. Here is the output:
Now 2025-02-12 04:21:32 +0000
Start 2025-02-12 04:21:33 +0000 era: 1 year: 2025 month: 2 day: 11 hour: 20 minute: 21 second: 33 isLeapMonth: false
End 2025-02-12 04:36:33 +0000 era: 1 year: 2025 month: 2 day: 11 hour: 20 minute: 36 second: 33 isLeapMonth: false
Optional(2025-02-12 04:21:33 +0000 to 2025-02-12 04:36:33 +0000)
I get the Session activated! notification but never get the Session ended notification. Half an hour later, I've tried debugging the DeviceActivityCenter by printing out the activities property and can see that it is still there. When I try to print out the nextInterval property on the schedule object i get from calling center.schedule(for:), it returns nil.
I'm running this on an iPhone 8 testing device with developer mode enabled. It has iOS 16.7.10. I'm totally lost as to how to get this to work.
I am developing an app that can help users disable selected apps at a specified time, so that users can get away from their phones and enjoy real life.
Here is my data structure:
extension ActivityModel {
@NSManaged public var id: UUID
@NSManaged public var name: String
@NSManaged public var weeks: Data
@NSManaged public var weekDates: Data
@NSManaged public var appTokens: Data
}
Among them, weeks is of [Bool] type, indicating which weeks from Sunday to Saturday are effective; weekDates is of [[Date,Date]] type, indicating the effective time period; appTokens is of Set type, indicating the selected apps。
At the beginning, I will open a main monitor:
let deviceActivityCenter = DeviceActivityCenter()
do{
try deviceActivityCenter.startMonitoring(
DeviceActivityName(activityModel.id),
during: DeviceActivitySchedule(
intervalStart: DateComponents(hour: 0,minute: 0,second: 0),
intervalEnd: DateComponents(hour: 23,minute: 59,second: 59),
repeats: true
)
)
}catch {
return false
}
Since the time range may be different every day, I will start the sub-monitoring of the day every time the main monitoring starts:
override func intervalDidStart(for activity: DeviceActivityName) {
super.intervalDidStart(for: activity)
if activity.rawValue.hasPrefix("Sub-") {
ActivityModelManager.disableApps(
Tools.getUUIDFromString(activity.rawValue)
)
return
}
let weekIndex = Calendar.current.component(.weekday, from: .now)
let weeks = ActivityModelManager.getWeeks(activity.rawValue)
if weeks[weekIndex] {
let weekDates =
ActivityModelManager.getWeekDates(activity.rawValue)
let deviceActivityCenter = DeviceActivityCenter()
do{
try deviceActivityCenter.startMonitoring(
DeviceActivityName("Sub-" + activityModel.id),
during: DeviceActivitySchedule(
intervalStart: getHourAndMinute(weekDates[weekIndex][0]),
intervalEnd: getHourAndMinute(weekDates[weekIndex][1]),
repeats: false
)
)
}catch {
return
}
}esle {
return
}
}
I will judge whether it is main monitoring or sub monitoring based on the different activity names.
When the sub-monitor starts, I will get the bound application and then disable it:
static func disableApps(_ id : UUID){
let appTokens = ActivityModelManager.getLimitAppById(id)
let name = ManagedSettingsStore.Name(id.uuidString)
let store = ManagedSettingsStore(named: name)
store.shield.applications = appTokens
return
}
When the child monitoring is finished, I resume the application:
static func enableApps(_ id : UUID){
let name = ManagedSettingsStore.Name(id.uuidString)
let store = ManagedSettingsStore(named: name)
store.shield.applications = []
}
The above is my code logic.
When using DeviceActivityMonitorExtension, I found the following problems:
intervalDidStart may be called multiple times, resulting in several sub-monitors being started.
After a period of time, the monitoring is turned off.
The static methods enableApps and disableApps are sometimes not called
The DeviceActivityReport view does not render immediately when added to the view hierarchy. Instead, it requires repeated navigation to the screen hosting the DeviceActivityReport view for it to appear.
Furthermore, there is no programmatic way to determine whether the view is being rendered for the user, leading to an inconsistent and often poor user experience.
I've created a sample project that demonstrates the issue.
As discussed and acknowledged here, there is a known bug with the FamilyActivityPicker. When a user expands a category that contains enough tokens to exceed the 50mb memory limit, the FamilyActivityPicker crashes.
This happens quite frequently for heavy Safari users. An apple engineer mentioned on this thread that WebDomains shown in the picker are present based on the last 30 days of usage data as surfaced by WebKit.
Is there any way a user can clear these WebDomains? Either programatically through our app or any other process we can guide them to as a workaround while this issue is getting fixed?
I am trying to return a SceneView from a DeviceActivityReport. I have my DeviceActivityReportExtension correctly set up and I am able to display a view with text or other UI elements in it, but attempting to return a SceneView as part of the body just won't display. I have this example. When I display this SceneView in my main app, it displays correctly. When I put the same code inside the DeviceActivityReportExtension, the scene does not show up and an error failed to create a gl context appears repeatedly in the console. I'm pretty stumped and would appreciate any suggestions.
import SwiftUI
import SceneKit
struct TestScene: View {
var scene: SCNScene? {
SCNScene(named: "art.scnassets/environment.scn")
}
var cameraNode: SCNNode? {
let cameraNode = SCNNode()
cameraNode.camera = SCNCamera()
cameraNode.position = SCNVector3(x: 0, y: 0, z: 2)
return cameraNode
}
var body: some View {
SceneView(
scene: scene,
pointOfView: cameraNode,
options: [
.allowsCameraControl,
.autoenablesDefaultLighting,
.temporalAntialiasingEnabled
]
)
}
}
Hello Apple development team, I have developed an App for screen time management, which mainly uses ScreenTimeAPI. Users can set certain Apps to be disabled during a certain period of time.
After the App is released, users often report that the settings do not take effect as expected. I have seen many developers on the forum reporting that the DeviceActivityMonitor extension sometimes does not trigger callbacks. Based on this background, I have the following questions:
Is it a known problem that the DeviceActivityMonitor extension sometimes does not trigger callbacks? If so, are there any means to avoid or reduce the probability of occurrence?
In addition to being killed by the system when the running memory exceeds (I just called some ScreenTimeAPI and accessed UserDefaults in the extension, which should not exceed the running memory), under what other circumstances will the DeviceActivityMonitor extension be killed by the system? Will it automatically recover after being killed? Will some callbacks be called when killing?
Does ManagedSettingsStore have a life cycle? How do you avoid conflicts when configuring the underlying operating mechanism of multiple stores?
This is a random problem. I have never encountered it during development and debugging, but users often report it.
thanks
I'm building an app that uses the Screen Time API and DeviceActivityMonitoring Framework. It works when I run the simulator build on iPhone 16 but when I try to launch it on my own iPhone, I get these errors.
Provisioning profile "iOS Team Provisioning Profile: Kanso-
Digital-Wellness.Kanso-v2" doesn't include the com.apple.developer.device-activity.monitoring entitlement.
KansoMonitorExtension 1 issue
x Provisioning profile "iOS Team Provisioning Profile: Kanso-Digital-Wellness.Kanso-v2.KansoMonitorExtension" doesn't include the com.apple.developer.device-activity.monitoring en...
Read something online that said a reboot would fix this, but I tried and no luck. Any ideas?
I'm not very technical, so would pay someone to fix this for me :)
Hey, I’m having some issues with DeviceActivitySchedule and DeviceActivityMonitor. I want to create a schedule that blocks apps (by family control) when it starts. However, even when the schedule is supposed to start on this iPhone, nothing happens, and no logs are being recorded
main target:
// TestView_.swift
// Sloth
//
// Created by on 11/01/2025.
//
import SwiftUI
import DeviceActivity
import FamilyControls
import ManagedSettings
struct TestView_: View {
var body: some View {
VStack(spacing: 20) {
Text("Test DeviceActivityMonitor")
.font(.title)
Button("Start test mon") {
let now = Date()
let start = Calendar.current.date(byAdding: .minute, value: 2, to: now)!
let end = Calendar.current.date(byAdding: .minute, value: 20, to: now)!
print("thd")
DeviceScheduleTester().scheduleTestActivity(startDate: start, endDate: end)
}
}
.padding()
}
}
extension DeviceActivityName {
static let daily = DeviceActivityName("daily")
}
DeviceActivityMonitor:
class DeviceScheduleTester {
private let center = DeviceActivityCenter()
func scheduleTestActivity(startDate: Date, endDate: Date) {
let calendar = Calendar.current
let startComponents = calendar.dateComponents([.hour, .minute], from: startDate)
let endComponents = calendar.dateComponents([.hour, .minute], from: endDate)
// Tworzymy schedule
let schedule = DeviceActivitySchedule(
intervalStart: startComponents,
intervalEnd: endComponents,
repeats: true
)
do {
try center.startMonitoring(.daily, during:schedule)
print("startMonit /(\(schedule))")
} catch {
print("ghfgh")
}
}
}
struct TestView__Previews: PreviewProvider {
static var previews: some View {
TestView_()
}
}
DeviceActivityMonitor target:
// BlockingAppsMonitorExtension
//
// Created by on 10/01/2025.
import DeviceActivity
import FamilyControls
import ManagedSettings
import os
let logger = Logger()
public class BlockingAppsMonitor: DeviceActivityMonitor {
private let store = ManagedSettingsStore()
public override func intervalDidStart(for activity: DeviceActivityName) {
super.intervalDidStart(for: activity)
print("Rozpoczęcie interwału blokowania \(activity.rawValue)")
logger.info("intervalDidStart")
startBlocking()
}
public override func intervalDidEnd(for activity: DeviceActivityName) {
super.intervalDidEnd(for: activity)
print("Zakończenie interwału blokowania \(activity.rawValue)")
logger.info("intervalDidend")
stopBlocking()
}
@discardableResult
private func startBlocking() -> Int {
print("number of unique apps")
return 51
store.shield.applicationCategories = .all()
// return exceptions.count
}
private func stopBlocking() {
store.shield.applicationCategories = nil
store.shield.applications = nil
}
}
INB4:
In both files are added family controls
Secent file is added in DeviceActivityMonitor target.
Apple answer please?
Hello,
In one of our apps we use DeviceActivityReportExtension to show the user how much screen time is remaining. The calculation is working as expected, but we have noticed that the labels in our ScreenTimeBriefReport are not localized to the device language.
Example:
Device with language set to Swedish
App fully translated to English and Swedish
Result:
All labels in app are using the Swedish translations, except the strings in our ScreenTimeBriefReport instance. These labels are using the English localization. I've verified it's using the English localization from our Localizable.xcstrings file.
I tried logging device language from our ScreenTimeBriefReport instance, but I could not see anything in Console.app. I guess this is intentional so no sensitive user information can be extracted.
Is this a known feature or bug? If it's the latter, is there a known workaround?
Sincerely,
César
Hi there,
I am flagging for extra attention that it feels to me that something feels extra off about Screen Time tracking in iOS 18.3 Beta. There's been many days now where I can't reconcile the time spent (it's much higher than expected - by multiple hours).
Feedback is here with an image: FB16270245.
Not sure if happens on Beta 2 - just upgraded.
Am showing daily screen-time of a user in my app in Device Activity Report Extension. The only way to get that is to sum up all the activityDuration of apps/categories/domains. But it differs a lot from phone's settings screen-time, why?
I have debugged in details and counted manually the time spent on each app and it turned out that the calculation is appearing correctly in my app but Phone settings showing quite less time on top (Day).
After setting up all permissions, family members not showing up on the device list
This is more a general question of whether it is possible to share persistent/coredata from the main app to Screentime-related extensions such as DeviceActivityReportExtension.
I've set my code up (e.g., App Groups, files to different targets, using nspersistentcontainer with app group url, etc.) in a way that it builds, and the extension seems to recognize my CoreData schema (able to query using fetchrequest). But the data returned is always null. So i'm wondering if it is even possible to READ app data from the extension.
I understand it is not possible to write or pass data from the extension back to the app. I've also been able to read data that was saved in main app from UserDefaults in my extension.
I am encountering an issue after transferring an app that uses the FamilyControls framework to a different app account. After releasing a new version of the app post-transfer, the following problems arose:
ApplicationTokens obtained in the pre-transfer version no longer function when used with ManagedSettingsGroup.ShieldSettings in the post-transfer version.
Using the same ApplicationTokens with Label(_ applicationToken: ApplicationToken) does not display the app name or icon.
These issues did not occur in the pre-transfer version and everything worked as expected. We suspect that ApplicationTokens obtained prior to the transfer are no longer valid in the updated app released under the new app account.
We are seeking guidance on the following:
Is this expected behavior after transferring an app to another app account?
What steps should we take to ensure that ApplicationTokens obtained before the transfer remain functional in the post-transfer environment?
If these tokens are invalidated due to the transfer, what are the recommended procedures for regenerating or updating ApplicationTokens for existing app users?
Maintaining a seamless user experience after transferring the app is critical. We would greatly appreciate any insights or guidance. Please let us know if additional information or logs would assist in investigating this issue.
Thank you!
I am working on a SwiftUI app using the Screen Time API and the DeviceActivityReport view to display app usage data. My current implementation successfully shows daily app usage using a DeviceActivityFilter with the .daily(during:) segment. However, I need to filter this data to show app usage only for a specific time period during the day, e.g., 4:00 PM to 5:00 PM.
I created a DeviceActivityFilter with a .daily(during:) segment and passed a DateInterval for the desired time range:
let now = Date()
let startTime = calendar.date(bySettingHour: 16, minute: 0, second: 0, of: now)!
let endTime = calendar.date(bySettingHour: 17, minute: 0, second: 0, of: now)!
let timeInterval = DateInterval(start: startTime, end: endTime)
let filter = DeviceActivityFilter(
segment: .daily(during: timeInterval),
users: .all,
devices: .init([.iPhone])
)
I applied this filter to the DeviceActivityReport view:
DeviceActivityReport(context, filter: filter)
Even with the DateInterval set for the specific time range, the report still shows the total daily usage for each app, instead of restricting the results to the specified 1:00 PM to 5:00 PM range.