I am currently building a screen time app and I am trying to figure out how to persist the family activity picker so that when my app closes and re-opens, the app selections in it are saved. I've successfully implemented core data and figured out how to store names of the selected apps in a list like this - Core Data addApp Function - func addApp(name: String, context: NSManagedObjectContext){ let newApp = AppToken(context: context) newApp.bundleIdentifier = name saveData(context: context) } Adding app selections to Core Data (after the family activity picker has updated the selection) - .onChange(of: model.selectionToDiscourage) { for i in model.selectionToDiscourage.applications { print(i) dataController.addApp(name:i.localizedDisplayName ?? "Temp", context: moc) } Printing saved selections in a list (bundleIdentifier is my attribute for my appToken entity, but I am just pulling the names here. For whatever reason all of them end up being Temp" as shown above anyway. In other words name:i.localizedDisplayName is not working and Temp is shown in the list for every app chosen) - if dataController.savedSelection.isEmpty { Text("No Apps Selected") .foregroundColor(.gray) } else { List(dataController.savedSelection, id: \.self) { app in Text(app.bundleIdentifier ?? "Unknown App") } .scrollContentBackground(.hidden) } So, when my app closes and reopens, the list of app names persists. Now, my issue is figuring out how to write back to selectionToDiscourage and loading the family activity picker with those saved apps. I have no idea if I should be doing this a different way and if using Core Data is overkill, but I cannot figure out how it's syntactically possible to write back to this family activity picker when the app reopens - .familyActivityPicker(isPresented: $isPresented, selection:$model.selectionToDiscourage) Thank you to whoever takes a look at this!!

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?

STEPS TO REPRODUCE Install the application “Dynamic-Lyrics" develop by me, which the bundle ID is com.bing.lyrics (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/id6476125287) Use this APP for a period of time Go to Settings - Screen Time - See All App & Website Activity I found that the name and icon displayed in Screen Time are incorrect. The expectation is: “Dynamic-Lyrics", but the actual display is "com.microsoft.bing" The guess is that the bundle ID contains the characters com.bing (bing is my name) and is incorrectly recognized as microsoft’s app.

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

I'm using ShieldActionExtention to make a HTTP request to a server when a user selects one of the buttons on their app shield. The apps are shielded, but nothing happens when I press one of the shield buttons. There is no message on the server signaling an HTTP request and nothing is printed to the XCode console while in debug mode. Here is my code for my Shield Action Extention // ShieldActionExtension.swift // ShieldAction // // import Foundation import UIKit import SwiftUI import ManagedSettings // Override the functions below to customize the shield actions used in various situations. // The system provides a default response for any functions that your subclass doesn't override. // Make sure that your class name matches the NSExtensionPrincipalClass in your Info.plist. class ShieldActionExtension: ShieldActionDelegate { override func handle(action: ShieldAction, for application: ApplicationToken, completionHandler: @escaping (ShieldActionResponse) -> Void) { print(action) let deviceID = UserDefaults.standard.string(forKey: UserDefaultKeys.userID.rawValue)! Task{ do{ print("sending to server") try await PlayerLosesGame(playerID: deviceID) completionHandler(.close) } catch { print("error occured on the shield") completionHandler(.none) } } } override func handle(action: ShieldAction, for webDomain: WebDomainToken, completionHandler: @escaping (ShieldActionResponse) -> Void) { print(action) let deviceID = UserDefaults.standard.string(forKey: UserDefaultKeys.userID.rawValue)! Task{ do{ print("sending to server") try await PlayerLosesGame(playerID: deviceID) completionHandler(.close) } catch { print("error occured on the shield") completionHandler(.none) } } } override func handle(action: ShieldAction, for category: ActivityCategoryToken, completionHandler: @escaping (ShieldActionResponse) -> Void) { print(action) let deviceID = UserDefaults.standard.string(forKey: UserDefaultKeys.userID.rawValue)! Task{ do{ print("sending to server") try await PlayerLosesGame(playerID: deviceID) completionHandler(.close) } catch { print("error occured on the shield") completionHandler(.none) } } //completionHandler(.close) } func PlayerLosesGame(playerID: String) async throws{ let url = URL(string: ServerConnection.GetWebsite() + "game/find?playerID="+playerID)! var request = URLRequest(url: url) request.httpMethod = "GET" print("trying this out") let (data, _) = try await URLSession.shared.data(for: request) } } I believe all my targets are set up correctly and should be working. Why is nothing happening?

My screen time report says that I’m on Google an average of 24 hrs and 4 minutes a day. How is this possible? I can’t be on Google more than 10 minutes a day let alone 24 hrs. I think it’s probably tracking whatever Google does when I’m not in the app or on the cite as part of screen time, but I can’t get it to stop. Are other people having this issue? How do I stop this so I can see my real screen time?

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

Hi everyone, I’m working on my submission for the Swift Student Challenge and need some advice. I already have an existing app that’s live on the App Store, and I’d like to use the same app for my submission. However, while creating the App Playground, I noticed that I’m unable to create additional targets. This is problematic because my app relies heavily on specific targets like ShieldAction, ShieldConfiguration, and DeviceActivityMonitor. Without these targets, the app’s core functionality won’t work as intended. Is there a known limitation or workaround for this? How can I submit my app’s functionality within the constraints of the App Playground? Thanks in advance for your help!

I'm a complete newbie to Swift and app development, but I'm playing around with an idea that uses the ScreenTime API. Some of the articles (and AI) mention that you need to request access through Apple to use this, but based on my research it seems like this is a bit outdated. Can anyone provide a clear answer here + any resources you've used to navigate this? The documentation is pretty sparse. Thank you in advance!

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.

Our app uses a 24-hour DeviceActivityMonitor repeating schedule to send users notifications for every hour of screen time they spend on their phone per day. Notifications are sent from eventDidReachThreshold callbacks at 1, 2, 3, etc, hour thresholds to keep them aware of their screen time. We have recently received an influx of emails from our users that after updating to iOS 17.6.1 their DeviceActivityMonitor notifications are saying their screen time was much higher than what is shown in DeviceActivityReport and their device's Screen Time settings. These users have disabled "Share Across Devices" - but I suspect the DeviceActivityMonitor is still getting screen time from their other devices even though that setting is turned off. Has anybody else noticed this, understands what is causing this, or could recommend a fix that we can tell our users to do?

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.

Hello I am wondering how and if it even is possible to grab the amount of times a user has opened a specific app. Of course these apps will be selected for tracking by the user through the FamilyControls API, but is it possible to then list those selected apps and their amount of openings? I know Screen Time API is very strict with giving developers control of this information outside of just displaying a view so I don't know if this is possible. I saw that DeviceActivityData.ApplicationActivity has a value called "numberOfPickups" but I'm not sure how to access that value and display it in my app. Thank you

I made this strange discover yesterday. MacOS 15.2 beta 3, Macbook Pro 2020 One one member and one device, no family sharing or more devices included. Ideas?

I am getting this error when I try to show device activity report view by this DeviceActivityReport(appsContext, filter: filter) Attempt to map database failed: permission was denied. This attempt will not be retried. I have taken access by this way. AuthorizationCenter.shared.requestAuthorization(for: .individual)

Hi everyone, I've been going through the forums and documentation, but I'm still unsure about how the Screen Time API works or whether it can achieve what I have in mind. Specifically, I want to display the current screen time value on a widget. Additionally, I’d like to use that screen time value for some calculations and represent the results in a different way within the widget. I’d really appreciate any guidance or insights. Thanks in advance! 😊

I applied for the Family Controls (Distribution) entitlement on November 22nd. But I never received a confirmation email after I submitted the request. I then reached out to support who said they would check with the internal team to at least confirm if I had applied. It's now been 20 days and I have received no updates on the status of my application. This entitlement is existential to my app and I have been completely blocked while waiting for this as I can't even distribute the app on TestFlight. I've considered reapplying again just to be safe, but I am worried that might make things worse. I am a bootstrapped solo founder, and a prolonged delay (or outright denial) of this entitlement would be devastating to me. Does anyone have any advice on where to go from here?

Hello, we are building an app to limit children's screen time and using Screen Time API. We found bug on the screen where the user selects app category and apps, if the user selects Other category, the screen will crash (he will be empty, but if you reload screen, it will show apps again as usual). We hope that Apple will fix it someday, but we are trying to notify our users about this problem, and the problem is that we don't know what the user selects on Apple screen with apps till the user clicks Save or Done. But we need to notify him either when he clicks on the Other category or when he faces crash of this screen. We want to show a pop-up to user with explanation why screen crashed.

When I use the screen time API, the app occasionally crashes in the morning. I mean the UI freeze lasts for more than ten seconds. But the weird thing is that I work normally during the day, that is, in the morning, when I just woke up. (There is no Do Not Disturb mode). This problem has been bothering me for several days, please help. The specific crash log is as follows, and the specific code is as follows. Model: iPhone 15 Pro, iOS: 18.1.1 Thanks for your help! Code: private func startAppMonitoring(application: ApplicationToken, seconds: Int, isFromNow: Bool) { let schedule = DeviceActivitySchedule( intervalStart: isFromNow ? Calendar.current.dateComponents([.hour, .minute, .second], from: Date()) : DateComponents(timeZone: TimeZone(identifier:TimeZone.current.identifier), hour: 0, minute: 0, second: 0), intervalEnd: DateComponents(timeZone: TimeZone(identifier:TimeZone.current.identifier), hour: 23, minute: 58, second: 59), repeats: true, warningTime: DateComponents(minute: 1) ) let event = DeviceActivityEvent( applications: Set([application]), threshold: DateComponents(second: seconds) ) let center = DeviceActivityCenter() do { try center.startMonitoring(DeviceActivityName("\(application.hashValue)Usage"), during: schedule, events: [DeviceActivityEvent.Name("\(application.hashValue)Event"): event]) } catch { print("Error starting monitoring schedule: \(error)") } } Crash report: