I'm creating an app which gamifies Screen Time reduction. I'm running into an issue with apples Screen Time setting where the user can disable my apps "Screen Time access" and get around losing the game.
Is there a way to detect when this setting is disabled for my app? I've tried using AuthorizationCenter.shared.authorizationStatus but this didn't do the trick. Does anyone have an ideas?
Screen Time
RSS for tagShare and manage web-usage data, and observe changes made to Screen Time settings by a parent or guardian.
Posts under Screen Time tag
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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 want to display device activity reports for particular selected apps. for getting a daily basis app uses time. Now, what is happening? there are 10 apps selected from the family activity picker but some apps are displayed in the list. I need all 10 apps or more that I will choose from the family activity picker. The bellow code is used for fetching reports.
var body: some View {
VStack {
DeviceActivityReport(context, filter: filter)
}
}
bellow code is used for the filter
@State public var filter = DeviceActivityFilter()
init(selectedApps: Set<ApplicationToken>, selectedCategories: Set<ActivityCategoryToken>, selectedWebDomains: Set<WebDomainToken>) {
self.selectedApps = selectedApps
self.selectedCategories = selectedCategories
self.selectedWebDomains = selectedWebDomains
self.filter = DeviceActivityFilter(
segment: .daily(
during: Calendar.current.dateInterval(
of: .weekOfYear, for: .now
)!
),
users: .all,
devices: .init([.iPhone]),
applications: selectedApps,
categories: selectedCategories,
webDomains: selectedWebDomains
)
}
You can see we selected 3 apps from family activity picker but we getting 2 apps from DeviceActivityReport extension
following code is for device activity report extension
let context: DeviceActivityReport.Context = .totalActivity
// Define the custom configuration and the resulting view for this report.
let content: (ActivityReport) -> TotalActivityView
func makeConfiguration(representing data: DeviceActivityResults<DeviceActivityData>) async -> ActivityReport {
// Reformat the data into a configuration that can be used to create
// the report's view.
var res = ""
var list: [AppDeviceActivity] = []
let totalActivityDuration = await data.flatMap { $0.activitySegments }.reduce(0, {
$0 + $1.totalActivityDuration
})
for await d in data {
res += d.user.appleID!.debugDescription
res += d.lastUpdatedDate.description
for await a in d.activitySegments{
res += a.totalActivityDuration.formatted()
for await c in a.categories {
for await ap in c.applications {
if let apptoken = ap.application.token {
let appName = (ap.application.localizedDisplayName ?? "nil")
let bundle = (ap.application.bundleIdentifier ?? "nil")
let duration = ap.totalActivityDuration
let numberOfPickups = ap.numberOfPickups
let app = AppDeviceActivity(appToken: apptoken, id: bundle, displayName: appName, duration: duration, numberOfPickups: numberOfPickups)
list.append(app)
}
}
}
}
}
return ActivityReport(totalDuration: totalActivityDuration, apps: list)
}
I’m developing a self-management app using Family Controls, but I’ve encountered a FamilyActivityPciker's crash due to an XPC(or UIRemoteView) issue when there are too many tokens(maybe 200+ items) in a category. This makes bad UX, so I’m looking for a workaround.
(I guess that the crash reason is cross process memory limitations, such as App Extension 50MB memory limitation.)
A lot of web domains contribute to increase the number of tokens, However, even after clearing Safari’s browsing history, the tokens displayed in the FamilyActivityPicker remains unchanged.
Is there any workaround that a 3rd party developer can implement to address this issue? prevent FamilyActivityPicker crashes or reduce the number of web domain tokens?
For example, if there’s a way to reset the web domain tokens shown in FamilyActivityPicker from the Settings app, I could offer a help to users.
Does anybody have ideas?
Expanding SNS Category (29 items)
It succeeded.
Expanding Productivity & Finance (214 items)
It failed. The screen froze, then appears blank. When the number of items is around 100, the crash rate is 50%, but when the items are over 200, the crash rate is 100%.
Search Bar Problem
The search bar also has same problem. If the number of search results are small, it works good without any blank, but if there are a lot of search results (200+), the XCP crashes and the screen appears blank.
Code to Reproduce
import SwiftUI
import FamilyControls
struct ContentView: View {
@State private var selection = FamilyActivitySelection()
@State private var isPickerPresented: Bool = false
var body: some View {
VStack {
Button("Open Picker") {
isPickerPresented = true
}
}
.familyActivityPicker(isPresented: $isPickerPresented, selection: $selection)
}
}
Steps to Reproduce
Prepare a category that has 200+ items
Try to open the category in the picker
The screen will freeze, then appears blank.
Errors in Console
[u EDD60B83-5D2A-5446-B2C7-57D47C937916:m (null)] [com.apple.FamilyControls.ActivityPickerExtension(1204)] Connection to plugin interrupted while in use.
AX Lookup problem - errorCode:1100 error:Permission denied portName:'com.apple.iphone.axserver' PID:2164 (
0 AXRuntime 0x00000001d46c5f08 _AXGetPortFromCache + 796
1 AXRuntime 0x00000001d46ca23c AXUIElementPerformFencedActionWithValue + 700
2 UIKit 0x0000000256b75cec C01ACC79-A5BA-3017-91BD-A03759576BBF + 1527020
3 libdispatch.dylib 0x000000010546ca30 _dispatch_call_block_and_release + 32
4 libdispatch.dylib 0x000000010546e71c _dispatch_client_callout + 20
5 libdispatch.dylib 0x00000001054765e8 _dispatch_lane_serial_drain + 828
6 libdispatch.dylib 0x0000000105477360 _dispatch_lane_invoke + 408
7 libdispatch.dylib 0x00000001054845f0 _dispatch_root_queue_drain_deferred_wlh + 328
8 libdispatch.dylib 0x0000000105483c00 _dispatch_workloop_worker_thread + 580
9 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x0000000224f77c7c _pthread_wqthread + 288
10 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x0000000224f74488 start_wqthread + 8
)
Error acquiring assertion: <Error Domain=RBSAssertionErrorDomain Code=2 "Specified target process does not exist" UserInfo={NSLocalizedFailureReason=Specified target process does not exist}>
When I tap on one of the buttons in the ShieldAction extension I want to close the shield and open the parent app instead of the shielded app. Is there any way of doing this using the Screen Time API?
class ShieldActionExtension: ShieldActionDelegate {
override func handle(action: ShieldAction, for application: ApplicationToken, completionHandler: @escaping (ShieldActionResponse) -> Void) {
// Handle the action as needed.
let store = ManagedSettingsStore()
switch action {
case .primaryButtonPressed:
//TODO - open parent app
completionHandler(.defer)
case .secondaryButtonPressed:
//remove shield
store.shield.applications?.remove(application)
completionHandler(.defer)
@unknown default:
fatalError()
}
}
}
Topic:
App & System Services
SubTopic:
General
Tags:
Managed Settings
Family Controls
Device Activity
Screen Time
After transferring the App ownership to a different account, if you update the app on iOS, two identical apps will show up in Settings > Screen Time. Users can't control the blocking settings from before the update - the only fix is to restart the phone.
After the next execution of manageStore.shield.applications, users still can't manually disable the restrictions - their only option is to uninstall and reinstall the app. I believe this is related to how Screen Time API's authentication works - it's not just tied to the app's bundle ID, but also linked to the developer account's organization ID. Any suggestions for a clean solution that would allow smooth app updates after the transfer without running into these issues?
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 :)
Topic:
Code Signing
SubTopic:
Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles
Tags:
Screen Time
Device Activity
Entitlements
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?
Topic:
App & System Services
SubTopic:
General
Tags:
Network
Family Controls
Managed Settings
Screen Time
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
Topic:
App & System Services
SubTopic:
General
Tags:
Family Controls
Device Activity
Managed Settings
Screen Time
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.
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