What is included in `excludeDeviceCommunications`?

Request for better documentation on this was filed as FB14113991, in case that is useful.

My Take : this flag has almost no documentation, so sharing what's inferable from related APIs.

Based on the naming convention alongside excludeCellularServices, excludeDeviceCommunications most likely scopes out traffic from device-to-device communication frameworks — things like AirDrop, Continuity features (Handoff, Universal Clipboard), and possibly Bluetooth-based device sync — from whatever filtering or tunneling context this flag applies to (network extension or VPN config, presumably).

The practical reason this matters: if you're building a VPN or content filter and this flag isn't set correctly, you may inadvertently route or block local device-to-device traffic that users expect to bypass your tunnel entirely (like Handoff between their iPhone and Mac).

Given how scant the docs are, this seems like a good candidate for a one-on-one with the Networking team if you can grab a slot — the behavior likely has edge cases around Continuity that won't be fully captured in a forum reply.

— Divya Ravi, Senior iOS Engineer

Thankyou for pointing out the missing documentation for excludeDeviceCommunication. We will definitely fix that. Here is the brief description:

If includeAllNetworks is set to YES and this property is set to YES, then network traffic used for communicating with devices connected via USB or Wi-Fi is excluded from the tunnel. For example, Xcode uses a network tunnel to communicate with connected development devices like iPhone, iPad and TV. The default value of this property is YES.