This was working a few days ago, but it has since stopped and I can't figure out why. I've tried resetting TCC, double-checking my entitlements, restarting, deleting and rebuilding, and nothing works.
My app is a sandboxed macOS SwiftUI LSUIElement app that, when invoked, checks to see if the frontmost process is Terminal, then tries to get the frontmost window’s title.
func
getFrontmostWindowTitle()
throws
-> String?
{
let trusted = AXIsProcessTrusted()
print("getFrontmostWindowTitle AX trusted: \(trusted)")
guard let app = NSWorkspace.shared.frontmostApplication else { return nil }
let appElement = AXUIElementCreateApplication(app.processIdentifier)
var focusedWindow: AnyObject?
let status = AXUIElementCopyAttributeValue(appElement, kAXFocusedWindowAttribute as CFString, &focusedWindow)
guard
status == .success,
let window = focusedWindow
else
{
if status == .cannotComplete
{
throw Errors.needAccessibilityPermission
}
return nil
}
var title: AnyObject?
let titleStatus = AXUIElementCopyAttributeValue(window as! AXUIElement, kAXTitleAttribute as CFString, &title)
guard titleStatus == .success else { return nil }
return title as? String
}
I recently renamed the app, but the Bundle ID has not yet changed. I have com.apple.security.accessibility set to YES in the Entitlements file (although i had to add it manually), and a NSAccessibilityUsageDescription string set in Info.plist.
The first time I ran this, macOS nicely prompted for permission. Now it won't do that, even when I use AXIsProcessTrustedWithOptions() to try to force it.
If I use tccutil to reset accessibility and apple events, it still doesn't prompt. If I drag my app from the build products folder to System Settings, it gets added to the system TCC DB (not the user DB). It shows an auth value of 2 for my app:
% sudo sqlite3 "/Library/Application Support/com.apple.TCC/TCC.db" "SELECT client,auth_value FROM access WHERE service='kTCCServiceAccessibility' OR service='kTCCServiceAppleEvents';"
com.latencyzero.<redacted>|2
<redactd>
I'm at a loss as to what went wrong. I proved out the concept earlier and it worked, and have since spent a lot of time enhancing and polishing the app, and now things aren't working and I'm starting to worry.
General
RSS for tagExplore best practices for creating inclusive apps that cater to users with diverse abilities
Selecting any option will automatically load the page
Post
Replies
Boosts
Views
Activity
Have tried to join the developer programme and says its still pending after 3 days.
Anyone any idea how long the procedure takes??
Topic:
Accessibility & Inclusion
SubTopic:
General
Hi all,
I’ve got a usability question about accessibility navigation. My app has a lot of carousels (horizontally scrolling lists of content with far more elements than can fit on the screen). Often, these are just images, but sometimes, they’re cards with multiple subelements. In our previous implementation, each card was a single accessibility element, and we exposed the subelements as accessibility custom actions. Despite this, users frequently mentioned navigating with VoiceOver as a pain point. It takes a long time to navigate through and navigate past these carousels. To solve this, I converted my carousels into a single adjustable element, so users can navigate through it with one swipe, and they can still access the elements by adjusting the values up and down. I got this advice from this 2018 WWDC talk.
Is this still the recommended advice? Or is there a new, preferred way to do this?
Additionally, I had to get a little creative with the second carousel, the one with multiple subelements. Some of these were interactive (imagine a card with a description, an upvote button, and a downvote button). Adjustable elements override the accessibility custom actions VoiceOver gesture, so I can’t expose the individual buttons as actions. Instead, I made each subelement in each card in the carousel one of the adjustable values. Swiping up would go from description 1 to upvote button 1 to downvote button 1 to description 2, etc. Double tapping with VoiceOver would perform whatever action the carousel is currently on. So if I adjust the value to the element at index 2 (say, downvote 1), double tapping would trigger the downvote button’s action.
Does this make sense? Is there a better way to do this? This seemed to be the best compromise between screenreader navigation speed, exposing all actions, and the existing UI.
I just downloaded the public release of iOS 18.2. I found a bug when using the English India female Siri voice, it’s pronouncing certain words using the American pronunciation instead of the correct pronunciation that the voice is supposed to have. For example, the Siri voice says the American pronunciation of the word privacy. This is definitely a bug that needs to get resolved as soon as possible. Can you please fix this right away?
Topic:
Accessibility & Inclusion
SubTopic:
General
Hi Guys,
I've been trying for two weeks to sign up for the Apple Developer program. I've tried to pay the $99 but it didnt go off my account. Now my accoun tis in pending mode and there is no response from apple support. I've ogged about 10 tickets over the past two weeks.
Any advice here? I am getting desperate.
We currently have an odd issue with VoiceOver spelling a word letter by letter while the same word is spoken as a whole for other items.
The app is in German.
I have a View in SwiftUI whose button traits are removed, then a label "Start Tab 1 von 5" is added. "Tab is spoken as a whole word here, all fine.
If I change the label to "Tab-Schaltfläche" or for example "SimplyGo Tab 3 von 5", then "Tab" is spoken as "T A B", letter by letter. is there a way to force VoiceOver to speak it as a whole?
Topic:
Accessibility & Inclusion
SubTopic:
General
[macOS 15.4] Game Controller Background Input Capture Broken - Accessibility App No Longer Functions
Our application,
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gamecontroller-mapper/id6737088417
which maps game controller inputs to keyboard/mouse events system-wide, has stopped functioning properly after the macOS 15.4 update. Specifically, the app can no longer capture game controller inputs when running in the background, severely impacting its core functionality.
Environment
macOS version: 15.4
Previous working versions: All versions prior to 15.4
App type: Background utility with accessibility permissions
Hardware: All game controller brands compatible with macOS
Detailed Description
Before macOS 15.4
Our application correctly captured game controller inputs from any brand connected to Mac and successfully translated them to keyboard/mouse events system-wide. Users could control any application (e.g., scrolling through documents in Preview using controller buttons) while our app ran in the background with the accessibility permissions granted.
After macOS 15.4
The application only works when it has active focus (is in the foreground). When any other application gains focus, our app completely stops receiving or detecting any input events from the game controller while running in the background. For instance, pressing the 'down' button on the controller while another app is active results in no event being registered within our application.
We've tried updating the app to work in accessory mode (in the menubar), but the issue persists.
Steps to Reproduce
Install our application on macOS 15.3 or earlier
Grant accessibility permissions when prompted
Connect a compatible game controller (e.g., Xbox or other controller)
Open another application (e.g., Preview with a PDF document)
Press buttons on the controller to navigate the document without touching the keyboard
Expected result on 15.3: Controller inputs are translated to keyboard events, even when our app is in the background
Upgrade to macOS 15.4
Repeat steps 2-5
Actual result on 15.4: Controller inputs are only translated to keyboard events when our application has focus
Technical Implementation
Our app uses:
CGEvent.tapCreate() to create a global event tap
CGEvent for simulating keyboard and mouse events
GCController.extendedGamepad?.valueChangedHandler for detecting controller inputs
Proper NSAccessibilityUsageDescription and appropriate entitlements
GCController.shouldMonitorBackgroundEvents = true to ensure controller events continue when the app is inactive
Possible Relation to Recent Changes
We noticed in the macOS 15.4 Release Notes:
Game Controller - Resolved Issues:
Fixed: Game controllers might stop responding when accessibility features, such as Voice Over, are enabled. (141497799)
We suspect this fix might have introduced a regression or intentional limitation affecting applications like ours that rely on background event simulation with game controller input.
Impact
This change severely impacts:
Applications designed to use game controllers as assistive input devices for users who may have difficulty using traditional keyboard and mouse inputs
Applications for media control, presentation navigation, and other similar use cases
Users who rely on our application for accessibility purposes
Questions
Is this an intentional security change or an unintended side effect of the controller fix mentioned in the release notes?
Are there any new APIs or alternative approaches we should implement to restore functionality?
If this is a system bug, when can we expect a fix?
We would greatly appreciate any guidance on how to restore our application's functionality. Thank you for your assistance.
I’m seeing a layout issue in SwiftUI on iOS 26 that only reproduces with specific Accessibility Motion settings.
Steps to reproduce
1. Open Settings → Accessibility → Motion.
2. Enable Reduce Motion and Prefer Cross-Fade Transitions.
3. Launch an app with a SwiftUI TextField.
4. Tap the field to show the keyboard.
5. Dismiss the keyboard (tap outside, swipe down, etc.).
Expected:
After the keyboard is dismissed, the view’s bottom safe area / layout should return to normal.
Actual:
The view continues to reserve space equal to the keyboard height — as if the keyboard were still visible. UI anchored to the safe area remains shifted upward until the view is reloaded.
Good day!
I have a long-term project ported all the way up from old Think C through many versions of Xcode. Its source files are encoded in "Western (Mac OS Roman)".
Some of my error messages have characters outside the straight ASCII character set (i.e. "å"). The editor correctly displays these, but I get plenty of Illegal Character warnings and the messages do not display properly.
I imagine there's a way to have seperate files of localized text for internationalized applications, but I am the only end-user of this application, and it used to just plain work in earlier Xcode versions. Furthermore, there must be developers throughout Europe who use such characters in string literals, just typing in their native languages, straight off their keyboards.
I was thinking that there must be a Clang setting or something, but have been unable to find it, and an internet search turns up no solution except to cumbersomely escape each individual character. I can't imagine that a French programmer does that every time they want to type "è", "é", or "à"!
Any help? (Disclaimer: I'm an English speaker and only use such characters whimsically, but want to keep them for legacy's sake.)
Thanks....
p.s. using Xcode 15.3, and under Settings->Text Editing->Editing, "Western (Mac OS Roman)" is already selected as the default text encoding with "Convert existing files on save" checked.
I want to understand which component types are intended to have an associated hint text, haptic feedback, or earcon associated with it for VoiceOver screen reader users. Is there a list somewhere or a HIG guideline for which transition types should have a sound?
Some transitions in Apple apps generally include different beep sounds, such as
opening a new screen
screen dimming
when a VoiceOver user swipes from the header / navbar to the body
a scraping sound when swiping up or down a page.
the beginning or end of the body section
in Calculator when swiping from one row to the next.
opening a pop up menu
I would also appreciate any direction on what code strings are associated with these sounds and how custom components can capture these sounds or haptics or hints where it is expected? On the other hand, I don't want to get that info and then dictate that every component needs a specific beep type since these sounds appear to be used for specific purposes.
accessibilityUserInputLabels is working fine with any view I tried this on. Meaning that the control can be toggled with the provided alternative names when using Voice Control.
When setting this property on any UIBarButtonItem though, it seems Voice Control ignores the alternative names provided by setting accessibilityUserInputLabels. For comparison, accessibilityLabel works perfectly when set on UIBarButtonItem.
Is anyone facing the same issue?
Using Xcode 16.0 (16A242) on iOS 18
Watched videos, blog post and downloaded their projects and there the core spot lights works accordingly.
I copied code to an empty project and did the same as what they did but still is not working
os: macOS and iOS
on coredataobject I settled up a attribute to index for spotlight and in object it self I putted the attribute name in display name for spotlight.
static let shared = PersistenceController()
var spotlightDelegate: NSCoreDataCoreSpotlightDelegate?
@MainActor
static let preview: PersistenceController = {
let result = PersistenceController(inMemory: true)
let viewContext = result.container.viewContext
for _ in 0..<10 {
let newItem = Item(context: viewContext)
newItem.timestamp = Date()
}
do {
try viewContext.save()
} catch {
let nsError = error as NSError
fatalError("Unresolved error \(nsError), \(nsError.userInfo)")
}
return result
}()
let container: NSPersistentContainer
init(inMemory: Bool = false) {
container = NSPersistentContainer(name: "SpotLightSearchTest")
if inMemory {
container.persistentStoreDescriptions.first!.url = URL(fileURLWithPath: "/dev/null")
}
container.loadPersistentStores(completionHandler: { [weak self] (storeDescription, error) in
if let error = error as NSError? {
fatalError("Unresolved error \(error), \(error.userInfo)")
}
if let description = self?.container.persistentStoreDescriptions.first {
description.setOption(true as NSNumber, forKey: NSPersistentHistoryTrackingKey)
description.type = NSSQLiteStoreType
if let coordinator = self?.container.persistentStoreCoordinator {
self?.spotlightDelegate = NSCoreDataCoreSpotlightDelegate(
forStoreWith: description,
coordinator: coordinator
)
self?.spotlightDelegate?.startSpotlightIndexing()
}
}
})
container.viewContext.automaticallyMergesChangesFromParent = true
}
}
in my @main view
struct SpotLightSearchTestApp: App {
let persistenceController = PersistenceController.shared
var body: some Scene {
WindowGroup {
ContentView()
.environment(\.managedObjectContext, persistenceController.container.viewContext)
.onContinueUserActivity(CSSearchableItemActionType) {_ in
print("")
}
}
}
}
onContinueUserActivity(CSSearchableItemActionType) {_ in
print("")
}
never gets triggered. Sow What am I missing that they dont explain in the blog post or videos ?
There is an issue with Help Books that started with the release of macOS 14.4. The issue is that when an app attempts to go directly to a Help Book page, the help viewer opens to the Help Book's main index page, rather than the specific page requested. As I investigated the issue I found that the requested page was actually part of help viewer's navigation history, and all I had to do was to click the Back navigation arrow and the requested page would be displayed. So it seems like the requested page is momentarily visited but is then (for whatever reason) quickly replaced by the main index page.
Our app uses the AHGotoPage() API for directly accessing our Help Book's pages. This is the same mechanism/code that our app has used for more than a decade and has never caused us any issues. Everything works fine on macOS 14.3.0 and earlier. I've scoured the documentation and can't find any newer APIs for accessing Help pages. I've also tried various other things (e.g. reworking the code, creating new indexes for the app's Help, etc.), but none of it seems to make a difference. As far as I can tell, the issue seems to stem from some change made to the OS.
So my questions are:
Is this a known bug? And if so, is there any ETA on a fix?
Is there something different we should be doing for newer versions of the OS (create indexes differently, use a different API, etc.)?
Topic:
Accessibility & Inclusion
SubTopic:
General
When my macOS Cocoa app displays a modal alert with beginSheetModal(for:completionHandler:), VoiceOver sometimes seems to focus on an "illegal" upper level, where any attempts at navigation will give the unhelpful response "Alert, dialog", until you "drill down" with VO + shift + down or switch apps. After that, things will work as expected.
Is this a known bug? Does it happen to anybody else, or am I doing something wrong?
Hello all.
Currently I am trying to get WKWebView to scroll with a physical keyboard and it just will not work. I tried allowsKeyboardScrolling( ) and it did not work. UIWebView works but its no longer supported. Trying to get full keyboard access to work to make our app more accessible but WKWebView does not want to play nice.
Has anyone else had issues trying to use WKWebView with an external keyboard, and if so did you find any solutions? Greatly appreciated!
Environment:xcode 16.2
WidgetKit: Image(uiImage: UIImage(named: "jp_jump")!).resizable().scaledToFit().frame(width: 58, height: 16).padding(EdgeInsets(top: 0, leading: 16, bottom: 0, trailing: 0))
”jp_jump“: Local color picture load widget crashes
info:
Thread 4: EXC_RESOURCE (RESOURCE_TYPE_MEMORY: high watermark memory limit exceeded) (limit=30 MB)
I have a parent view containing 10 subviews. To control the VoiceOver navigation order, I set only a few elements in accessibilityElements. However, the remaining elements are not being focused or are completely inaccessible.
Is this the expected behavior? If I only specify a subset of elements in accessibilityElements, does it exclude the rest? What’s the best way to ensure all elements remain accessible while customising the order?
Hi,
I've wrapped AVRoutePickerView in SwiftUI using pretty much the code given here, with a few changes:
func makeUIView(context: Context) -> UIView {
let routePickerView = AVRoutePickerView()
// Configure the button's color.
//routePickerView.delegate = context.coordinator
//routePickerView.backgroundColor = .secondarySystemBackground
routePickerView.tintColor = .accent
routePickerView.activeTintColor = .accent
// Indicate whether your app prefers video content.
routePickerView.prioritizesVideoDevices = false
return routePickerView
}
I commented out routePickerView.delegate = context.coordinator because it doesn't compile; context.coordinator is of type Void and I'm not sure how to fix that. I'm not sure if that has anything to do with the issue.
Anyway, this works fine without VoiceOver; if I tap the button, I get the AirPlay popover. But in VoiceOver, if I select the button and double-tap, nothing happens… it just reads the button's accessibilityLabel again. How can I get the AirPlay popover to show in VoiceOver?
Following the official documentation, I'm trying to create a set of three localised Help Books.
The Help Books should be available in Spanish, English and Polish. Presently, I'm trying to complete English version.
App Structure
This is the plugin application consisting of main app and the plugin. The main app structure would looks as follows:
Files
. <XcodeProject Top>
├── Localizable.xcstrings
├── MyAppExtension
│ ├── MyAppExtension.swift
│ └── <other swift files>.swift
├──MyApp
│ ├── Info.plist
│ ├── +Array.swift
│ ├── +ButtonStyle.swift
│ ├── <other app swift files>.swift
├── Resources
└── MyApp.help
└── MyApp.help
└── Contents
├── Info.plist
└── Resources
├── English.lproj
│ ├── ExactMatch.plist
│ ├── InfoPlist.strings
│ ├── MyApp.helpindex
│ ├── MyApp.html
│ └── pgs
└── shrd
MyApp / MyApp.help / Info.plist file
Consists the following values:
Bundle name: MyApp
HPDBookAccessPath: MyApp.html
HPDBookTitle: My App Help
Default localization: en_gb
MyApp / Info.plist file
Contains the following entries:
Help Book directory name: MyApp.help
Help Book Identifier: MyApp Help
Build phase
The Copy Bundle Resources copies MyApp.help in MyApp/Resources.
Questions
Is the provided folder structure valid for creating a localised help books
Is there anything that is missing from across Info.plist files or is in the wrong places?
Why the MyApp -> Help opens the main help menu, not the app help
After enabling Developer Mode on my iPhone and restarting it, the device asks me to press the Home button to confirm. Unfortunately, my Home button is broken, so I can’t access Developer Mode. The iPhone itself still works, but I can’t enable the mode. Is there any way to bypass this without the Home button?
Topic:
Accessibility & Inclusion
SubTopic:
General