Hi everyone, I’m the developer of one sec, an app used by a large number of users globally to reduce time spent on social media and to build healthier digital habits. Because of this, we rely heavily on Apple’s Screen Time / DeviceActivity / FamilyControls, ManagedSettings APIs – and unfortunately, we’re seeing increasingly severe issues in production that directly impact hundreds of thousands of real iOS users. During the past years, we have been busy filing dozens of feedback requests for different Screen Time issues – and there has been no response from Apple at all. Developer Relations might be able to "confirm" that the bugs are present and that they ended up with the right team – but they are never addressed, neither are workarounds provided. Instead, the situation gets worse and worse. iOS 26 introduced a series of heavy regressions (which have been reported via Apple’s official bug report tool "Feedback Assistant" on iOS 26 beta 1 in June 2025 – and have not been addressed 10 Months later). This is very frustrating for us as developers, but also for our end-users who run into these issues every day. In the end this impacts our ability to build an amazing product and hurts revenue (which affects both us and Apple). 1. DeviceActivity thresholds are not firing at all This affects both: our app’s usage of the API and Apple’s own Screen Time limits Radars: FB22304617, FB20526837, FB15491936, FB12195437, FB15663329, FB18198691, FB18289475, FB19827144 2. Screen Time usage data is clearly corrupted Websites showing hundreds of hours per week Up to ~20 hours per day of usage reported for a single domain Radars: FB22304617, FB17777429, FB18464235 3. DeviceActivity thresholds reaching threshold immediately Newly introduced with iOS 26 Reported on iOS 26 beta 1 in June No response so far / no workaround DeviceActivity calls didReachThreshold immediately after creating the DeviceActivityEvent – instead of waiting till the defined threshold is actually reached. Radars: FB13696022, FB18351583, FB21320644, FB18927456, FB18061981 4. Randomly Randomizing ApplicationTokens From time to time, and without consistency, Screen Time suddenly provides new, random, unknown tokens to my app in the ShieldConfigurationDataSource and ShieldActionDelegate. This has been reported on many times before here on the dev forms, many many years back already: https://forums.developer.apple.com/forums/thread/756440 https://forums.developer.apple.com/forums/thread/758325 https://forums.developer.apple.com/forums/thread/758325?answerId=793267022#793267022 Radars: FB14082790 and FB18764644 5. Moving Tokens from one ManagedSettingsStore to Another Removing an ApplicationToken from one SettingsStore and then adding it to another while the target app remains in foreground leads to the re-use of the ShieldConfiguration. Which can be wrong in many scenarios. It is not possible to request a re-request of the ShieldConfiguration in that scenario. Radar: FB14237883 6. Unable to Open Parent App (one sec) from Shield Many times, when a target app is blocked by a shield, the user wants to perform some action (e.g. to unlock more time for the target app via an intervention). That means, that somehow I have to forward the user from a ShieldActionDelegate back into my target app. Unfortunately, there’s no API for that. Many apps on the App Store rely on private API to achieve that, but that’s too risky for a popular app like one sec. Radar: FB15079668 7. Unable to Open Target App from an ApplicationToken When a user has completed an intervention within one sec, and they indend to to continue to the target app, there is no way that one sec can open the target app just from the token alone. Sure, there are URL schemes, but that means the user has to manually assign URL schemes to each ApplicationToken. That is not a very user friendly process (and in many cases impossible, because not every app registers URL schemes). It would be better if there was a way that my app could open a target app directly from an ApplicationToken, e.g. via an AppIntent that can be run on a button press. This way, the selected apps would remain fully private while still offering advanced functionality: struct OpenTargetAppIntent: AppIntent, OpenAppFromApplicationTokenIntent { func perform() { return .result(openAppFromApplicationToken: applicationToken) } } Radar: FB15500695 Summary Thanks a lot for taking the time to read my feedback. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to me any time. I’m always happy to provide more details, logs, and steps to reproduce in my radars / feedback requests or in-person in Cupertino. It would be extremely helpful if someone from the Screen Time / DeviceActivity engineering team could: Take a look at the listed radars. Work on bug fixes and be transparent about when fixes will be shipped. Provide workarounds in the meantime. We genuinely want to build great, reliable experiences on top of Screen Time – but in its current state, it’s becoming very difficult to depend on. – Frederik

I'm reading the "Testing Age Assurance in Sandbox" doc, but I couldn't figure out the step: 2. Tap Sandbox Testing from the main menu Where is the "main menu"?

Hello, I'm currently experiencing an issue with the DeviceActivityMonitor extension in my code, specifically with the eventDidReachThreshold callback. I'm hoping to get some insights into why this problem occurs and how to resolve it. Problem: Issue 1: The eventDidReachThreshold callback is not triggering as expected. It appears that the callback is not being invoked when the threshold is reached. Issue 2: After a few seconds, the eventDidReachThreshold callback starts to trigger multiple times. This unexpected behavior is causing problems in my code, as it results in incorrect actions being taken. iOS version: iOS16.7.2 and iOS17.1 Xcode version: 15.0.1 Swift version: 5.9 Here is my code to start the monitoring: func startMonitoring() { var startTime : DateComponents = DateComponents(hour: 0, minute: 0) let endTime : DateComponents = DateComponents(hour: 23, minute: 59) /// Creates the schedule for the activity, specifying the start and end times, and setting it to repeat. let schedule = DeviceActivitySchedule(intervalStart: startTime, intervalEnd: endTime, repeats: true, warningTime: nil) /// Defines the event that should trigger the encouragement. let event = DeviceActivityEvent(applications: socialActivitySelection.applicationTokens, categories: socialActivitySelection.categoryTokens, webDomains: socialActivitySelection.webDomainTokens, threshold: DateComponents(minute: 2)) let events: [DeviceActivityEvent.Name: DeviceActivityEvent] = [.socialScreenTimeEvent : event] do { activityCenter.stopMonitoring([.socialScreenTime]) /// Tries to start monitoring the activity using the specified schedule and events. try activityCenter.startMonitoring(.socialScreenTime, during: schedule, events: events) } catch { /// Prints an error message if the activity could not be started. print("Could not start monitoring: \(error)") } } If there are any known workarounds or potential solutions, please share them. Thank you for your help in resolving this problem.

I have an iOS app with ExtensionFoundation. It runs well on my local device, but when I upload on the AppStore it gets rejected with: Validation failed Invalid Info.plist value. The value of the EXExtensionPointIdentifier key, AsheKube.app.a-Shell.localWebServer, in the Info.plist of “a-Shell.app/Extensions/localWebServer.appex” is invalid. Please refer to the App Extension Programming Guide at https://developer.apple.com/library/content/documentation/General/Conceptual/ExtensibilityPG/Action.html#/apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40014214-CH13-SW1. (ID: ae8dd1dd-8caf-4a48-9651-7a225faed4eb) The Info.plist in my Extension is: <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"> <plist version="1.0"> <dict> <key>EXAppExtensionAttributes</key> <dict> <key>EXExtensionPointIdentifier</key> <string>com.example.example-extension</string> </dict> </dict> </plist> so the Info.plist that causes the issue has been automatically generated by Xcode. I can access it as well, and it says: { "BuildMachineOSBuild" => "25A354" "CFBundleDevelopmentRegion" => "en" "CFBundleDisplayName" => "localWebServerExtension" "CFBundleExecutable" => "localWebServer" "CFBundleIdentifier" => "AsheKube.app.a-Shell.localWebServerExtension" "CFBundleInfoDictionaryVersion" => "6.0" "CFBundleName" => "localWebServer" "CFBundlePackageType" => "XPC!" "CFBundleShortVersionString" => "1.0" "CFBundleSupportedPlatforms" => [ 0 => "iPhoneOS" ] "CFBundleVersion" => "1" "DTCompiler" => "com.apple.compilers.llvm.clang.1_0" "DTPlatformBuild" => "23A339" "DTPlatformName" => "iphoneos" "DTPlatformVersion" => "26.0" "DTSDKBuild" => "23A339" "DTSDKName" => "iphoneos26.0" "DTXcode" => "2601" "DTXcodeBuild" => "17A400" "EXAppExtensionAttributes" => { "EXExtensionPointIdentifier" => "AsheKube.app.a-Shell.localWebServer" } "MinimumOSVersion" => "26.0" "NSHumanReadableCopyright" => "Copyright © 2025 AsheKube. All rights reserved." "UIDeviceFamily" => [ 0 => 1 1 => 2 ] "UIRequiredDeviceCapabilities" => [ 0 => "arm64" ] } What should I do to be able to upload on the AppStore?

We are developing a parental control application in SwiftUI with features like app blocking and screen time management. We are using the Family Control API along with Apple Family Sharing, allowing parents to add multiple children to the family group. We have followed the apple documentation still we are facing following issues: App Blocking Issue: The family picker does not display each child's name separately or their apps individually. Instead, it shows all children's apps together, making it difficult to block apps for a specific child. Screen Time Data Issue: We receive the total screen time usage for all children combined rather than separate screen time data for each child. Syncing Delay: When a new child is added to the Family Sharing group, we are unsure how long it takes for their apps to sync and appear on the parent’s device.

In IOS17 and IOS18, core spotlight can only match app contents by searching for the displayName, but cannot hit the contents by using keywords. Moreover, when matching the app content by searching for the "displayName", it requires inputting four consecutive characters to achieve a match.These issues did not occur in iOS 16. What is the reason for this? Here is my code. func addItemToIndex(_ item: QSpotlightItem) { let attributeSet = CSSearchableItemAttributeSet(contentType: .item) attributeSet.title = item.title attributeSet.displayName = item.title attributeSet.contentDescription = item.contentDescription attributeSet.keywords = item.keywords attributeSet.thumbnailData = item.thumbnailImage attributeSet.contactKeywords = item.keywords attributeSet.supportsNavigation = true let searchableItem = CSSearchableItem(uniqueIdentifier: item.id, domainIdentifier: "xxx", attributeSet: attributeSet) searchableItem.expirationDate = .distantFuture CSSearchableIndex.default().indexSearchableItems([searchableItem]) { error in if let error = error { } else { } } }

I’m testing FinanceKit with Apple Cash and noticed that transfers don’t include any counterparty information. Here’s an example transaction I fetched: Transaction( id: 5A96EA49-B7C9-4481-949D-88247210C1D7, accountID: 28D7C0E2-DC2A-4138-B105-BCE5EE00B705, transactionAmount: 30 USD, creditDebitIndicator: .credit, transactionDescription: "Transfer", originalTransactionDescription: "", merchantCategoryCode: nil, merchantName: nil, transactionType: .transfer, status: .booked, transactionDate: 2025-08-19 21:57:54 +0000, postedDate: 2025-08-19 21:57:55 +0000 ) As you can see: transactionDescription is just "Transfer" originalTransactionDescription is empty merchantName is nil No counterparty details are exposed In contrast, the Wallet app clearly shows the other person’s name and avatar for Apple Cash transfers, making it easy to understand who the payment was with. In FinanceKit, there’s no way to distinguish between transfers with different people — every transfer looks identical. Questions Is there a hidden or planned field for Apple Cash counterparty information? Can FinanceKit provide at least minimal metadata (e.g., contact name, initials, or a privacy-preserving identifier)? Is there any workaround today to correlate Apple Cash transfers with contacts? Feature request: Please expose counterparty information for Apple Cash transfers. Even something as simple as a stable identifier or name string would enable developers to build Wallet-quality transaction detail screens. Thanks!

According to Apple's documentation at https://developer.apple.com/documentation/storekit/testing-age-assurance-in-sandbox?language=objc, the testing steps and expected responses are outlined as follows: ​Test app consent revocation​ To test the notification when a parent or guardian revokes access to your app on behalf of their child, follow these steps: Start with a Sandbox account. From the Age Assurance settings, tap ​Revoke App Consent. Enter your app’s Bundle ID (for example, com.example.bundle). Tap ​Revoke Consent​ to simulate the revocation. Confirm that the system displays ​​“Notification Triggered”​​ with the message ​​“A notification will be sent to the developer server soon.”​ I followed the steps exactly as described above, but during the fifth step, instead of seeing the prompt ​​"A notification will be sent to the developer server soon,"​​ a pop-up dialog with only a confirmation button appeared. After clicking it, there was no further response, and our server did not receive any notification (neither from the Sandbox nor the Production environment).

Hello, I think it is quite a common use-case to open the parent app that owns the ShieldActionDelegate when the user selects an action in the Shield. There are only three options available that we can do in response to an action: ShieldActionResponse.none ShieldActionResponse.close ShieldActionResponse.defer It would be great if this new one would be added as well: ShieldActionResponse.openParentApp While finding a workaround for now, the problem is that the ShieldActionDelegate is not a normal app extension. That means, normal tricks do not work to open the parent app from here. For example, UIApplication.shared.open(url) does not work because we can’t access UIApplication from the ShieldActionDelegate unfortunately. NSExtensionContext is also not available in the ShieldActionDelegate unfortunately, so that’s also not possible. There are apps however, that managed to find a workaround, in my research I stumbled across these two: https://apps.apple.com/de/app/applocker-passcode-lock-apps/id1132845904?l=en-GB https://apps.apple.com/us/app/app-lock/id6448239603 Please find a screen recording (gif) attached. Their workaround is 100% what I’m looking for, so there MUST be a way to do so that is compliant with the App Store guidelines (after all, the apps are available on the App Store!). I had documented my feature request more than 2 years ago in this radar as well: FB10393561

I’m integrating the Declared Age Range feature to tailor our app’s experience based on a user’s age range. I’m currently in the testing phase and would like to repeatedly test the consent flow and different outcomes from AgeRangeService.shared.requestAgeRange(...). However, once I go through the consent flow and choose to share, the age-range sharing sheet no longer appears on subsequent attempts—so it’s hard to validate edge cases (e.g., changed gates, declined flow, re-prompt behavior). Could you advise on the recommended way to reset or re-prompt during development? In particular: Is there a supported way to clear per-app consent so the system prompts again? Under what conditions should the “Share Age Range Again” control appear in Settings, and is there an equivalent way to trigger it for testing? Are there best practices for QA (e.g., using Ask First at the system level, testing on real devices vs. Simulator, using a separate bundle ID for dev builds, or other steps)? Any other guidance for validating different requestAgeRange results (e.g., declined/not available) would be appreciated.

We have a Share Extension that fails in Photos on macOS when trying to share a JPEG image for the following reason: From the NSItemProvider we get from the NSExtensionItem.attachments, we try to load the image using loadFileRepresentation(forTypeIdentifier: “public.image”, completionHandler: …). This fails for .jpeg images in the library. There seems to be a mismatch in expected and actual file extension internally. Here is the log: Error copying file type public.image. Error: Error Domain=NSItemProviderErrorDomain Code=-1000 "Cannot load representation of type public.jpeg" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Cannot load representation of type public.jpeg, NSUnderlyingError=0x1527c1a80 {Error Domain=NSItemProviderErrorDomain Code=-1 "Cannot copy file at URL file:///Users/frank/Library/Containers/com.apple.Photos/Data/tmp/TemporaryItems/ShareKit-Exports/7CCFA760-AAC9-42B0-812D-68F051ED1543/F912E593-2BE5-4E70-86AB-7657A40657E5/IMG_3517.jpg." UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Cannot copy file at URL file:///Users/frank/Library/Containers/com.apple.Photos/Data/tmp/TemporaryItems/ShareKit-Exports/7CCFA760-AAC9-42B0-812D-68F051ED1543/F912E593-2BE5-4E70-86AB-7657A40657E5/IMG_3517.jpg., NSUnderlyingError=0x152789670 {Error Domain=NSItemProviderErrorDomain Code=-1 "Cannot create a temporary file. Error: Undefined error: 0" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Cannot create a temporary file. Error: Undefined error: 0}}}}}``` In the specified folder, there is an image, however, it’s named IMG_3517.jpeg, not IMG_3517.jpg. This seems to be a bug in Photo’s item provider implementation. If we use loadObject(ofClass: URL.self, completionHandler: …) instead, we get the correct .jpeg URL in the completion handler.

I am trying on iOS 16.1.1 the Nearby Interaction framework. I am testing it on two iPhones 14 Pro Max. The supportsDirectionMeasurement property returns false (!) and the direction property on the NINearbyObjects is nil. Has someone experienced the same issue?

Does our app need to check the location or can we fully reply on this API to decide whether we wanna comply for the law of places that requires age range information? Looks like it's only covering Texas now..? would it add other places by apple..? And also this API is really hard to test a user in other places, Iike I don't know a user in Brazil gonna return true for false now, but the law in Brazil also requires the age information.

The documentation for isEligibleForAgeFeatures states: Use this property to determine whether a person using your app is in an applicable region that requires additional age-related obligations for when you distribute apps on the App Store. But what does "region" mean? Is this going to return true if the user has downloaded the app from the US App Store? Or will it go further and geolocate the user and identify them as being within a particular relevant state within the US?

Dear Screen Time Team! The current 6 MB memory limit for the DeviceActivityMonitor extension no longer reflects the reality of modern iOS devices or the complexity of apps built on top of the Screen Time framework. When Screen Time APIs were introduced with iOS 15, hardware constraints were very different. Since then, iPhone performance and available RAM have increased significantly…but the extension memory limit has remained unchanged. My name is Frederik Riedel, and I’m the developer of the screen time app “one sec.” Our app relies heavily on FamilyControls, ManagedSettings, and DeviceActivity to provide real-time interventions that help users reduce social media usage. In practice, the 6 MB limit has become a critical bottleneck: The DeviceActivityMonitor extension frequently crashes due to memory pressure, often unpredictably. Even highly optimized implementations struggle to stay within this constraint when using Swift and multiple ManagedSettings stores. The limit makes it disproportionately difficult to build stable, maintainable, and scalable architectures on top of these frameworks. This is not just an edge case…it directly impacts reliability in production apps that depend on Screen Time APIs for core functionality. Modern system integrations like Screen Time are incredibly powerful, but they also require a reasonable amount of memory headroom to function reliably. The current limit forces developers into fragile workarounds and undermines the robustness of apps that aim to improve users’ digital wellbeing. We would greatly appreciate if you could revisit and update this restriction to better align with today’s device capabilities and developer needs. Thank you for your continued work on Screen Time and for supporting developers building meaningful experiences on top of it. Feedback: FB22279215 Best regards, Frederik Riedel (one sec app)

Our app provides a calendar that integrates with the default calendar app. Specifically, we use iOS EventKit to perform CRUD operations on calendar data. Recently, we have received reports from users that all of their events have disappeared. However, after reviewing our implementation and logs, we have not been able to identify the cause. Some users have also reported that all data in their default calendar app has disappeared as well. Does anyone have any idea what might be causing this? To delete an event within our app, users must press the delete button and then confirm the deletion in a dialog. Additionally, it is not possible to delete more than two events at once. We've seen many people in the community discussing a bug where calendar events disappear after updating to iOS 18. If you have any information about when or why this happens, we'd appreciate it if you could share your insights.

I have an app developed by using the Callkit/Call-Blocking and received feedback from individual users, when using [cxcalldirectorymanager reloadextensionwithidentifier] to write call blocking data, it returned error code 11 with the following contents: errorCode: 11 errorDomain: com.apple.callkit.database.sqlite errorDescription: sqlite3_step for query 'DELETE FROM PhoneNumberBlockingEntry WHERE extension_id =?' returned 11 (11) errorMessage 'database disk image is malformed' I want to know the reasons for this error and how to solve it，Thanks!

Hello, In production, a large number of users experience outgoing call reporting fails with the following error: com.apple.CallKit.error.requesttransaction Code=2 The iOS version doesn't matter, errors are present in v15-26 Details My CXProvider held as a global singleton, so it’s unlikely to be deinited. There is no explicit call to CXProvider.invalidate() in the app. If I manually invalidate the CXProvider, I observe the expected failure when trying to create an outgoing call (com.apple.CallKit.error.requesttransaction error 2). However, If I recreate the CXProvider after the error, outgoing calls are reported correctly. Many users trigger the providerDidReset delegate method (CXProviderDelegate) before this error. According to the documentation, providerDidReset can be called by the system, and we are supposed to end all active calls, but the documentation doesn't suggest recreating the CXProvider. Question Should I recreate CXProvider after providerDidReset and forget about that, or could this error be caused by something else?

Issue with App Clip Card Showing "App Clip unavailable" for DIGI LIVE App In my DIGI LIVE application, I have an App Clip configured for iOS 17.6+ (the file exceeds the 15 MB limit), and I have made all the necessary preparations for the App Clip to work correctly. However, the App Clip card constantly displays an "App Clip unavailable" error for various users (depending on their system language). The URL associated with the App Clip invocation is: https://ar.digi-live.de The AASA file is located at /.well-known/apple-app-site-association and contains the required fields for the App Clip: { "applinks": { "details": [ { "appIDs": ["N9QR6LF765.de.digilive.app"], "components":[ { "#": "no_universal_links", "exclude": true, "comment": "Matches any URL whose fragment equals no_universal_links and instructs the system not to open it as a universal link" }, { "/": "*", "comment": "Matches any URL like ar.digi-live.de" } ] } ] }, "appclips": { "apps": ["N9QR6LF765.de.digilive.app.Clip"] } } If I use the default App Clip link (https://appclip.apple.com/id?p=de.digilive.app.Clip) to launch it, the "App Clip unavailable" error no longer appears. But if I delete the App Clip from the settings, the error comes back, and it can only be launched again using the default link. It feels like the problem is with the App Clip loading at the moment the App Clip card is triggered — it simply fails to load. Video https://storage.yandexcloud.net/mmrs/files/digilive/IMG_2259.mp4

I would like to share an issue observed during app development. When changing Bluetooth settings from the system Settings app without using multitasking, the app does not terminate but instead logs the user out. However, when changing Bluetooth settings while using multitasking, the app terminates completely. In this context, I would like to understand: Whether there is any system behavior that causes the app to refresh or restart when Bluetooth settings are changed And why the app behavior differs in a multitasking environment, particularly in terms of app lifecycle handling Any insights into these behaviors would be greatly appreciated.