Hi everyone, I'm working on an app for parents and kids where parents can define screen time goals or restrict usage of certain app categories (like social media or games). If the kid follows those rules—for example, by using their device less or avoiding restricted categories—they would earn points or rewards in the app. I’ve been exploring if the Apple Screen Time API allows developers to access this kind of data (like total screen time, app usage by category, etc.) so that I can track the kid’s behavior and reward them accordingly. Is it possible to programmatically access this data and implement such a reward system within my app? If so, what’s the best way to get started or which APIs should I look into? Thanks in advance for your help!

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

Hi everyone, We’re integrating Apple Calendar (iCalendar) into our Codapet app but haven’t found any official Apple APIs for event management and synchronisation. Currently, we use CalDAV with Apple ID authentication and an app-specific password (ASP), storing the ASP encrypted in our database and decrypting it for each API call. We’re looking for a more secure and recommended approach to this integration. Does Apple provide dedicated APIs for calendar sync, or is there a better alternative to avoid sending the ASP with every request? Any guidance or best practices would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!

I'm writing an app that uses text to speech. On the physical Iphone 12 it works but on the simulator I don't get any speech from my app. I tried the following to enable. Settings -> Accessebility -> "Spoken Content" -> "Speak Selecton" to ON (green) in Voices I added the German Anna that I use on my Iphone with the downloaded enhancements. The speech test works in this menu but not in my app. What am I missing ? Cheers, Gerhard

Hi everyone, I’m working with the ManagedSettingsStore API for managing Screen Time restrictions and I have a specific question: Is it possible for an app to block itself using ManagedSettingsStore() — for example, by applying an application category restriction or setting a specific block on its own bundle ID? If so, what strategies or best practices are recommended to avoid accidentally blocking the app itself while applying restrictions to other apps or categories? I haven’t found any official documentation confirming whether the system prevents self-blocking automatically or if this is something developers need to manage explicitly. Thanks for any clarification or advice you can provide!

Hi there, we are implementing the new ContactProviderExtension introduced in iOS 18 and we are able to activate the extension, add data and everything. But we want to add domains to seperate contacts and currently we are getting an error "ContactProvider.ContactProviderError.domainNotRegistered". That makes sense because in the API docu we are not finding a way to register our domains. We are using ContactProviderDomain to create domains but we are not able to find any function to register. Could you please give a hint? Thank you

All After about 20 hours straight of working on this and having scrapped it twice I am realizing I should have asked everyone here for help. I am just trying to get device activity report extension to work inside an existing app. I have been heavily using family controls, managedsettings and deviceactivity and decided it would be nice to output some of the app usage so the User (parent) can see their children's app usage. I installed the target via xcode, confirmed group names match, and think I have it embedded correctly but when I run the app and call the view within the extension to show minutes used by any apps it just shows no time has been used. In addition, when I put print statements into the extension they do not show up in console. I have confirmed the main app target->Build phases->Link binary with Libraries has: ManagedSettings.framework FamilyControls.Framework DeviceActivity.framework I have confirmed in xcode that the main app target->Build phases -> Embed Foundation Extensions has: ShieldConfiguration.appex ShieldActionExtension.appex DeviceActivityMonitor.appex I have confirmed in xcode that the main app target->Build phases-> Embed ExtensionKit Extensions has: UsageReportExtension.appex I have used the apps I am trying to show data for extensively in the last 36 hours. Here is my UsageReportExtension info.plist EXAppExtensionAttributes EXExtensionPointIdentifier com.apple.deviceactivityui.report-extension .entitlement com.apple.developer.family-controls com.apple.security.application-groups group.com.jrp.EarnYourTurnMVP2.data Here is the file in the app (timebankview.swift) calling the extension/showing the extension view(AppUsageReportView.swift) import DeviceActivity import ManagedSettings struct TimeBankView: View { @EnvironmentObject private var appState: AppState @State private var reportInterval: DateInterval = { let calendar = Calendar.current let now = Date() let yesterdayDate = calendar.date(byAdding: .day, value: -1, to: now) ?? now return DateInterval(start: yesterdayDate, end: now) }() private var reportFilter: DeviceActivityFilter { let selection = appState.screenTimeController.currentSelection return DeviceActivityFilter( segment: .daily(during: reportInterval), users: .children, devices: .all, applications: selection.applicationTokens, categories: selection.categoryTokens // webDomains: selection.webDomains // Add if needed ) } var body: some View { ZStack { Color.appTheme.background(for: appState.isParentMode) .edgesIgnoringSafeArea(.all) ScrollView { VStack(spacing: 20) { Text("Time Bank") DeviceActivityReport(.childUsageSummary, filter: reportFilter) Here is AppUsageReportView.swift import SwiftUI struct AppUsageReportView: View { let config: DetailedAppUsageConfiguration // Use the detailed config var body: some View { VStack { Text("App Usage Details") Text("Total Screen Time: \(config.totalDurationFormatted)") if config.applicationsUsed.isEmpty { Text("No specific app usage data available for the selected period/filter.") } else { Text("Apps Used:") List { ForEach(config.applicationsUsed) { appInfo in HStack { Image(systemName: "app.dashed") Text(appInfo.appName) .lineLimit(1) Text(appInfo.durationFormatted) Here is AppUsageReportScene.swift: import SwiftUI import ManagedSettings struct AppInfo: Identifiable, Hashable { let id = UUID() let appName: String let durationFormatted: String } struct DetailedAppUsageConfiguration { var totalDurationFormatted: String = "Calculating..." var applicationsUsed: [AppInfo] = [] } struct AppUsageReportScene: DeviceActivityReportScene { let context: DeviceActivityReport.Context = .childUsageSummary let content: (DetailedAppUsageConfiguration) -> AppUsageReportView func makeConfiguration(representing data: DeviceActivityResults<DeviceActivityData>) async -> DetailedAppUsageConfiguration { var config = DetailedAppUsageConfiguration() var appDurations: [String: TimeInterval] = [:] var totalAggregatedDuration: TimeInterval = 0 let formatter = DateComponentsFormatter() formatter.allowedUnits = [.hour, .minute, .second] formatter.unitsStyle = .abbreviated formatter.zeroFormattingBehavior = .pad var segmentCount = 0 var categoryCount = 0 var appCount = 0 for await activityData in data { // Check segments var tempSegmentCount = 0 for await segment in activityData.activitySegments { segmentCount += 1 tempSegmentCount += 1 totalAggregatedDuration += segment.totalActivityDuration var tempCategoryCount = 0 for await categoryActivity in segment.categories { categoryCount += 1 tempCategoryCount += 1 var tempAppCount = 0 for await appActivity in categoryActivity.applications { appCount += 1 tempAppCount += 1 let appName = appActivity.application.localizedDisplayName ?? "Unknown App" let duration = appActivity.totalActivityDuration appDurations[appName, default: 0] += duration }}} } config.totalDurationFormatted = formatter.string(from: totalAggregatedDuration) ?? "N/A" config.applicationsUsed = appDurations .filter { $0.value >= 1 .map { AppInfo(appName: $0.key, durationFormatted: formatter.string(from: $0.value) ?? "-") } .sorted { lhs, rhs in let durationLHS = appDurations[lhs.appName] ?? 0 let durationRHS = appDurations[rhs.appName] ?? 0 return durationLHS > durationRHS } if !config.applicationsUsed.isEmpty { for (index, app) in config.applicationsUsed.enumerated() { } } else { } return config }} UsageReportExtension.swift struct UsageReportExtension: DeviceActivityReportExtension { init() { print("🚀 [UsageReportExtension] Extension initialized at \(Date())") print("🔍 [UsageReportExtension] Process info: \(ProcessInfo.processInfo.processName) PID: \(ProcessInfo.processInfo.processIdentifier)") } var body: some DeviceActivityReportScene { let _ = print("📊 [UsageReportExtension] Building report scenes at \(Date())") TotalActivityReport { totalActivity in print("🕰️ [TotalActivityReport] Creating view with data: \(totalActivity)") return TotalActivityView(totalActivity: totalActivity) }}}

I have two standalone app written for watchos (standalone). One to authenticate and one for connectivity to real-world devices. The connectivity app uses the authentication app before every action, Im testing this with two xcode projects I have created and tried different things ended up with this error. authapp://authenticate?callback=linkingapp://callback -[SPApplicationDelegate extensionConnection:openSystemURL:]:2418: URL with scheme "authapp" not supported how to get the url scheme working? Tested this in simulator and real device. info.plist and AppDelegate files are placed in both apps.

We are planning to use our internal IdP (PingFederate) for authentication of end users in their iOS apps using ASWebAuthenticationSession. Initial tests are successful, but the user is prompted for every login (and logouts) with a consent dialogue box: “AppName” wants to use “internal domain-name” to Sign In This allows the app and website to share information about you. Cancel Continue” Let’s say that our top-level domain is “company.no”, where our IdP is placed at “idp.company.com”. I have seen examples where the Associated domains entitlement points to the idp as a webserver for serving the JSON output AASA file. In this case that would be: authsrv: idp.company.com Anyone with experience implementing this structure with the IdP as webserver for serving the JSON output? Our problem is that trying to use the IdP as webserver for this purpose is that it is very complicated to modify the IdP’s webserver configuration. Also, this modification needs to be re-done every time we need to upgrade the IdP. My question is therefore also related to the options of which webserver to install the AASA file on. Has anyone installed the file on a generic webserver on the toplevel domain like “webserver.company.com” ?

Hello everyone, I’m running an Objective-C–based hybrid (native + web) shopping application and encountering a recurring issue on devices running iOS 18.1.1: When the app launches, it only shows a white screen with the native frame visible—no web content loads. Restarting or reinstalling the app doesn’t help. In one instance, toggling Airplane Mode on and off brought the app back to normal, but this workaround isn’t consistent. There are no crash logs, so we can’t determine if it’s caused by a network error, cache conflict, or an OS-level bug. So far, we have only seen this issue on iOS 18.1.1 devices. Because our app is a shopping platform, this significantly impacts users. Questions: Could this be related to a known bug or limitation in iOS 18.1.1? Are there recommended diagnostic steps or workarounds for a hybrid app that shows a white screen without generating crash logs? Which additional details (e.g., system logs, network traces, device configurations) might help isolate the cause? Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!

I'm getting ILMessageFilterError.networkURLUnauthorized returned in a message filter extension when calling deferQueryRequestToServer(). Googling for people who have had the same error, they didn't include the associated domain in the containing app. However I have added that. The server is set up at https://something.com:443, it has an apple association file located at https://something.com:443/.well-known/apple-app-site-association I have added associated domains to the app and the app extension of: messagefilter:something.com?mode=developer webcredentials:something.com?mode=developer Side question 1: are both needed or just the messagefilter? Side question 2: should the domain include the port :443? The server isn't publicly hosted hence I've appended ?mode=developer on the end as per the documentation. The extension's info.plist has ILMessageFilterExtensionNetworkURL added as something.com Question 3: Does this need the port adding too? With everything set up according to the documentation, apart from the questions above, what might be the cause of getting networkURLUnauthorized returned?

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.

reposting this in case it got missed the first time around here https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/775900 We had a question that came up when we comparing data from WeatherKit to other sources - WeatherKit visibility was well beyond the boundaries we had historically, even from Darksky. That raises two questions: is visibility actually in meters like the docs say? is this visibility at ground level, 500ft, or some other height? We were seeing visibility numbers of up to 40 miles (after converting the number the API sent to miles), where all of our other sources are usually within 10 miles

when we launch the application and change the language from german/french to english or any other language then in also it is changing app language, but bluetooth connection screen with pair or cancel alert is showing on previous selected language. Since that alert is system alert, is there any wayto debug/resolve that issue.

My ASA file is located here https://staging.docyt.com/apple-appsite-association It downloads fine. It does not have .json extension and neither does it reside inside the ./well-known folder. Should it work? Because opening the link https://staging.docyt.com/reset-password is not opening the app installed via TestFlight . Installing via XCode however works fine. Please help

I've been exploring the Trails Sample App from this session at WWDC24. The app has a TrailEntity of type AppEntity which is leveraged in multiple places throughout the app, including: The GetTrailInfo App Intent with a trail parameter of type TrailEntity. A parameterized App Shortcut which calls the GetTrailInfo intent. The TrailDataManager's init calls updateSpotlightIndex(), which creates a CSSearchableItem for each Trail in the app, along with an associateAppEntity call linking the corresponding TrailEntity to each item that gets added to the CSSearchableIndex. If you build the app and search "trails" in Spotlight, the Trails Sample App section includes instances of TrailEntity as search results. But if you comment out the App Shortcut that takes a TrailEntity as a parameter and rebuild, there are no instances of TrailEntity in the search results. In both cases, the console prints [Spotlight] Trails indexed by Spotlight. Is this expected behavior? Why are the TrailEntity instances only appearing in Spotlight via the App Shortcut? Shouldn't the CSSearchableItem instances show up in Spotlight on their own regardless? If not, then what is the purpose of adopting Core Spotlight with App Entities? Does this add the app entities to the semantic index for "new Siri", even though they're not user facing in the Spotlight UI?

Hi everyone, I’m developing a screen-time and focus app that uses Apple’s Family Controls framework to block distracting apps and reward users through a gamified experience. Apple approved Family Controls (Distribution) for the main app identifier, but they did not approve the required extension target (which implements DeviceActivityMonitor, required for the framework to function). Because of this, I can’t archive or upload the app to TestFlight — and I’ve been stuck in limbo for over 2 months. This is severely delaying my launch. The app works perfectly, but I can’t release it because the extension wasn’t included in the entitlement approval. Has anyone else run into this with Family Controls? Is there any known way to escalate or fast-track approval for additional app IDs or targets? Would really appreciate any help, advice, or hacks. 🙏 Thanks, Enzer

I am creating an iOS app that needs to parse the text from a PDF document. I can read the entire PDF document's text using the string property, but if it's a large PDF document, this could cause delays for users. From the documentation, I came across the beginFindString function, which seems to asynchronously, with no return? https://developer.apple.com/documentation/pdfkit/pdfdocument/beginfindstring(_:withoptions:)) Unfortunately I cannot find examples on how to use this function or its intended purpose/functionality, so any guidance would be appreciated. My goal is to read the PDF document one line at a time, searching for newlines ('\n'), then parsing that line as needed. I'm hoping the beginFindString function will be useful.

We are looking to setup domain-bound codes for our app and need to add the associated domain file to our website. We currently do not use Universal Links or Password AutoFill. We have looked at the documentation but are not sure of what the contents of the association file should be to enable domain-bound codes if you are not using Universal Links or Password AutoFill. Can any assistance be provided?

Hi everyone, i'm trying to request in a AppIntent an array of strings. But I want to give the user the chance to add more than one String. Yet, I do it so: import AppIntent struct AddHomework: AppIntent { // some Parameters @Parameter(title: "Tasks") var tasks: [String]? @Parameter(title: "New Task") //Only for the special request var input: String? private func collectTasks() async throws -> [String] { var collectedTasks: [String] = tasks ?? [] while true { if !collectedTasks.isEmpty { let addMore = try await $input.requestConfirmation(for: "Möchtest du noch eine Aufgabe hinzufügen?") if !addMore { break } } let newTask = try await $input.requestValue("Please enter your task:") collectedTasks.append(newTask) } return collectedTasks } @MainActor func perform() async throws -> some IntentResult { let finalTasks = try await collectTasks() // some more code return .result() } } But this is not working. The Shortcut is ending without requesting anything. But it is not crashing. I would thankfully for some help.