Maps & Location

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Learn how to integrate MapKit and Core Location to unlock the power of location-based features in your app.

Maps & Location Documentation

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Trees on the in-app map?
Hi, this is a series of questions for the Apple developers, and also for anyone that would like to speculate. How are they able to get trees marked on the in-app map? And how come they are fairly but not completely accurately marked?
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115
Dec ’25
How can I keep my app running in the background even after it has been force‑killed?
Recently I noticed an app called “Lookus”. Even if I force‑kill it, it still seems to obtain information such as my charging status and network status, and it can even send real‑time notifications. I’m curious how this is technically possible. Does anyone know how this could be achieved?
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138
Dec ’25
Z-Index for MarkerAnnotation
Hey there, is there a way to set the z-index for MarkerAnnotations in MapkitJS? I'm loading up to 200 markers dynamically as the map moves or the user zooms and I want a few specific markers to always be at the top (the best search results). The only way I found is to always remove all markers and then add them again in the right order, but that's visually so annoying to see them disappear and animate in with every tiny movement. I thought about using a default Annotation and setting the z-index myself and trying to rebuild the balloon, including the animation when it's clicked, but the big downside is probably the performance because I won't be able to use shadow DOM elements and have 200 real DOM elements instead. Is there a solution to this right now or is it planned to add a feature like that to Mapkit JS? It's a real blocker for me right now because all the bad content always gets rendered on top when a user zooms in, because I obviously want to show the best content first when the user isn't zoomed in yet. Thank you so much in advance. I really appreciate it. Manuel
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4w
Question about MFi token access
Hi all, Our company is applying for the Find My certification for our smartwearable product. Now we submitted the product plan and it's approved. The lab asked us to get the token but we searched on internet and the documents about it are limited. The CSR has approved and we already had .pem and .key file. I wonder what should we do next. Any helps are appreciated
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117
2w
iPad Compass Calibration Issues: Impact of Magnetic Cover
We have developed an iPad application using the ARCL (AR + CoreLocation) library to render Point of Interest (POI) annotations in both an AR view and a standard MapView. The application performs as expected on standard devices. However, we have some iPad covered with strong magnet. This creates significant magnetic interference, resulting in a 90° to 180° heading offset, rendering the AR POI placement and MapView orientation unusable. Technical Challenges & Constraints: Hardware Lock: The magnetic cover is a mandatory business requirement and cannot be removed during field use. Sensor Failure: The internal magnetometer cannot provide an accurate North reference due to the proximity of the cover’s magnets. While CoreLocation and CoreMotion use sensor fusion, the magnetometer remains the primary source for absolute heading. Alternative Orientation Tracking: Is there a documented method to bypass the magnetometer and derive device orientation using only the Gyroscope and Accelerometer (e.g., relative tracking) while still maintaining alignment with geographic coordinates in CoreLocation? Programmatic Offsets: Are there known APIs or mathematical workarounds to programmatically "nullify" or offset a constant magnetic bias once the device is inside the cover? so we can use that offset for ARView and in Mapview as well.
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113
2w
CLMonitor API Missing Geofence Entry Events After Initial Registration
We are experiencing a failure in CLMonitor event delivery when the application is launched into the background via an APNS (Remote Push Notification). Even when a CLBackgroundActivitySession is instantiated immediately upon background launch, CLCircularGeographicCondition "Enter" events are suppressed. The system fails to deliver these events until the user manually brings the application to the Foreground. This indicates that CLBackgroundActivitySession does not correctly maintain background persistence when the session begins in a background state rather than transitioning from the foreground. Comparison of API Behavior (Background State) Launch via APNS: CLMonitor: Fails to trigger "Enter" events until the app is manually brought to the foreground. Legacy API: Successfully triggers and delivers "Enter" events immediately upon background launch. Exit Event Reliability: CLMonitor: Reliably triggers exit events even in the background. Legacy API: Reliably triggers exit events. Foreground Dependency: CLMonitor: Requires a foreground transition to "flush" or activate the delivery of pending entry events. Legacy API: No foreground transition required; events are delivered directly to the background process. Event Recovery: CLMonitor: Relies on the developer re-instantiating the CLMonitor and awaiting the events stream, which appears to "stall" during warm-starts. Legacy API: Relies on the CLLocationManagerDelegate which remains active as long as the manager instance exists. Steps to Reproduce Preconditions: Location Permissions: Set to "Always Allow". Background Modes: "Location updates" and "Remote notifications" enabled. App State: Terminated or Killed (by the user or the OS). Reproduction Path: Trigger Background Launch: Send a silent push notification (APNS) to wake the app in the background. Initialize Session: Within the background launch sequence (e.g., didFinishLaunchingWithOptions), immediately create and hold a strong reference to a CLBackgroundActivitySession. Register Monitor: * Initialize CLMonitor using requestMonitorWithConfiguration. Add a geofence using addConditionForMonitoring with a CLCircularGeographicCondition. Simulate Entry: Move the physical device (or simulate location) into the geofence boundary while the app remains in the background state. Observe: No "Enter" event is received in the CLMonitor event stream. Foreground Transition: Bring the app to the foreground. Actual Result: The "Enter" event is only delivered the moment the app enters the Foreground. Expected Result: The CLBackgroundActivitySession should enable CLMonitor to deliver "Enter" events immediately in the background, parity with the deprecated startMonitoringForRegion API.
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1w
MapkitJS Snapshot
I am having issues loading in a mapkit snapshot. I get an error saying that https://domain.com and they're expecting domain.com. I have no idea what could be going wrong here. I set the domains properly in the mapkit tokens. When I click on the link it opens a new tab and loads what the data properly, but somehow in the application on production this error comes up.
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371
Jan ’25
CMAltimeter becomes somehow uncalibrated: absolute locations not delivered anymore (temporarily)
Note: I have had issues with CMAltimeter since whats seems to have been a major undocumented modification since iOS 17.4. So I'm using the CMAltimeter absolute locations delivery. Sometimes, the altimeter seems to be in an uncalibrated mode and therefore, no altitude delivery happens. Is there a way to be inform of such state? Currently, it just doesn't work and I can't inform the user about this. They just think the app is broken What message should I give to the users to accelerate the calibration such that the CMAltimeter will work again? Also, users have reported that the CMAltimeter can temporarily stop delivering altitude updates, even though it should. So I guess my question resumes to this: Whats the best practice to handle an uncalibrated CMAltimeter? Thanks!
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328
Feb ’25
Offline Mapkit tiles
I'm currently developing an app with mapkit which I may submit to the Swift Student Challenge. So anyways, the app will be used completely offline. I was wondering if there was any way to include very low resolution map tiles with the app files. That way, the app never needs wifi. However, I'm not sure if this is possible, especially since the map would need to be under 20 mb. Thanks.
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299
Feb ’25
Simulator Location Authorization Issue: Authorization Status Remains notDetermined After Denying and Changing in System Settings
Hello everyone, I'm encountering a strange location authorization issue in the iOS simulator, and I'm hoping someone can help me analyze it. Problem Description: When my app runs for the first time in the simulator, it requests location permissions. I select "Deny" for the authorization. Then, I go to the simulator's "Settings" -> "Privacy & Security" -> "Location Services" and enable location permissions for my app. However, when I return to the app, CLLocationManager.authorizationStatus still returns .notDetermined, and the authorization request pop-up does not appear again. This issue persists even after resetting the simulator settings multiple times. import CoreLocation @Observable final class LocationManager: NSObject, CLLocationManagerDelegate { var locationManager = CLLocationManager() var currentLocation: CLLocationCoordinate2D? override init() { super.init() locationManager.delegate = self } func locationManagerDidChangeAuthorization(_ manager: CLLocationManager) { let status = manager.authorizationStatus print("Authorize Status: \(status)") switch status { case .authorizedWhenInUse, .authorizedAlways: locationManager.startUpdatingLocation() case .denied, .restricted: stopLocation() case .notDetermined: locationManager.requestWhenInUseAuthorization() print("Location permission not determined.") @unknown default: break } } func requestLocation() { let status = locationManager.authorizationStatus if status == .authorizedWhenInUse || status == .authorizedAlways { locationManager.requestLocation() } else { locationManager.requestWhenInUseAuthorization() } } func locationManager(_ manager: CLLocationManager, didUpdateLocations locations: [CLLocation]) { guard let newLocation = locations.first else { return } currentLocation = newLocation.coordinate print("Updated location: \(newLocation.coordinate)") } func locationManager(_ manager: CLLocationManager, didFailWithError error: Error) { print("Location update failed with error: \(error.localizedDescription)") currentLocation = nil } func stopLocation() { locationManager.stopUpdatingLocation() print("Stopped updating location") } }
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540
Feb ’25
The App Remembers Location Access Permission only for 24 Hours
We have a PWA app developed by our company. In order to distribute this app to users' iPhones, we put this PWA app inside an XCode app. That means we put a WebView in XCode to display the PWA URL. Everything works perfect, except for location access. The PWA app access the device location. When the first time the app acess location, it asks for user consent two times, by PWA app and by the XCode app. This is fine. When the user clicks Allow, the XCode app preserves the user choice and never asks again. However, the PWA app keeps on asking user permission every day. If we close the app open again, it will ask one more time. That means twice daily. But if we close and open the app for a third time, it will not ask. It remembers the user choice only for 24 hours. If we install the PWA app directly in iPhone (that means if we add the URL as bookmark in home screen), it is asking for location permission only once. However, when we put this app inside an XCode app it is asking every day. This affects the user experience, and as our users are not tech savvy, causing many issues. Is there a way to force the PWA app inside XCode app to remember the user choice? Any help is very much appreciated. Thanks,
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373
Mar ’25
Traffic Events API
Hello developers! I am working with a team of North Carolina State University researchers to create an app or program that can retrieve real-time traffic events, such as hazards, road closures, and road construction alerts, in a similar manner to the Apple Maps app, but with the added functionality of collecting them over a historical period given a start and end date. I'm looking through the MapKit documentation, but there doesn't appear to be any functions exposing granular traffic data (i.e. road hazards), just travel times and level of congestion. Could anyone point me in the right direction? Is what I'm looking to do even possible using just Apple data?
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197
Mar ’25
Location Permission Management for Parental Control Apps with Screen Time Authorization
Apple Feedback Ticket: FB16804936 Background We develop a parental control application called Adora Kids (https://apps.apple.com/us/app/adora-kids/id6443787669) that requires "Location Always" permission to function properly. Our app has Screen Time authorization and provides monitoring services for parents. Issue We are experiencing a recurring problem where child users receive the system notification "Adora accessed your location in the background" every few days. This frequently results in children disabling location permissions, which prevents our app from functioning as intended. Current Approach and Limitations We have explored using Content & Privacy Restrictions for Location Services as a potential solution, but have encountered two significant limitations: These restrictions cannot be accessed programmatically via the ManagedSettings framework (unlike AppStoreSettings and other restrictions). The current implementation is "all-or-nothing" - enabling location restrictions blocks permission changes for ALL apps on the device, preventing children from granting legitimate location access to other applications. Questions Is there a way to programmatically access and manage Content & Privacy Restrictions for Location Services through the ManagedSettings framework that we might have overlooked? Are there any recommended approaches for apps with Screen Time authorization to prevent users from changing specific permissions (particularly location) while still allowing them to manage permissions for other apps? Does Apple have plans to implement app-specific permission locking for apps with Screen Time authorization in future iOS releases? Are there any alternative approaches or workarounds that other developers have successfully implemented for this use case? Any guidance from the developer community or Apple engineers would be greatly appreciated. This is a critical functionality issue affecting the reliability of our parental control service. Thank you in advance for your assistance.
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287
Mar ’25
What are the criteria for CLVisit in CoreLocation?
There is no official documentation specifying the exact criteria for determining a CLVisit. For example, if a user starts at a target location, will the following method be called? func locationManager(_ manager: CLLocationManager, didVisit visit: CLVisit) This did not work during my testing. It was only successfully triggered when starting from a distant location and arriving at the target point. It would be helpful to know the exact conditions, such as how long a user must stay at a location for it to be considered a visit. Are there any specific thresholds (e.g., minimum duration, distance moved) that determine when this method is triggered?
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204
Mar ’25