Notifications

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Learn about the technical aspects of notification delivery on device, including notification types, priorities, and notification center management.

Notifications Documentation

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Clarification about ANCS being unavailable
Hello, I am working on a project that involves using external device to connect over BLE with users iPhone. I would like to be able to notify users on our device about eg. incoming calls, messages etc. I have been succesfull in using ANCS to achieve that but I am a little worried around consistency of this solution, especially taking into account following line from documentation: Due to the nature of iOS, the ANCS is not guaranteed to always be present. As a result, the NC should look for and subscribe to the Service Changed characteristic of the GATT service in order to monitor for the potential publishing and unpublishing of the ANCS at any time. I have not been able (yet?) to find or identify circumstances when ANCS would not be avilable or would be "removed in runtime", hence would it be possible to request some guidance and clarification on the conditions when ANCS can be unavailable or removed? Thank you!
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Apr ’25
push notifications are not receiving to device
iOS push notification is not working for in App since 03-Apr-2025. We are pushing the message to APNS from our application, but message is not delivered to iOS device. We have performed tests on both PROD and QA environment and following are the observations: PROD successfully pushing the notification to APNS but not receiving the notification on iOS device (100% failure). QA received notification on iOS device always (100% success). Analyzed PROD notification server log at our end and we do not observe any error and it is showing successful also when message is pushed to APNS all the time. Need to check from APNS why push messages are not delivered to iOS devices. Validated the PROD APNS certificate at our end which we are using during call to APNS - it is valid till Oct 2025. Please suggest me any possible solution because I don't have any clue where it is failing and what to do
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Apr ’25
PushToTalk Framework Behavior After Force Quit and Challenges in Achieving Reliable PTT Functionality
Hello everyone, Our team is currently developing a PTT (Push-to-Talk) application using the officially recommended PushToTalk framework. During development, we've encountered a point of confusion regarding the application's behavior after being force-quit by the user. Based on our understanding of the PushToTalk framework documentation (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/pushtotalk/creating-a-push-to-talk-app/) and the PTChannelManager session restoration mechanism, when a user manually kills the app from the background (App Switcher), the current PTT session (the system session managed by PTChannelManager) should terminate. Subsequent pushtotalk type pushes sent via APNS, without an active session, appear to be silently discarded by the system and cannot wake the app for processing (similar to what Kevin Elliott DTS mentioned in https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/760506 Point D). This seems to prevent reliable PTT message reception in our app after a user force quits. However, we've observed that some popular PTT applications on the market (e.g., TenTen) appear to successfully receive and play PTT voice messages from friends even after the user has performed a force-quit action. This behavior seems inconsistent with our test results and understanding based on the standard framework, posing a challenge for us in providing similar reliability using standard methods. This naturally leads us to wonder how this capability is achieved. We've reviewed developer forums and are aware of the historical existence of a PTT-specific com.apple.developer.pushkit.unrestricted-voip entitlement, which allowed PushKit usage for PTT without CallKit binding. While Apple DTS engineers have repeatedly stated this entitlement is being deprecated and urged migration to the PushToTalk framework (e.g., https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/763289), we are curious if the observed "wake-after-force-quit" capability might be related to some apps potentially still utilizing this outgoing special entitlement. Alternatively, is there perhaps a mechanism within the standard PushToTalk framework that allows wake-up after force quit that we haven't fully grasped? Therefore, we'd like to ask fellow developers for clarification and discussion: When using the standard PushToTalk framework, have others confirmed that the app indeed cannot be woken up by pushtotalk pushes after being force-quit by the user? Is this the expected behavior? Has anyone successfully achieved a TenTen-like experience (reliable PTT reception after force quit) using only the standard PushToTalk framework? If so, could you share key implementation insights or areas to focus on? (e.g., Is it related to specific usage patterns of the restorationDelegate?) How do you view this potential discrepancy between standard framework capabilities and the behavior exhibited by some apps? What considerations does this bring to development planning and user experience design (especially when users might have expectations set by the "always-on" behavior of other apps)? Are there any best practices or specific techniques when using PTChannelManager session management and restoration that maximize PTT message reliability (especially after the app is terminated by the system in the background), while still adhering to the framework's design principles (like user awareness of the session via UI)? [For instance, another developer raised challenges related to PTT framework restrictions here: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/773981] We hope this discussion can help clarify our understanding of the framework and gather community best practices for building reliable PTT functionality while adhering to Apple's guidelines. Thanks for any insights or shared experiences!
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Apr ’25
APNs returning successful response for a token from an app that was uninstalled more than a month ago
We are observing an weird behaviour where a user uninstalled the app back in February (more than a month ago) but APNs is still accepting push notifications are returning success responses. We know that using APNs response codes for uninstall tracking is not reliable and that Apple will use fuzzy schedule to invalidate tokens. However, showing successful responses for month+ old tokens seems a bit misleading and results in wasted token processing for both us and Apple. Could you please confirm that invalidation (or fuzzy schedule) could take more than months to invalidate tokens on the APNs side? Is that expected or is this a bug somewhere?
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Apr ’25
Background Push Notifications for Emergency App Delayed Despite Critical Alert Entitlement
I’m using Appnotic from my server to send notifications for an emergency service, where it is critical that notifications are delivered immediately. My payload looks like this: "aps": { "alert": "Test alert", "sound": { "critical": 1, "name": "sound.wav", "volume": 0.5 }, "content-available": 1, "category": "alert" }, "topic": "com.fireservicerota.FSR-Primary-Alerting", "custom_payload": { "id": "11", "type": "alert", "incident_id": 23434, "incident_response_id": 2652343, "expiration_time": "2024-06-06T16:59:05+01:00" } } I already have the critical alert entitlement and background processing enabled. Everything seems fine when debugging, but I’m experiencing issues: • Some notifications never arrive • Around 60% of notifications arrive with noticeable delay Since this is an emergency app, delivery speed is crucial. What could be causing this inconsistency?
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Apr ’25
Not Receiving Incoming VoIP Push Notifications on iOS 18.4 (React Native App)
Hi Apple Dev Team, We have a React Native application that includes call functionality using PushKit and VoIP notifications. We are using APNS to send the VoIP notifications, and everything has been working smoothly on iOS versions up to 18.3.1. However, after updating to iOS 18.4, we are no longer receiving incoming VoIP push notifications on the device. There have been no code changes related to our PushKit or notification logic — the exact same build continues to work correctly on devices running iOS 18.3.1 and earlier. We're trying to understand if anything has changed in iOS 18.4 that affects VoIP push delivery or registration behavior. Would appreciate any guidance, and happy to share code snippets or configuration if needed. Thanks in advance!
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Apr ’25
Alternate App Icon Change Does Not Reflect in Notification Center on iOS 18.1+
Version: iOS 18.1 and later (works as expected on iOS 18.0 and earlier) Area: SpringBoard / Notification Center / App Icon Rendering Description: When changing the app's alternate icon using UIApplication.setAlternateIconName(_:completionHandler:), the icon is updated correctly on the Home Screen and App Switcher. However, in Notification Center, the old app icon is still shown for notifications, even after the change has completed. This issue only occurs on iOS 18.1 and later. In iOS 18.0 and earlier, Notification Center correctly reflects the updated icon. - Steps to reproduce: Create an iOS app with alternate app icons configured in the Info.plist. Use UIApplication.shared.setAlternateIconName("IconName") to change the icon at runtime. Send a notification. Pull down Notification Center and observe the icon shown beside the notification. - Expected Behavior: Notification Center should reflect the updated (alternate) app icon immediately after the change. - Actual Behavior: Notification Center continues to display the old (primary) app icon. The new icon appears correctly on the Home Screen and App Switcher. Restarting the device does cause Notification Center to update and reflect the correct icon, which suggests a cache or refresh issue in SpringBoard or Notification Center. - Notes: Issue introduced in iOS 18.1; not present in 18.0. Reproduces on both physical devices and simulators. Occurs with both scheduled local notifications and remote notifications. Restarting the device updates the Notification Center icon, but this is not a viable user-facing workaround.
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Apr ’25
App Store Server Notification Issue
Hello, I am writing this because the behavior of the App Store Server Notification that our server receives is problematic in the Sandbox environment. I have two questions in total. When purchasing a Free Trial subscription, after receiving the SUBSCRIBED / INITAL_BUY Notification, DID_RENEW should be sent when it expires, but DID_FAIL_TO_RENEW/GRACE_PERIOD is sent. The EXPIRE Notification is sent after the subscription expires or DID_CHANGE_RENEWAL_STATUS/AUTO_RENEW_DISABLED is sent, but it does not arrive. The first problem is that I recently heard that automatic payments after a free trial require the user's consent via email. Is this the reason? If so, I am curious about how I can test it in the Sandbox environment. Is the second problem a bug?
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Apr ’25
Can APNs handle large numbers of VoIP requests in real time?
I am developing a system to send VoIP notifications to terminals with APNs. I understand that the maximum JSON Payload for VoIP is 5kb. If I want to send VoIP notifications to 3000 terminals, I am considering sending 3000 requests in parallel from the system to the APNs, will the APNs guarantee that the notifications will be sent to each terminal without a significant time lag when receiving 3000 requests simultaneously?
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Apr ’25
Firebase Push Notification Background Handling Fails on TestFlight iOS App
Hi, We are using Firebase to configure APNs (Apple Push Notification Service) for sending push notifications. During local testing, the push notifications are received properly when the app is in the foreground or background. After TestFlight testing and passing review, we found that when the app is installed using the developer's Apple ID, push notifications are received correctly whether the app is in the foreground or background. However, when the app is provided to other testers (using non-developer Apple IDs), notifications are only received when the app is in the foreground, and they are not triggered when the app is in the background or inactive state. Request for Assistance: Why, after TestFlight testing and passing review, does the app receive push notifications properly in the background when installed using the developer's Apple ID, but on other testers' devices, notifications are not received when the app is in the background? Are there any differences in Apple ID types or device configurations (developer ID vs. regular tester ID) that could affect the behavior of push notifications in the background mode? Do we need to apply any additional settings or permissions, particularly for handling background push notifications? Are there any iOS version or device-specific limitations that could impact the proper delivery of background push notifications? Additional Information: The app is properly configured for APNs, and push notifications are being sent via Firebase. In the developer's Apple ID test environment, the app receives push notifications properly whether it is in the foreground or background. On other testers' devices, push notifications are only received when the app is in the foreground, and they are not received when the app is in the background. All test devices have been verified to have notification permissions enabled, and Firebase configuration is correct.
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Apr ’25
How do I manually associate an iOS app counterpart to my macOS app to deduplicate Notifications from iPhone?
Howdy, I'm trying to figure out how to replicate the following behavior for our app: The system is able to ascertain that the Mac equivalent of some iOS app is installed locally, and it prevents notifications from being mirrored. However, I am unable to determine how this association is inferred. When I check our iOS app under this prefpane, the switch remains enabled and toggleable—we'd like to act like Slack here. My initial assumption is that an app group containing both the Mac and iOS apps can be used to create the association; however, I would like to confirm that this is indeed the case before doing so. I'm not terribly confident about this. Details: The bundle identifiers of both apps do not match. This also applies to Slack; its iOS app is com.tinyspeck.chatlyio while its Mac app is com.tinyspeck.slackmacgap. In our case, the iOS app's identifier is like com.company.app while the Mac app's identifier is com.company.app.desktop. Both apps are signed with certificates that have matching team identifiers. The com.apple.developer.team-identifier entitlement is present on the Mac app. The Mac app shares a keychain access group with the iOS app. The Mac app is not sandboxed. The Mac app is an Electron app. The Mac app does not use APNs. It sends notifications "locally". I currently only have the iOS app installed on my iPhone via TestFlight, if that matters. Notification mirroring does work, but we'd like to forcibly disable this by associating the apps together. To my knowledge, the iOS app makes use of both a UNNotificationServiceExtension and a UNNotificationContentExtension. The iOS app currently doesn't have an assigned category (at least in Xcode). The Mac app is currently miscategorized as a developer tool (LSApplicationCategoryType = "public.app-category.developer-tools";), but that should be fixed. (Redacted) bundle information for the Mac app: CFBundleDisplayName = App; CFBundleExecutable = "App Desktop"; CFBundleName = App; Note that our CFBundleExecutable differs from the bundle's display name/name because we're currently migrating our users to a new version of the app that they'd likely want to live alongside the new one. The filename of the bundle itself is, similarly, App Desktop.app. For the iOS app, to my knowledge, the CFBundleName and CFBundleDisplayName are App.
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Mar ’25
IMAP Extension XAPPLEPUSHSERVICE — Access to specific APNS Topic
Hi, I’m looking for guidance on enabling push notifications for new emails in the native iOS Mail app (com.apple.mobilemail). Currently, I send push notifications using macOS Server (formerly OS X Server) Mail, but since it has been discontinued and renewal is no longer possible, I want to transition to the standard method used by email providers to notify the stock Mail app about new messages. To achieve this, I need access to the com.apple.mobilemail.push.com.zuplu APNs topic. This follows the same pattern used by other providers: iCloud: com.apple.mobilemail.push.com.me.mail.castle Fastmail: com.apple.mobilemail.push.com.fastmail Since Fastmail (as a third-party provider) has access to this, I assume there is a way for independent mail providers to integrate with XAPPLEPUSHSERVICE. In the interest of a free market and fair competition, I trust that Apple provides a means for email providers to notify the stock Mail app of IMAP server changes, allowing it to fetch new messages instantly. Under EU competition law, particularly Article 102 TFEU, dominant companies must not engage in anti-competitive behavior, including restricting access to essential services in a discriminatory manner. Furthermore, the Digital Markets Act (DMA) explicitly prohibits gatekeepers from favoring their own services or restricting interoperability without justification. Any insights or official guidance would be greatly appreciated! Thanks, DragonWork
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2.2k
Mar ’25
Issue related to APNS is delivering expired voip push notification.
Hi, am facing an issue related to voip push notifications getting delivered 1-2 hours after apns-expiration to 0 and apns-priority to 10. I had raised a similar post got a reply that it may be due to network delay. But network delay can cause the delivery of voip push to be delayed only by few seconds or minutes. But in our case voip push is getting delivered hours after the voip call was attempted. Steps to reproduce: Put our voip app in background and lock iPhone. As app is put in background, socket connections gets disconnected from server. Now if a caller makes call to this app, the call should be delivered through voip push. 2) Voip push should ideally be received even if app is in background and iPhone is locked. It is connected to a good wifi network. But it does not receive the voip push. 3) After 1-2 hours user unlocks iPhone and opens voip app. As soon as user opens app, the voip push is received and phone starts ringing.
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Mar ’25
Incoming call notifications problems
Good day We developed a simple swift code to make the device ringing when a certain type of notifications arrives from our backend. This is the code: let phoneNumber = CXHandle(type: .generic, value: (self.userInfoForPluginCall!["data"] as! [String:Any]) ["caller"] as! String) callUpdate.remoteHandle = phoneNumber let configuration = CXProviderConfiguration(localizedName: "Trec Conf") configuration.maximumCallGroups = 1 configuration.maximumCallsPerCallGroup = 1 configuration.supportsVideo = false configuration.supportedHandleTypes = [.generic] configuration.iconTemplateImageData = UIImage(named: "callkit-icon")?.pngData() let callProvider = CXProvider(configuration: configuration) callProvider.setDelegate(self, queue: nil) callProvider.reportNewIncomingCall(with: callUUID!, update: callUpdate, completion: {error in}) We are noticing some problems on the call screen: on certain devices (iOS 18.4RC) the normal call screen appears and the user can answer or decline the call, on other devices (iOS 18.3, especially with dynamic island) only a phone icon appears in the upper right corner and no possibility to answer or deny call. Any idea on why we are encountering that behavior? Thanks
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Mar ’25
Push Notification don't wake up my app
Hi everyone, We're experiencing an issue with our Flutter app that uses PushKit, CallKit, and Janus for handling VoIP calls. Everything works fine when the app is in the foreground, but when the app is in the background or completely closed (terminated state), the behavior is inconsistent: Sometimes, incoming calls are received as expected. Other times, the app does nothing, and the call is not delivered at all. Upon checking the console logs, we noticed that our app is being canceled (terminated by the system), which seems to be the reason why calls are not coming through. This happens randomly, making it difficult to reproduce consistently. Additional Details: The app is configured to handle VoIP notifications correctly. We are using PushKit to wake up the app and trigger CallKit for the incoming call UI. When the app is active, calls are handled correctly via Janus WebRTC signaling. We have verified that background modes for VoIP are enabled in the Info.plist. We suspect that iOS may be aggressively killing the app in the background, preventing incoming call notifications from reaching it. Questions: Has anyone experienced similar behavior with PushKit + CallKit on recent iOS versions? Could iOS be terminating the app due to background execution policies? Are there recommended best practices to ensure reliable delivery of VoIP notifications when the app is closed? Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks! Addional Information: this is the cancellation information at console: Received incoming message on topic hiperme.app at priority 10 por omisión 17:10:18.462084-0300 dasd CANCELED: com.apple.pushLaunch.hiperme.app:E8BACD at priority 10
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Mar ’25