Widgets & Live Activities

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SwiftData changes made in widget via AppIntent are not reflected in main app until full relaunch
Hi, I’m using SwiftData with an @Observable DatabaseManager class that is shared between my app and a widget. This class is located inside a Swift package and looks roughly like this: public final class DatabaseManager { public static let shared = DatabaseManager() private init() { let groupID = "group.com.yourcompany.myApp" let config = ModelConfiguration(groupContainer: .identifier(groupID)) let c = try! ModelContainer(for: MyModel.self, configurations: config) self.container = c self.modelContext = c.mainContext } public private(set) var container: ModelContainer public private(set) var modelContext: ModelContext } In the main app, I inject the container and context like this: struct MyApp: App { var body: some Scene { WindowGroup { ContentView() .modelContainer(DatabaseManager.shared.container) .modelContext(DatabaseManager.shared.modelContext) } } } Both the widget and the main app import the same package, and both use DatabaseManager.shared for reading and writing objects. The problem: When the widget updates an object using an AppIntent, the change is not reflected in the main app unless I fully terminate and relaunch it. If I just bring the app back to the foreground, it still shows stale data. Is there a recommended way to make the main app observe or reload SwiftData changes that were made in the widget (via the same shared app group and container)? I’m already using .modelContainer(...) and .modelContext(...) in the app, and everything else works fine — it’s just the syncing that doesn’t happen unless I force-relaunch the app. Thanks!
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276
Jul ’25
Can We Display Screen Time Data in WidgetKit?
Hello, I am trying to create a Home Screen widget for iOS that displays device usage statistics — similar to the built-in Screen Time widget Apple provides. The goal is to show the average device usage for a specified period (daily, weekly, or monthly) and optionally include a comparison with the previous period. I noticed that Apple’s own Screen Time widget presents such information. However, after reviewing the public documentation, I could not find any available API that allows a developer to create a similar experience. To explore possible alternatives, I implemented a SwiftUI view inside a com.apple.deviceactivityui.report-extension using the Family Controls and Device Activity frameworks. The view works fine within the main app and the report extension context, but when I attempted to use the same view in a WidgetKit extension, I received an error at runtime. This suggests that views from com.apple.deviceactivityui.report-extension are not usable inside widgets, which I understand may be due to sandboxing or limitations of how the extension points are designed. So far, I’ve found no way to access cumulative or average usage data (screen time, app usage, etc.) from system APIs that can be shown in a widget context. My understanding is that Family Controls and Device Activity frameworks allow observing ongoing activity and building usage reports inside the app, but do not provide access to the same historical or summarized data that Apple’s own widgets display. Could you please confirm: Whether there is any supported way to access average device usage (screen time) data for use in a widget? If not, is this an intentional limitation due to privacy concerns, or is there a roadmap for exposing such APIs in the future? Are there any APIs or entitlements that could allow similar functionality via WidgetKit? Thank you for your time and support. Best regards,
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Jul ’25
New push notifications for widgets seem too limited for actual production-level apps
I was very excited to see the addition of push notifications for widgets. However upon further inspection, the way it is implemented seems too limiting for real life apps. I have an app for time tracking with my own backend. The app syncs with my backend in the main executable (main target). My widgets are more lightweight as they only access data in the shared app container, but they don't perform sync with the server directly to avoid race conditions with the main app. I was under the impression that the general direction of the platform is to be doing most things in the main app target (also App Intents work that way for the most part), so the fact that the WidgetPushHandler just calls the widget's method to reload the timeline is very unfortunate. In an ideal scenario I also need the main app to be 'woken up' to perform the sync with the server, and once that's done I'd update the widget's timeline and where I would just read data from the shared app container. So, my questions are: What is the recommended way of updating the widgets when this push notification arrives in the case that the main app target needs to perform the sync first? Is there any way how to detect that the method func timeline(for configuration: InteractiveTrackingWidgetConfigurationAppIntent, in context: Context) was called as a result of the push notification being received? Can I somehow schedule a background task from the widget's reloadTimeline() function? How can I get the push token later, in case that I don't save it right away the first time the WidgetPushHandler's pushTokenDidChange() is called? Thank you for your work on this and hopefully for your answers. FB19356256
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128
Sep ’25
Unable perform AppIntent in interactive Widget
I am currently developing an interactive widget, but an AppIntent issue blocked me for 2 days. I have an AppIntent named TimerActionIntent, which has two parameters: TimerType and TimerAction. Here is the code: import AppIntents enum TimerType: Int, CaseIterable, AppEnum, AppEntity { case sleep case feeding static let typeDisplayRepresentation: TypeDisplayRepresentation = "Timer Type" static let caseDisplayRepresentations: [TimerType : DisplayRepresentation] = [ .sleep: "Sleep", .feeding: "Feeding" ] } enum TimerAction: Int, CaseIterable, AppEnum, AppEntity { case start case pause case stop static let typeDisplayRepresentation: TypeDisplayRepresentation = "Timer Action" static let caseDisplayRepresentations: [TimerAction : DisplayRepresentation] = [ .start: "Start", .pause: "Pause", .stop: "Stop" ] } struct TimerActionIntent: AppIntent { static let title: LocalizedStringResource = "Operate a Log Timer" @Parameter(title: "Timer", default: .sleep) var timerType: TimerType @Parameter(title: "Action", default: .start) var action: TimerAction static var isDiscoverable: Bool = false static var openAppWhenRun: Bool = false init() {} init(timerType: TimerType, action: TimerAction) { self.timerType = timerType self.action = action } func perform() async throws -> some IntentResult { // perform the action Self.openAppWhenRun = state == .stopped } return .result() } } I can't execute the AppIntent if using the following code: Button(intent: TimerActionIntent(timerType: .sleep, action: .start)) { // button view } // or let intent = TimerActionIntent() intent.timerType = timerType intent.action = .start Button(intent: intent) { // button view } and only execute when initialize TimerActionIntent without any parameters and @Parameter has the default value. e.g. Button(intent: TimerActionIntent()) { // button view } I have some logs in the Console app: default 17:51:27.626382+0800 linkd Accepting XPC connection from PID 39255 for service "com.apple.linkd.registry" default 17:51:27.637511+0800 WidgetsExtension Beginning PerformAction <<SB:788D850BBBC5>> default 17:51:27.637540+0800 WidgetsExtension Beginning InitializeAction <<SB:ACBC7A27CCBF>> default 17:51:27.637556+0800 WidgetsExtension [InitializeAction <<N:ACBC7A27CCBF>>] Found TimerActionIntent matching TimerActionIntent registered with AppManager default 17:51:27.637725+0800 WidgetsExtension Prepared timerType to TimerType(TimerType/0)) default 17:51:27.637744+0800 WidgetsExtension Prepared action to TimerAction(TimerAction/0)) default 17:51:27.637772+0800 WidgetsExtension Ending InitializeAction <<SE:ACBC7A27CCBF>> default 17:51:27.637795+0800 WidgetsExtension Beginning ResolveParameters <<SB:6C7CA02308AD>> default 17:51:27.639807+0800 WidgetsExtension Building resolver for parameter timerType<TimerType> = TimerType/0 default 17:51:27.640160+0800 WidgetsExtension Building resolver: EntityIdentifier → TimerType:TimerActionIntent:timerType default 17:51:27.640202+0800 WidgetsExtension Ending ResolveParameters <<SE:6C7CA02308AD>> default 17:51:27.640221+0800 WidgetsExtension Beginning NeedsDisambiguation <<SB:8E482F9CCCB0>> default 17:51:27.641328+0800 WidgetsExtension Ending NeedsDisambiguation <<SE:8E482F9CCCB0>> default 17:51:27.641344+0800 WidgetsExtension Ending PerformAction <<SE:788D850BBBC5>> error 17:51:27.642316+0800 chronod Perform action connection operation completed with error: Error Domain=LNActionExecutorErrorDomain Code=2010 "(null)" error 17:51:27.642774+0800 chronod Operation `<LNPerformActionConnectionOperation: 0x600002c4a180, identifier: F8FB77C5-7F8A-4670-BB8C-465DE4EAB6B8>` error Error Domain=LNActionExecutorErrorDomain Code=2010 "(null)" default 17:51:27.643358+0800 linkd Invalidated XPC connection from PID 39255 for service "com.apple.linkd.registry" I can't find any details about the error " Error Domain=LNActionExecutorErrorDomain Code=2010 "(null)"" The environment: Xcode: 16.4/26 beta 5 iOS: iOS Simulator 18.5, iOS Simulator 26, iPhone 16 Pro Max 18.6 macOS 15.6 Can anyone help me, please!
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Aug ’25
What's the max duration for a live activity?
The docs are conflicting. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/activitykit/starting-and-updating-live-activities-with-activitykit-push-notifications#End-the-Live-Activity-with-a-custom-dismissal-date says: When you end a Live Activity, by default the Live Activity appears on the Lock Screen for up to four hours after it ends to allow people to glance at their phone to refer to the latest information. However here it says: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/activitykit/displaying-live-data-with-live-activities#Understand-constraints A Live Activity can be active for up to eight hours unless its app or a person ends it before this limit. After the eight-hour limit, the system automatically ends the Live Activity, and immediately removes it from the Dynamic Island. However, the Live Activity remains on the Lock Screen until a person removes it or for up to four additional hours before the system removes it — whichever comes first. As a result, a Live Activity remains on the Lock Screen for a maximum of 12 hours. So is it 4 hrs OR '8 for Dynamic Island vs 12 for Lock Screen'?
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179
Aug ’25
Should `input-push-token` be added to all live-activity based payloads?
I'm struggling to understand what the impact of this flag is. Docs only say: For devices running iOS 18 and iPadOS 18 or later, you can add input-push-token: 1 to your payload to start a Live Activity and receive a new push token. After you receive a new push token, you can use it to send updates to a Live Activity. But things were working fine for iOS 17. Right? Does it somehow make the OS emit update tokens faster/more successfully? Should I include in all start, update, end events?
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4w
Title and Subtitle in Control Widget on macOS Tahoe?
Hi 🙋 Has anybody gotten subtitles in macOS Tahoe Control Widgets to show up in their custom control widgets? Seems macOS is able to do it (see attached screenshot of the Bluetooth control widget), but my widget, which shows a title and subtitle on iOS, will only show the title on macOS. I tried all the different ControlWidgetButton init methods to no avail. I tried a VStack for my title and subtitle Texts, I tried just two Texts without a VStack, I tried the controlWidgetStatus and controlWidgetActionHint modifiers out of desperation... nothing worked. Any pointers much appreciated! Thank you, – Matthias
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157
Sep ’25
Push notifcation-driven live activity not starting
Hi, I'm having this issue that I have have not been able to figure out as I've gone through a checklist and it seems I have everything in place, but im sending my pushToStartTokenUpdates token to a server and im able to test starting a live activity via CURL where it shows my push token going through and even my test payload but after a while I get this issue in my logs where it fails to find a live activity Push notifications are set up, im sending my token to APN and im even able to start live activities locally.
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160
Sep ’25
Live Activity budget exceeded
When sending multiple push to start notifications to start a live activities in a short time frame, after around 10 pushes live activities are no longer being started. Device logs show the following entry: Push-to-start budget exceeded for com.att.tlv.myatt::pushToStart; not starting activity What can be done to be able to open more live activities via push-to-start in a short time frame (increase the push-to-start budget)? Can this be related to the development environment and it will not happen on production? NSSupportsLiveActivitiesFrequentUpdates is already set to YES
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165
Sep ’25
Push tokens from push-to-start Live Activities require user permissions?
Just wanted to clarify some expected behaviors here. It seems that there are two distinct behaviors for Live Activity flows for freshly installed apps. When you start a Live Activity for the first time and the user hasn't yet clicked on Allow/Don't Allow in the activity interface, there are two different sequences: Starting a Live Activity locally Request a Live Activity locally via Swift Live Activity starts .pushTokenUpdates is immediately triggered, even if the Allow/Don't Allow buttons appear under the Activity UI Starting a Live Activity via push-to-start Send a push-to-start notification to launch a Live Activity Live Activity starts .pushTokenUpdates is not triggered, and .pushToken returns nil. If a user clicks on Allow in the Activity UI, only then is .pushTokenUpdates triggered.
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Oct ’25
[iOS26] Widget Exntension configuration uable to load
I have developed a Widget Extension with editable dynamic options. `struct ModelQuery: EntityStringQuery { public var allModels:[ModelEntity] { // from App Groups UserDefaults let models = SharedDataManager.getModelList() // 检查原始数据是否为空,避免转换后的数据异常 guard !models.isEmpty else { return [] } let entites = models.map{ModelEntity(from: $0)} return entites } func entities(for identifiers: [ModelEntity.ID]) async throws -> [ModelEntity] { let models = allModels if models.isEmpty { return [] } // 尝试匹配ID let matchedEntities = identifiers.compactMap { id in models.first { $0.id == id } } // 如果没有匹配到任何实体,返回默认的第一个站点 if matchedEntities.isEmpty && !models.isEmpty { return [models[0]] } return matchedEntities } func entities(matching string: String) async throws -> [ModelEntity] { let stations = allModels if stations.isEmpty { return [] } if string.isEmpty { return stations } let lowercasedString = string.lowercased() let filteredStations = stations.filter { station in station.name.lowercased().contains(lowercasedString) } if filteredStations.isEmpty { return [] } return filteredStations } func suggestedEntities() async throws -> [ModelEntity] { return allModels } }` Below is how it looks when functioning properly However, when I tested it on iOS 26, occasional "Failed to Load" errors or unknown errors occurred. The same issues did not appear on iOS 17 or iOS 18.
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103
Oct ’25
SendProcessControlEvent:toPid: encountered an error
iPhone 16.0 16.0.2 系统上运行小组件出现问题, 其他系统没有问题 SendProcessControlEvent:toPid: encountered an error: Error Domain=com.apple.dt.deviceprocesscontrolservice Code=8 "Failed to show Widget 'com.jiduauto.iphone.jdcomiphoneWidget' error: Error Domain=FBSOpenApplicationServiceErrorDomain Code=5 "The request to open "com.apple.springboard" failed." UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=The request to open "com.apple.springboard" failed., NSLocalizedFailureReason=Unexpected error type., NSUnderlyingError=0x600002bbd7a0 {Error Domain=BSServiceConnectionErrorDomain Code=3 "XPC error received on message reply handler" UserInfo={BSErrorCodeDescription=OperationFailed, NSLocalizedFailureReason=XPC error received on message reply handler}}, BSErrorCodeDescription=InvalidResponse}." UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Failed to show Widget 'com.jiduauto.iphone.jdcomiphoneWidget' error: Error Domain=FBSOpenApplicationServiceErrorDomain Code=5 "The request to open "com.apple.springboard" failed." UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=The request to open "com.apple.springboard" failed., NSLocalizedFailureReason=Unexpected error type., NSUnderlyingError=0x600002bbd7a0 {Error Domain=BSServiceConnectionErrorDomain Code=3 "XPC error received on message reply handler" UserInfo={BSErrorCodeDescription=OperationFailed, NSLocalizedFailureReason=XPC error received on message reply handler}}, BSErrorCodeDescription=InvalidResponse}., NSUnderlyingError=0x600002bbd5f0 {Error Domain=FBSOpenApplicationServiceErrorDomain Code=5 "The request to open "com.apple.springboard" failed." UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=The request to open "com.apple.springboard" failed., NSLocalizedFailureReason=Unexpected error type., NSUnderlyingError=0x600002bbd7a0 {Error Domain=BSServiceConnectionErrorDomain Code=3 "XPC error received on message reply handler" UserInfo={BSErrorCodeDescription=OperationFailed, NSLocalizedFailureReason=XPC error received on message reply handler}}, BSErrorCodeDescription=InvalidResponse}}} Domain: DTXMessage Code: 1 User Info: { DVTErrorCreationDateKey = "2024-02-19 08:02:14 +0000"; } System Information macOS Version 13.5.2 (Build 22G91) Xcode 15.0 (22265) (Build 15A240d) Timestamp: 2024-02-19T16:02:14+08:00
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3w
WidgetKit memory issues only in iOS 18.3
I've been working on a new application and beta testing with TestFlight. When iOS 18.3 came out, my widgets stopped working due to using too much memory. I've been trying to debug for a while now, but not making much progress. Now that iOS 18.4 is out, I noticed the widgets are working again. I'm wondering if there was some change made in iOS 18.3 that was rolled back in iOS 18.4 that I'm not seeing in the iOS Release Notes etc? I haven't seen much in the Developer Forums, either. My concern is that perhaps Apple decided to make the 30MB Widget memory limit a "hard" limit, but then rolled it back, perhaps temporarily, so I'd like some clarity on the situation if possible. Otherwise, I did notice that it seemed as if all of my widgets were loaded at once, even if only one widget was installed, this boosting the memory usage significantly. If so, that might indicate that a bug was fixed in the Widget Provider system? In any case, I'd appreciate any information or advice on this. Thanks!
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146
Apr ’25
Can't change iPhone watch app complication picker app name
I have an objective-c watch app and have added a swift widget style compilation to it and am having problems. The complication works fine but the name in the iPhone watch app complication picker stubbornly remains as the watchkit app name despite me trying various ways of changing it. Here are the various CF bundle name and display name values I am using: phone app values CFBundleIdentifier - com.Distribution-Systems-Associates.Tennis-Watch-v1 CFBundleName - $(PRODUCT_NAME) CFBundleDisplayName - Tennis Scorekeeper watchkit app CFBundleIdentifier - com.Distribution-Systems-Associates.Tennis-Watch-v1.watchkitapp CFBundleName - Tennis Scorekeeper CFBundleDisplayName - Tennis Scorekeeper WatchKit extension CFBundleIdentifier - com.Distribution-Systems-Associates.Tennis-Watch-v1.watchkitapp.watchkitextension CFBundleName - Tennis Scorekeeper CFBundleDisplayName - Tennis Scorekeeper __Watchkit complication __ CFBundleIdentifier - com.Distribution-Systems-Associates.Tennis-Watch-v1.watchkitapp.watchkitextension.Tennis-Watch-V1-Complication Changing the values in the complication doesn't seem to matter. Every other name in both my iPhone and watch apps are as expected. ChatGPT suggested that I try adding a localized name in the watchkit app but that didn't seem to do much of anything useful. I have run this though Chat quite a bit to see if I could get any accidental insights that way and while it has been interesting, it has also been not terribly helpful. I didn't post any of the complication code because that seems to be fine. However, I can do that if needed. The complication works as intended (starts the app). The various names everywhere else show up as intended. It's just that this one name refuses to be overridden. Thoughts?
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149
May ’25
Maximise background update on WatchOS
I'm looking to maximise my Watch app's widget to be as up to date as possible. If we imagined the app was a simple step counter, and we wanted to display the users count as up to date as possible. We can conclude: We don't care about widget timelines beyond the current entry as we can't predict the future! We need to refresh the count as often as possible The refresh should be very quick with a straightforward HealthKit query, no networking or heavy work needed. We will assume the user has the complication/widget on their active Watch face. With the standard WidgetKit APIs we can expire the timeline after 15 minutes and in my experimentation a Watch app can usually update its widget timeline at that frequency if it's on the Watch face. I'm experimenting with two methods to try and improve refreshes further A user's step count might not have recently changed when the timeline update is called. I was therefore looking into the HealthKit enableBackgroundDelivery API (which requires the HealthKit Background Delivery entitlement to be enabled) to get updates limited to once an hour from a HKObserverQuery, I can then call the WidgetCenter.shared.reloadAllTimelines() from there. WatchOS also support the BGAppRefreshTaskRequest(identifier:"") and .backgroundTask(.appRefresh) APIs. I can request updates once every 15 minutes here too and then call the WidgetCenter.shared.reloadAllTimelines(). With option 1, this update opportunity is great as it will specifically update when there's new steps so even once an hour this would be helpful (A real shame to be limited to once an hour even if this used up WidgetKit standard reload budgets: FB13879817, FB11677132, FB10016177). But I can't determine if this update takes away one of the standard timeline expiration updates that already run 4 times an hour? Could I observe additional Health types to get additional updates? Do I need the Background Modes Capability as well as the HealthKit Background Delivery for this in Xcode or just the HealthKit one? With option 2, I can't find a suitable option in the (short) list of supported background modes in Xcode. Does not selecting any mean my app will get 0 refreshes from this route and so should not be implemented in my use case?
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Jun ’25
Generating token using pushToStartTokenUpdates in terminated state
Pretty much the title. I am a noob in apple app development and currently starting it out. I got stuck in this. Can anyone let me know that how can i generate the token for starting live activity in terminated state? I have tried multiple times to find that this one is not working in terminated state. How can I overcome this? Is there any solution or workaround?
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144
Jul ’25
How to opt out of tinting widget content on visionOS
During the WWDC Session called "Design widgets for visionOS" the presenter says: You can choose whether the background of your widget participates in tinting. If you opted out, for example to preserve a photo or illustration, make sure it still looks good alongside the selected color palette. Unfortunately, this session has no example code. Can someone point me to the correct way to do this? Is there a modifier we can use on views? (reposting this in the correct topic/subtopic)
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163
Aug ’25
ManagedSettings doesn't block Live Activities in the Dynamic Island
When using the ManagedSettings API to block apps everything is blocked as expected (the app itself, Notifications, Live Activities on the Lock Screen etc) except for Compact Live Activities of those apps (that are shown in the Dynamic Island). I feel the expected behavior would be to block also the Compact Live Activities. Our use case: In Spoilerblock we want to prevent users from being exposed to spoilers before they've had time to watch for example a sports game. Current workaround: Right now the best we can do is to ask the user to disable Live Activities for apps that could expose results, to not risk being exposed to a spoiler.
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54
Aug ’25