As far as I understand, the main thread has a run loop. When an iOS app launches, the process must keep the run loop running to stay alive. Does that mean the main thread is the very first thread created when the process starts?

After logging in to the main App, turn on screen recording, then switch to the interface of another App to perform operations. After about ten-odd minutes, when returning to the main App, it was found that the app was forcefully quit by the system, and subsequent operations could not be carried out.

Regarding the Background Assets capability on iOS: In the install scenario, resources defined as the "install" type are incorporated into the App Store download progress. Do resources of the "update" type in the update scenario also get incorporated into the App Store download progress in the same way? If an exception occurs during the download of install-type resources and the download cannot proceed further, will the system no longer actively block users from launching the app and instead enable the launch button? Currently, if a user has enabled automatic updates on their device, after the app is updated and released on the App Store, will the Background Assets download start immediately once the automatic update completes? Or does Background Assets have its own built-in scheduling logic that prevents it from running concurrently with the automatic update?

Hi! I've been developing iOS and macOS apps for many years, but now I am looking to dive into smth i have never touched before, namely privileged helpers, and i am struggling hard trying to find my footing. Here’s my use case: I have a CLI tool that requires elevated privileges. I want to create a menu bar app that can interact with this tool, but I’m struggling to find solid documentation or examples of how to accomplish this using SMAppService. I might just be missing something obvious. If anyone could point me toward relevant documentation, examples, articles, tutorials, or even a WWDC session that covers running privileged helpers with SMAppService, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks in advance!

I'm working on an XPC server and need to determine the owner of the client process that connects to it. Specifically, I'd like to retrieve details such as the fully qualified user name or other identifying information from the XPC client connection.I'm considering using xpc_connection_get_pid() to get the client’s process ID, but I’m unsure of the best way to map this to the user who owns the process. Is there a recommended API or approach to capture this information securely?

Hi All, In continuation of this thread https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/804439 I want to perform data upload after getting it from the BLE device. As state restoration wake should not deal with data upload i though of using a processing task to perform the data upload. So the flow will be something like: Connect to device -> listen to notification -> go to background -> wake from notification -> handle data download from ble device -> register processing task for data upload -> hopefully get the data uploaded From reading about processing task i understand that the task execution is completely handled by the OS and depends on user behaviour and app usage. I even saw that if the user is not using the app for a while, the OS might not even perfoirm the task. So my quesiton is: does state restoration wakeup and perfroming data dowloads in the backgound considered app usage that will increase the likeluhood the task will get execution time? Can we rely on this for a scenario that the user opens the app for the first time, register, onboard for ble, connect to devie and then put it in the background for days or weeks and only relying on state restoration and processing tasks to do their thing? Sorry for the long read and appreciate your support! Shimon

Im using the low-level C xpc api <xpc/xpc.h> and i get this error when I run it: Underlying connection interrupted. I know this error stems from the call to xpc_session_send_message_with_reply_sync(session, message, &reply_err);. I have no previous experience with xpc or dispatch and I find the xpc docs very limited and I also found next to no code examples online. Can somebody take a look at my code and tell me what I did wrong and how to fix it? Thank you in advance. Main code: #include <stdio.h> #include <xpc/xpc.h> #include <dispatch/dispatch.h> // the context passed to mainf() struct context { char* text; xpc_session_t sess; }; // This is for later implementation and the name is also rudimentary void mainf(void* c) { //char * text = ((struct context*)c)->text; xpc_session_t session = ((struct context*)c)->sess; dispatch_queue_t messageq = dispatch_queue_create("y.ddd.main", DISPATCH_QUEUE_SERIAL); xpc_object_t message = xpc_dictionary_create(NULL, NULL, 0); xpc_dictionary_set_string(message, "test", "eeeee"); if (session == NULL) { printf("Session is NULL\n"); exit(1); } __block xpc_rich_error_t reply_err = NULL; __block xpc_object_t reply; dispatch_sync(messageq, ^{ reply = xpc_session_send_message_with_reply_sync(session, message, &reply_err); if (reply_err != NULL) printf("Reply Error: %s\n", xpc_rich_error_copy_description(reply_err)); }); if (reply != NULL) printf("Reply: %s\n", xpc_dictionary_get_string(reply, "test")); else printf("Reply is NULL\n"); } int main(int argc, char* argv[]) { // Create seperate queue for mainf() dispatch_queue_t mainq = dispatch_queue_create("y.ddd.main", DISPATCH_QUEUE_CONCURRENT); dispatch_queue_t xpcq = dispatch_queue_create("y.ddd.xpc", NULL); // Create the context being sent to mainf struct context* c = malloc(sizeof(struct context)); c->text = malloc(sizeof("Hello")); strcpy(c->text, "Hello"); xpc_rich_error_t sess_err = NULL; xpc_session_t session = xpc_session_create_xpc_service("y.getFilec", xpcq, XPC_SESSION_CREATE_INACTIVE, &sess_err); if (sess_err != NULL) { printf("Session Create Error: %s\n", xpc_rich_error_copy_description(sess_err)); xpc_release(sess_err); exit(1); } xpc_release(sess_err); xpc_session_set_incoming_message_handler(session, ^(xpc_object_t message) { printf("message recieved\n"); }); c->sess = session; xpc_rich_error_t sess_ac_err = NULL; xpc_session_activate(session, &sess_ac_err); if (sess_err != NULL) { printf("Session Activate Error: %s\n", xpc_rich_error_copy_description(sess_ac_err)); xpc_release(sess_ac_err); exit(1); } xpc_release(sess_ac_err); xpc_retain(session); dispatch_async_f(mainq, (void*)c, mainf); xpc_release(session); dispatch_main(); } XPC Service code: #include <stdio.h> #include <xpc/xpc.h> #include <dispatch/dispatch.h> int main(void) { xpc_rich_error_t lis_err = NULL; xpc_listener_t listener = xpc_listener_create("y.getFilec", NULL, XPC_LISTENER_CREATE_INACTIVE, ^(xpc_session_t sess){ printf("Incoming Session: %s\n", xpc_session_copy_description(sess)); xpc_session_set_incoming_message_handler(sess, ^(xpc_object_t mess) { xpc_object_t repl = xpc_dictionary_create_empty(); xpc_dictionary_set_string(repl, "test", "test"); xpc_rich_error_t send_repl_err = xpc_session_send_message(sess, repl); if (send_repl_err != NULL) printf("Send Reply Error: %s\n", xpc_rich_error_copy_description(send_repl_err)); }); xpc_rich_error_t sess_ac_err = NULL; xpc_session_activate(sess, &sess_ac_err); if (sess_ac_err != NULL) printf("Session Activate: %s\n", xpc_rich_error_copy_description(sess_ac_err)); }, &lis_err); if (lis_err != NULL) { printf("Listener Error: %s\n", xpc_rich_error_copy_description(lis_err)); xpc_release(lis_err); } xpc_rich_error_t lis_ac_err = NULL; xpc_listener_activate(listener, &lis_ac_err); if (lis_ac_err != NULL) { printf("Listener Activate Error: %s\n", xpc_rich_error_copy_description(lis_ac_err)); xpc_release(lis_ac_err); } dispatch_main(); }

An XPC service’s process has a system-managed lifecycle: the process is launched on-demand when another process tries to connect to it, and the system can decide to kill it when system resources are low. XPC services can tell the system when they shouldn’t be killed using xpc_transaction_begin/end. Do extensions created with ExtensionFoundation and/or ExtensionKit have the same behavior?

I am developing the application in Mac. My requirement is to start the application automatically when user login. I have tried adding the plist file in launch agents, But it doesn't achieve my requirement. Please find the code added in the launch agents &lt;?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?&gt; &lt;!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"&gt; &lt;plist version="1.0"&gt; &lt;dict&gt; &lt;key&gt;Label&lt;/key&gt; &lt;string&gt;com.sftk.secure&lt;/string&gt; &lt;key&gt;ProgramArguments&lt;/key&gt; &lt;array&gt; &lt;string&gt;/Applications/Testing.app/Contents/MacOS/Testing&lt;/string&gt; &lt;/array&gt; &lt;key&gt;RunAtLoad&lt;/key&gt; &lt;true/&gt; &lt;key&gt;KeepAlive&lt;/key&gt; &lt;false/&gt; &lt;/dict&gt; &lt;/plist&gt; I have tried by adding manually in the setting, but it was opened sometimes and closed suddenly. On open manually it works. Please provide a solution to start the application automatically on system starts

For example, let’s propose an XPC service that can connect to websites. Suppose that I want to connect to Apple.com, microsoft.com, and ibm.com. Can 3 service objects be made between the service and client? Or does the service have to return an ID for each web connection, with the client needing to specify which connection ID along with a command?

Hi everyone, We’re developing a macOS SwiftUI app that uses a local Swift Package (CasSherpaCore) to invoke an external compiled binary (sherpa-onnx-offline-tts) for text-to-speech synthesis using system calls. The package works flawlessly when tested from terminal or via a lightweight test C program. However, when we invoke it from a SwiftUI app (even with Full Disk Access granted to Xcode and Terminal), we consistently get the error: sh: /Users/xxxxxxxxxxx/SherpaONNX/sherpa-onnx/build/bin/sherpa-onnx-offline-tts: Operation not permitted We’ve tried: Granting Full Disk Access to Xcode and Terminal. Removing the quarantine flag with xattr -d com.apple.quarantine. Setting executable permission via chmod +x. Using both system() and Process in C and Swift contexts. Testing within a Swift Package that’s integrated into the app as a local dependency. Running the command manually from terminal (works perfectly). It appears that macOS (or Xcode’s runtime sandbox) is restricting execution of binaries from certain locations or contexts when launched via system() inside the app. Questions: Is there a specific entitlement or configuration that allows execution of local binaries from a SwiftUI macOS app? Is this related to System Integrity Protection (SIP) or a hardened runtime limitation? Are there best practices or alternative approaches to safely execute local TTS binaries from within a Swift app? Any help would be deeply appreciated. This is a core feature in our project and we’re stuck at this point. Thank you so much in advance!

My app is for personal use currently, so distribution won't be a problem. It registers a privileged helper using SMAppService, and I was wondering whether there is a way to customize the authorization dialog that the system presents to the user.

I'm developing a macOS application that tracks the duration of a user's session using a timer, which is displayed both in the main window and in an menu bar extra view. I have a couple of questions regarding the timer's behavior: What happens to the timer if the user closes the application's window (causing the app to become inactive) but does not fully quit it? Does the timer continue to run, pause, or behave in some other way? Will the app nap feature stop the timer when app is in-active state? When the application is inactive and the system is either in sleep mode or locked, does the timer’s tolerance get affected? In other words, will the timer fire with any additional delay compared to its scheduled time under these conditions?

My app uses SMAppService to register a privileged helper, the helper registers without errors, and can be seen in System Settings. I can get a connection to the service and a remote object proxy, but the helper process cannot be found in Activity Monitor and the calls to the proxy functions seem to always fail without showing any specific errors. What could be causing this situation?

I'm developing a macOS application that tracks the duration of a user's session using a timer, which is displayed both in the main window and in an menu bar extra view. I have a couple of questions regarding the timer's behavior: What happens to the timer if the user closes the application's window (causing the app to become inactive) but does not fully quit it? Does the timer continue to run, pause, or behave in some other way? Will the app nap feature stop the timer when app is in-active state?

I'm using libxpc in a C server and Swift client. I set up a code-signing requirement in the server using xpc_connection_set_peer_code_signing_requirement(). However, when the client doesn't meet the requirement, the server just closes the connection, and I get XPC_ERROR_CONNECTION_INTERRUPTED on the client side instead of XPC_ERROR_PEER_CODE_SIGNING_REQUIREMENT, making debugging harder. What I want: To receive XPC_ERROR_PEER_CODE_SIGNING_REQUIREMENT on the client when code-signing fails, for better debugging. What I’ve tried: Using xpc_connection_set_peer_code_signing_requirement(), but it causes the connection to be dropped immediately. Questions: Why does the server close the connection without sending the expected error? How can I receive the correct error on the client side? Are there any other methods for debugging code-signing failures with libxpc? Thanks for any insights!

Basically the title. I am trying to implement a local notification to trigger, regardless of internet connection, around 3-5pm if a certain array in the app is not empty to get the user to sync unsaved work with the cloud. I wanted to used the BGAppRefreshTask as I saw it was lightweight and quick for just posting a banner notification but after inspecting it in the console, it looks like it needs internet connection to trigger. Is this the case or am I doing something wrong? Should I be using the BGProcessingTask instead?

Hello, aspiring programmer here. I am developing a StepCounter APP, which keeps track of how many steps I have taken and sends to an MQTT server. I am trying to make this happen even while the app is not in focus, but so far I have not been able to get this working. First tried with silent background music, which seemed pretty inconsistent and inpractical, since I usually play youtube videoes while walking, making the app stop with its silent audio. Then tried GPS, which didnt really do anything (could be implementation problem). Has anyone made background processing work for their apps?

Hello 👋 Our team added com.apple.security.temporary-exception.apple-events: com.apple.Terminal recently to our Mac app to be able to tell the terminal to execute a specific command line automatically for the user when clicking a button but we've been rejected during review because of this entitlement so for now we've deleted it and deleted the associated feature. It concerns the following feature (see attachment). Context: Among other things the application enable to review pull request changes (remote) and we would like a button to automatically clone the pull request on disk when user click a button. We would like to use terminal for security reason as when cloning using git command we need ssh keys or other credential and there's no reason (rather than technical ones) that the user provide us such private information that is stored in the ~/.ssh. We prefer think the other way around and tell the user what to execute instead (no credentials involved or shared). We referred to: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/Miscellaneous/Reference/EntitlementKeyReference/Chapters/AppSandboxTemporaryExceptionEntitlements.html I admit it's unclear for me if this will imply a 100% rejection or if these entitlements are deprecated. Is "com.apple.security.temporary-exception.apple-events: com.apple.Terminal" an entitlement that is reserved for special Apple partners ? Is it an entitlement that we should demonstrate usage first ? Or should we completely remove the feature if we distribute through the App Store ? Is Apple advice for other APIs to develop such features (execute command line for the user) when distributing through the App Store ? As said we've disabled the feature for now. Thank you in advance for those who will take time to answer this,

Hello, aspiring programmer here. I am developing a StepCounter APP, which keeps track of how many steps I have taken and sends to an MQTT server. I am trying to make this happen even while the app is not in focus, but so far I have not been able to get this working. First tried with silent background music, which seemed pretty inconsistent and inpractical, since I usually play youtube videoes while walking, making the app stop with its silent audio. Then tried GPS, which didnt really do anything (could be implementation problem). Has anyone made background processing work for their apps?