Posts under App & System Services topic

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MultiPeer Connectivity: Device discovery succeeds but handshake fails when off-network
Hi, I am building an app that depends on multiple iOS devices connecting to a designated "coordinator" iOS device. I am using MPC, and it works great when the devices are connected to the same WiFi AP, with virtually 100% connection success. My definition of success is a near instant detection of available devices, >95% connection success rate, and a stable ongoing connection with no unexpected disconnects. The issue arises when the devices are not connected to the same WiFi network (or connected to no network with WiFi and bluetooth still on). Devices detect each other immediately, but when initiating a connection, both devices initiate a handshake, but the connection is not successful. In the few times where the connection succeeds, the connection quality is high, stable, and doesn't drop. Is this a known limitation of the framework? Could I be doing something wrong in my implementation?
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Singular Sound MIDI Maestro App BLE Communications Issue
When trying to use the MIDI Maestro app by Singular Sound, BLE peripherals experience unwanted connection-parameter renegotiation and disconnections on iOS 26, beta iOS 26.2 does not fix this issue. iOS 26 BLE communications are being sent too fast to be read correctly by the hardware device, and iOS 26.2 refuses communication altogether.
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Virtual Machine UDID Changes in macOS 15: Looking for Guidance on Development Workflow
Hello, We're developing endpoint security software using the Endpoint Security framework, and we've encountered challenges with the behavior change in macOS 15 regarding provisioning UDIDs in cloned VMs. The Change Prior to macOS 15, cloning a VM preserved its UDID (format: 0000FE00-9C4ED9F68BBDC72D). Starting with macOS 15, cloned VMs receive a new UDID generated from the host's Secure Enclave (format: b043d27202c7ac37ca3c6b82673302225485cae9), making each clone effectively a new device. Our Workflow We maintain a clean base VM image and clone it for each test run. We add the base VM's UDID to our provisioning profile once, then create clones which (previously) retained that same UDID, allowing us to start new testing cycles without re-registering devices. This is essential because our product involves low-level system integration through the Endpoint Security framework, and if something goes wrong during development, it has the potential to affect system stability. To prevent any cascading issues between test runs or different product versions, we need each test to start from a known clean state rather than reusing the same VM. The Challenge With each VM clone generating a new UDID, we're hitting Apple's device registration limits quickly. This particularly impacts: New team members who spin up VMs for the first time and can't run signed builds Our CI/CD pipeline where multiple test environments need provisioning profiles Developers testing different branches who need separate clean environments Current Workaround We've found that VMs created on macOS 14 and upgraded to macOS 15+ retain their original UDID format. However, we're concerned this workaround may stop working in future macOS versions, which would leave us without a viable path forward. If the workaround stops working, our fallback would be signing each CI build with a Developer ID signature to allow running on any device. However, we'd prefer to avoid this as it would significantly increase load on Apple's signing infrastructure for what are essentially internal test builds. We completely understand the security reasoning behind tying UDIDs to the host's Secure Enclave for Apple Account support. However, for development workflows that don't require Apple Account features in VMs but do require clean, isolated test environments, the previous behavior was quite valuable. Question Is there a recommended approach for teams in our situation? We're happy to explore alternative workflows if there's a pattern we're missing, or we'd be glad to provide more context if this is a use case Apple is considering for future updates. Thanks for any guidance you can provide! Feedback case: FB21389730
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App clip card is still there
Hi everyone, I’ve removed my App Clip completely: Deleted all Advanced App Clip Experiences Removed the App Clip target from my build Removed App Clip references from my apple-app-site-association file Deleted the meta tag from my website: But when I scan the QR code, the App Clip card still appears with: "This App Clip is not currently available in your country or region." Does anyone know why this is still showing and how to fully remove it? we need to show our website when this QRCode is scanned. Thanks!
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AlarmKit: volume buttons for snoozing
Hi, Is there any way to make AlarmKit alarms snooze when the user presses the hardware volume buttons? Currently, pressing a volume button while an AlarmKit alarm is ringing stops/dismisses the alarm. Why this matters: Many users instinctively press the volume buttons when an alarm starts (either to react quickly while half-asleep or because they’re used to the Clock app behavior). When this stops the alarm entirely, users unintentionally dismiss the alarm, which can lead to missed wake-ups and a poor user experience. In practice, this becomes a frequent source of confusion and frustration because the behavior differs from the system Clock app.
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`setTunnelNetworkSettings` errors in a packet tunnel provider.
We've received logs and have spuriously reproduced the following behavior: calls to setTunnelNetworkSettings completing with NETunnelProviderError where the code is networkSettingsInvalid, and the error domain string is empty. After subsequent calls to setTunnelNetworkSettings, the tunnel is stopped via the userInitiated stop reason within around 1 second from the first failure. This happens after a number of successful calls to setTunnelNetworkSettings have been made in the lifetime of a given packet tunnel process. We can confirm that no user ever initiates the disconnection. We can confirm that the only significant changes between the different calls to setTunnelNetworkSettings are that the parameters contain different private IPs for the tunnel settings - the routes and DNS settings remain the same. In our limited testing, it seems that we can replicate the behavior we're observing by removing the VPN profile while the tunnel is up. However, we are certain the same behavior happens under other circumstances without any user interaction. Is this what memory starvation looks like? Or is this something else? Our main concern is that the tunnel is killed and it is not brought back up even though our profile is set to be on-demand. It's difficult to give any promises about leaks to our users if the tunnel can be killed at any point and not be brought back. The spurious disconnections are a security issue for our app, we'd like to know if there's anything we can do differently so that this does not happen. We tried to get DTS, but given that we have no way to reproduce this issue with a minimal project. But we can reproduce the behavior (kill the tunnel by removing it's profile) from a minimal Xcode project, is that considered good enough for a reproduction?
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Caching bluetooth pairing keys, core bluetooth
Hi! We have created an app that communicates with devices over BLE, and it is currently out in Testflight. It works as expected for almost everyone, but for some users we get a strange behaviour. We start by scanning for devices with scanForPeripherals(withServices:options:), then connect, and finally initiate pairing by subscribing and writing to a pair of characteristics, which both require encryption. The issue is that for these users, the following code: func peripheral( _ peripheral: CBPeripheral, didDiscoverCharacteristicsFor service: CBService, error: Error? ) { guard error == nil else { LogManager.shared.log( "❌ Error discovering characteristics: \(error!)" ) return } for characteristic in service.characteristics ?? [] { if characteristic.uuid == controlPointUUID { controlPointCharacteristic = characteristic LogManager.shared.debugLog( "Control Point characteristic found." ) } else if characteristic.uuid == statusUUID { statusCharacteristic = characteristic LogManager.shared.debugLog("Notify characteristic found.") } } if statusCharacteristic != nil { LogManager.shared.debugLog("Call Set notify.") peripheral.setNotifyValue(true, for: statusCharacteristic!) } } func peripheral( _ peripheral: CBPeripheral, didUpdateNotificationStateFor characteristic: CBCharacteristic, error: Error? ) { if error != nil { LogManager.shared.log( "❌ Failed to subscribe to \(characteristic.uuid): \(error.debugDescription)" ) produces this error: > > [22:31:34.632] ❌ Failed to subscribe to F1D0FFF2-DEAA-ECEE-B42F-C9BA7ED623BB: Optional(Error Domain=CBATTErrorDomain Code=15 "Encryption is insufficient." UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Encryption is insufficient.}) So in essence, we can't perform pairing and enable encryption, because we have insufficient encryption. I know that the system caches some key material after pairing. When I do "Forget device" and then pair again, I don't need to put my device in pairing mode for the pairing pin to appear, which is not the case for devices that have not been paired before. Given that I can't reproduce the problem locally, it's hard to debug using the console. What I've been trying to do is figure out how to reset Bluetooth, which should hopefully remove old keys and whatever else might be there. The top hit when searching for 'clear corebluetooth cache macos' is on stackexchange, and writes: Turn off Bluetooth Delete com.apple.Bluetooth.plist from /Library/Preferences Delete files named com.apple.Bluetooth.somehexuuidstuff.plist from ~/Library/Preferences/ByHost (note that this is the user preference folder, not the system one) Turn on Bluetooth The answer is from December 2013, so it's not surpising that things don't work out of the box, but anyways: My ByHost folder does not contain any plist files with Bluetooth in them, and deleting the one in /Library/Preferences did not do anything, and judging from the content, it does not contain anything valuable. I have tried "sudo grep -r 'Bluetooth' ." in both /Library/Preferences/ and ~/Library/Preferences/ and looked at the resulting hits, but I can't seem to find anything meaningful. As a sidenote, does anyone know what is going on with Apple's entitlement service? We applied for an entitlement in August and have yet to receive a response.
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How to distinguish which operations in the file provider are during offline period
Currently tested, if the file provider goes offline (referring to calling disconnect) and deletes a file, the system will automatically trigger the deleteItems event after reconnecting (note that only after calling reconnect again will the current deleteItems logic be reached). However, for offline deletion, I would like to pass it directly without operating on the cloud. Can mounting disks determine which operations were performed offline during reboot
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isEligibleForAgeFeatures: wrong minimum OS version
Dear Apple, while implementing Declared Age Range API in my app, I've noticed a mistake in documentation: the isEligibleForAgeFeatures property is marked 26.0+ in documentation, but 26.2+ in Xcode, which ultimately leads to inability to use it with OS below 26.2. Moreover, I'm thoroughly confused by this quote from documentation: This flag returns true on iOS and iPadOS based on a person’s eligibility and always returns false on macOS. It leads me to two questions: Is it possible to use Declared Age Range API for macOS apps? Will it be possible to use it in future? Will there be any changes regarding this matter in a meantime (especially after Jan 1st)? If yes - when should we expect these changes? If no - why this API declares macOS 26+ support alongside iOS/iPadOS, if it simply doesn't work for macOS now? As of now, my iOS app works flawlessly with given API (on iOS 26.2) while macOS app returns isEligibleForAgeFeatures = false and requestAgeRange request always throws AgeRangeService.Error.notAvailable. Also, does it mean that one should not use isEligibleForAgeFeatures boolean while implementing Declared Age Range API for apps below iOS 26.2 (I mean 26.0+)? Or implementing given API for iOS 26.2+ is a sufficient way to go? So shouldn't the whole API be marked as 26.2+? The minimum iOS version in my app is 16.0 and minimum macOS version is 13.0 anyway, so the significant part of users is left out of these updates, but the main goal here is legal compliance.
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How to retrieve the refund status of an order via API?
Hi everyone. I'm trying to use https://developer.apple.com/documentation/appstoreserverapi/get-transaction-info to retrieve order information. How can I get the refund status of an order through this API? Also, Apple's webhook notification for refunds includes fields like revocationReason and revocationType. Can these be retrieved through the API? I've noticed that some refund orders have these fields when retrieved using get-transaction-info api, but others don't. I don't know the reason for these differences. Could you please explain? Thank you very much.
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Age verification again: What does "applicable region" mean wrt isEligibleForAgeFeatures
The documentation for isEligibleForAgeFeatures states: Use this property to determine whether a person using your app is in an applicable region that requires additional age-related obligations for when you distribute apps on the App Store. But what does "region" mean? Is this going to return true if the user has downloaded the app from the US App Store? Or will it go further and geolocate the user and identify them as being within a particular relevant state within the US?
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iOS App detecting external USB mass storage connection without user interaction
Title iOS App detecting external USB mass storage connection without user interaction Background We are developing an iOS application that connects to an action camera device via Bluetooth and Wi-Fi for control and data transfer. In addition to wireless connectivity, our product requirements include supporting USB Mass Storage mode, where the camera (or a generic USB flash drive) is connected to an iPhone using a Lightning / USB-C adapter and appears in the Files app as an external drive. Requirement Our app needs to detect when an external USB mass storage device is connected or disconnected, with the following constraints: The app is already running in the foreground No user interaction is performed (no button tap, no document picker, no import UI) The USB device can be: A generic USB flash drive An empty USB drive (no photos or videos) The app only needs to know: Whether an external USB storage device has been connected or removed No need to access device identity, vendor info, or low-level USB details The expected behavior is simply to update the app’s internal state or UI when a USB storage device becomes available. Investigation Performed We have already investigated and tested the following public and documented approaches, all of which did not provide a reliable or any notification for USB mass storage insertion: ExternalAccessory / MFi Not applicable for generic USB storage devices Darwin notifications / CoreFoundation Using notify_register_dispatch and CFNotificationCenterGetDarwinNotifyCenter System USB / storage related notifications do not fire for third-party apps File system APIs NSFileManager mountedVolumeURLsIncludingResourceValuesForKeys On iPhone, external USB drives visible in the Files app are not exposed as mounted volumes to third-party apps FileProvider / DocumentPicker Only provides access after explicit user interaction No background or passive notification of availability ImageCaptureCore Limited to PTP camera devices Does not apply to generic USB mass storage Based on our testing, none of the public APIs provide a way to detect USB mass storage insertion automatically without user interaction. Question to Apple We would like to confirm the official platform behavior and capability boundary: Is there any public, documented, App Store–approved API on iOS that allows a third-party app to be notified when a generic USB mass storage device is connected or disconnected, without user interaction? If not: Is this limitation intentional by platform design? Is the recommended approach to rely exclusively on user-initiated document access flows (e.g. document picker, import UI)? Are there any recommended best practices for apps that need to update their UI or internal state based on the availability of external USB storage devices? Our goal is to ensure that our implementation fully complies with iOS platform guidelines and App Store Review requirements. Environment iOS versions tested: iOS 18 (latest public release) Devices: iPhone models with Lightning / USB-C USB devices: generic USB flash drives (including empty drives) Closing We appreciate clarification on whether this capability is intentionally restricted on iOS and how Apple recommends designing user experience around external USB storage access. Thank you for your guidance.
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Drag and Drop multiple files to Finder in macOS SwiftUI Catalyst
I am trying to port my sandboxed macOS app completely over to iOS using a Catalyst target and SwiftUI. There appears to be an issue when trying to drag to the Finder in Catalyst (and in SwiftUI in General). For some reason, the Finder will not accept multiple file drops, only a single file. On my macOS (non-Catalyst AppKit target), I overcame this by dropping multiple files to a UTType of .folder, and the OS accepted the folder. This workaround is not available for iOS because .folder is a macOS-only option. I have a test app to illustrate the issue. Hopefully someone can help. Download Test App
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Add 'PDF Services' symlink in ~/Library directory in SwiftUI macOS Catalyst application
I am trying to port my sandboxed macOS app completely over to iOS using a Catalyst target. In my macOS app, I use 'SwiftySandboxFileAccess' package to add a symlink to '~/Library/PDF Services' so that the 'share to my app' menuItem shows up in the macOS Print Panel (in the PDF menu). It is critical for the function of my app to have this work on macOS. In the Catalyst target, I am having problems gaining access to '~/Library'. I have tried having the user select the folder, but the picker always returns 'canceled'. I have a test app that illustrates this. The test app tries to coax the user into selecting the library folder and then it is supposed to bookmark the location, but I am unable to get this far. As an aside, macOS should probably automatically add an entry to the Print Panel when the app includes PDF as a document type in XCode; it would save a lot of hassle and avoid having to go outside of the sandbox. However, I cannot wait for that. Hopefully someone can help. Download Test App from iCloud (If you have problems downloading the file, it might be because of some iCloud share setting that I am not aware of. Just tell me and I'll figure something out.)
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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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Is there a way to prevent the app from coming to the foreground when accepting a call with a banner-type call kit in a VoIP app?
I'm developing a VoIP app. Currently, I'm using CallKit to control call acceptance, and end-of-call processing. When a call comes in while using the phone, CallKit appears as a banner at the top of the screen. When I click "Accept" on the banner, the app opens and the call is received. (For OEMs, clicking the "Accept" button in the banner will accept the call as is.) The reason this feature is needed is, for example, when a call comes in as a banner call while using a navigation app, accepting the call causes the navigation app to go to the back and the VoIP app to come to the foreground, causing inconvenience to customers. This needs to be improved. Please advise.
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iOS 26: Unable to Transition from CallKit Screen to App when remoteHandle is nil or empty string
Hello, I am developing an internal phone application using CallKit. I am experiencing an issue with the behavior of remoteHandle settings in iOS 26 and would appreciate any insights you can provide towards a solution. 1. Problem Description When an iPhone running iOS 26 is in a sleep state and receives a VoIP incoming call where remoteHandle is set to nil or an empty string (@""), we are unable to transition to our application (the UIExtension provided by the provider) from the CallKit UI's "More" (…) button after answering the call. 2. Conditions and Symptoms OS Version: iOS 26 Initial State: iPhone is in a sleep state Call Type: An unsolicited(unknown number) VoIP incoming call where the CXCallUpdate's remoteHandle is set to either nil or [[CXHandle alloc] initWithType:CXHandleTypePhoneNumber value:@""] Symptoms: After answering the VoIP call by sliding the button, selecting the "More" (…) button displayed on the CallKit screen does not launch our application's UIExtension (custom UI), and the iPhone instead stay to the CallKit screen. 3. Previous Behavior (Up to iOS 18) Up to iOS 18, even when remoteHandle was set to an empty string using the following code, the application would transition normally from "More" after answering an incoming call from a sleep state. CXCallUpdate *update = [[CXCallUpdate alloc] init]; update.remoteHandle = [[CXHandle alloc] initWithType:CXHandleTypePhoneNumber value:@""]; [provider reportNewIncomingCallWithUUID:uuid update:update completion:completion]; 4. Unsuccessful Attempts to Resolve The issue remained unresolved after changing the handling for unsolicited(unknown number) incoming calls as follows: CXCallUpdate *update = [[CXCallUpdate alloc] init]; update.remoteHandle = nil; // Set remoteHandle to nil [provider reportNewIncomingCallWithUUID:uuid update:update completion:completion]; 5. Workaround (Temporary) The problem can be resolved, and the application can transition successfully, by setting a dummy numerical value (e.g., "0") for the value in remoteHandle using the following code: CXCallUpdate *update = [[CXCallUpdate alloc] init]; update.remoteHandle = [[CXHandle alloc] initWithType:CXHandleTypePhoneNumber value:@"0"]; // Set a dummy numerical value [provider reportNewIncomingCallWithUUID:uuid update:update completion:completion]; 6. Additional Information If remoteHandle is correctly set with the caller's number (i.e., not an unsolicited(unknown number) call; e.g., value:@"1234567890"), the application transitions normally from the "More" button after answering an incoming call from a sleep state, even in iOS 26. The above issue does not occur when answering incoming calls while the iPhone is in an active state (not sleeping). 7. Questions Have there been any other reports of similar behavior? Should this be considered a bug in CallKit for iOS 26? Should I make file a new Feedback report? Is there a suitable method to resolve this issue when the caller ID is unsolicited (nil or an empty string)? This problem significantly impacts user operations as end-users are unable to perform essential in-app actions such as hold or transfer after answering an unsolicited(unknown number) call from a sleep state. We are eager to find an urgent solution and would appreciate any information or advice you can provide. Thank you for your assistance.
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Issues Generating Bloom Filters for Apple NetworkExtension URL Filtering
Hi there, We have been trying to set up URL filtering for our app but have run into a wall with generating the bloom filter. Firstly, some context about our set up: OHTTP handlers Uses pre-warmed lambdas to expose the gateway and the configs endpoints using the javascript libary referenced here - https://developers.cloudflare.com/privacy-gateway/get-started/#resources Status = untested We have not yet got access to Apples relay servers PIR service We run the PIR service through AWS ECS behind an ALB The container clones the following repo https://github.com/apple/swift-homomorphic-encryption, outside of config changes, we do not have any custom functionality Status = working From the logs, everything seems to be working here because it is responding to queries when they are sent, and never blocking anything it shouldn’t Bloom filter generation We generate a bloom filter from the following url list: https://example.com http://example.com example.com Then we put the result into the url filtering example application from here - https://developer.apple.com/documentation/networkextension/filtering-traffic-by-url The info generated from the above URLs is: { "bits": 44, "hashes": 11, "seed": 2538058380, "content": "m+yLyZ4O" } Status = broken We think this is broken because we are getting requests to our PIR server for every single website we visit We would have expected to only receive requests to the PIR server when going to example.com because it’s in our block list It’s possible that behind the scenes Apple runs sporadically makes requests regardless of the bloom filter result, but that isn’t what we’d expect We are generating our bloom filter in the following way: We double hash the URL using fnv1a for the first, and murmurhash3 for the second hashTwice(value: any, seed?: any): any { return { first: Number(fnv1a(value, { size: 32 })), second: murmurhash3(value, seed), }; } We calculate the index positions from the following function/formula , as seen in https://github.com/ameshkov/swift-bloom/blob/master/Sources/BloomFilter/BloomFilter.swift#L96 doubleHashing(n: number, hashA: number, hashB: number, size: number): number { return Math.abs((hashA + n * hashB) % size); } Questions: What hashing algorithms are used and can you link an implementation that you know is compatible with Apple’s? How are the index positions calculated from the iteration number, the size, and the hash results? There was mention of a tool for generating a bloom filter that could be used for Apple’s URL filtering implementation, when can we expect the release of this tool?
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