Hello, Between April 20 and April 25 of this year, I submitted a request for the Family Controls Distribution entitlement through the following page: https://developer.apple.com/contact/request/family-controls-distribution After submitting the request, I clearly saw the message: “Thank you for your submission. We’ll review your request and contact you soon with a status update.” However, I have not received any further update or feedback since then. Afterward, I contacted Apple multiple times. Unfortunately, the responses I received consistently indicated that the relevant teams were unable to check the status or progress of the entitlement request, and no clear timeline or follow-up commitment was provided. Eventually, I was informed via email that the issue had already been escalated to the operations team for handling. However, many more days have now passed without any progress or update. At this point, it has been nearly one month since I submitted the entitlement request, yet I still have not received any result, status update, or meaningful feedback. I genuinely do not understand why the tracking and communication process for this entitlement request is so unclear and slow. I would sincerely appreciate it if the relevant team could provide a clear update regarding the current status of my request and the expected next steps. Thank you.

It has been 20 days since we applied for Family Controls (Distribution) permission, but the status still shows as Submitted. Is there any way to expedite the review process?

Hello, Between April 20 and April 25 of this year, I submitted a request for the Family Controls Distribution entitlement through the following page: https://developer.apple.com/contact/request/family-controls-distribution After submitting the request, I clearly saw the message: “Thank you for your submission. We’ll review your request and contact you soon with a status update.” However, I have not received any further update or feedback since then. Afterward, I contacted Apple multiple times regarding this issue through Case ID: 102881595688. Unfortunately, the responses I received consistently indicated that the relevant teams were unable to check the status or progress of the entitlement request, and no clear timeline or follow-up commitment was provided. Eventually, I was informed via email that the issue had already been escalated to the operations team for handling. However, many more days have now passed without any progress or update. At this point, it has been nearly one month since I submitted the entitlement request, yet I still have not received any result, status update, or meaningful feedback. I genuinely do not understand why the tracking and communication process for this entitlement request is so unclear and slow. I would sincerely appreciate it if the relevant team could provide a clear update regarding the current status of my request and the expected next steps. Thank you.

Hello, Between April 20 and April 25 of this year, I submitted a request for the Family Controls Distribution entitlement through the following page: https://developer.apple.com/contact/request/family-controls-distribution After submitting the request, I clearly saw the message: “Thank you for your submission. We’ll review your request and contact you soon with a status update.” However, I have not received any further update or feedback since then. Afterward, I contacted Apple multiple times regarding this issue through Case ID: 102881595688. Unfortunately, the responses I received consistently indicated that the relevant teams were unable to check the status or progress of the entitlement request, and no clear timeline or follow-up commitment was provided. Eventually, I was informed via email that the issue had already been escalated to the operations team for handling. However, many more days have now passed without any progress or update. At this point, it has been nearly one month since I submitted the entitlement request, yet I still have not received any result, status update, or meaningful feedback. I genuinely do not understand why the tracking and communication process for this entitlement request is so unclear and slow. I would sincerely appreciate it if the relevant team could provide a clear update regarding the current status of my request and the expected next steps. Thank you.

I'm posting this here after reading Quinn's post here: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/799000 The above entitlement is mentioned in IOUSBHostControllerInterface.h. It isn't an entitlement one can add using the + button on the Capabilities panel in Xcode. If I try to add it by hand, Xcode complains that it isn't in my profile. Is this a managed entitlement? We'd like to create a local USB "device" to represent a real device reachable over a network.

Hoping to get visibility on a Family Controls (Distribution) entitlement request pending without status updates after an app transfer. Context: Digital wellbeing app, 500K+ active iOS users Previous team had Family Controls (Distribution) approved and shipping to production App transferred to new team (H2HM68H8PP) ~1 month ago; entitlement re-requested immediately Capability page shows "View Requests (6)" with no approvals, rejections, or updates Developer Support cases opened (102883853173, 20000112879750, 102875975624) — confirmed they cannot check entitlement status Impact: Core app feature depends on Family Controls. Production app for 500K+ users will break once transfer fully propagates at provisioning level. This is a continuity issue, not a new-app launch — entitlement was previously approved on the prior team. Questions: Recommended escalation path for post-transfer entitlement requests? Should I stop resubmitting to avoid queue deprioritization? Could the entitlements team provide a status update? Happy to share bundle ID, previous team ID, and request dates privately with Apple staff.

We are implementing an exam mode feature for an educational app used in schools, which restricts device usage during assessments. We requested the Automatic Assessment Configuration capability, received approval from Apple, and confirmed that the capability is listed as Assigned under our App ID in the Apple Developer portal. What works: When using a Development Provisioning Profile (downloaded from the portal), the entitlement key com.apple.developer.automatic-assessment-configuration is included in the profile, and our exam lock feature works correctly in development testing. The problem: When we manually download a Distribution (InHouse/Enterprise) Provisioning Profile from the portal — even after creating a new one — the entitlement key com.apple.developer.automatic-assessment-configuration is not present in the profile. verified this by running: security cms -D -i YourProfile.mobileprovision The key appears in the Development PP but is absent in the manually downloaded Distribution PP, despite the App ID showing the capability as Assigned. Note: When using Xcode's automatic signing, the generated profile does include the entitlement correctly. However, due to our organization's internal security policy, we are required to use manually managed provisioning profiles and cannot use Xcode automatic signing for distribution builds. Questions: Is the com.apple.developer.automatic-assessment-configuration entitlement intentionally restricted to Development profiles only, or is this a known portal issue with managed capabilities not being embedded in manually created Distribution profiles? Is it technically supported and intended to use AEAssessmentSession in an InHouse (Enterprise) distribution environment? If InHouse is not supported, is the correct path to test internally via Development profiles and then submit through App Store distribution to include this entitlement in production? Any guidance on the correct technical direction would be greatly appreciated.

I submitted a Family Controls Distribution entitlement request on April 21, 2026 for my app Dopfast. I also resubmitted on April 29, 2026. I received the confirmation page both times but have not received any approval, rejection, or status update. I contacted Developer Support (Case #102879238806) and was told the request is handled by another team and they cannot check the status. Details: Team ID: HSJ6KB4WEZ App: Dopfast (digital wellbeing / screen time management) Bundle ID: com.dopfast Purpose: #2 — individual device management for focus and productivity (personal screen time tracking and app blocking) This entitlement is the only remaining blocker for our App Store submission. The app is fully built and ready to ship. Has anyone experienced similar delays recently? Is there a recommended way to expedite this request?

Hi, Our team already has the Family Controls (Distribution) entitlement approved for the main app and existing Screen Time extensions. We recently added a new Shield Configuration extension to show a custom on-device shield UI using ManagedSettingsUI. It is only used for UI rendering and does not collect or send any user data. However, the entitlement does not seem to be applied to this new extension yet, and we are blocked from proceeding with builds. We have already contacted support but haven’t received an update yet. Case ID: 102881099623 It’s been days without any update, and this has become really stressful for our team since we’re completely blocked at the final step after months of work on this app. Could someone please help to apply/sync the Family Controls distribution entitlement or guide us on the next steps? Happy to share app details privately if needed. Thanks.

Our team already has Family Controls (Distribution) entitlement approved for the main app and existing Screen Time extensions. We recently added a new Shield Configuration extension to show a custom on-device shield UI using ManagedSettingsUI. It is only used for UI rendering and does not collect or send any user data. However, the entitlement does not seem to be applied to this new extension yet, and we are blocked from proceeding with builds. We have already contacted support but haven’t received an update yet. Case ID: 102881099623 Could someone please help to apply/sync for the Family Controls distribution entitlement or guide us on the next steps? Happy to share app details privately if needed. Thanks.

Hi, We applied for Tap to Pay on iPhone entitlement and were approved, but on distribution support it's only showing Development. We can build and debug Tap to Pay on development, but unable to build release. We opened ticket with Apple support but they were saying it was configured correctly. I attached screenshot of our developer account entitlement for Tap to Pay. It clearly said Development only.

A signed DriverKit extension fails OSSystemExtensionRequest activation on macOS 26.4.1. The user-facing error is OSSystemExtensionErrorDomain code 4 ("Extension not found in App bundle") — but the dext is in the bundle, the identifier matches, and sysextd confirms it received the request: sysextd: [com.apple.sx:XPC] client activation request for com.arqitekta.bluefield.rshim.driver sysextd: attempting to realize extension with identifier com.arqitekta.bluefield.rshim.driver …and then nothing further. systemextensionsctl list reports 0 extensions. Question: Which log subsystem/category surfaces the kernel-side reason that sysextd aborts after "attempting to realize"? com.apple.sx only shows the request was accepted; whatever vetoes the realize step isn't in that subsystem (or isn't at info/debug level). Is there a separate predicate for the kernelmanagerd / dext-loading path I should be capturing? Environment: macOS 26.4.1 (25E253), Apple Silicon Mac Studio Xcode 26.2 (17C52), DriverKit SDK 25.2 SIP disabled, systemextensionsctl developer on Apple Developer Program, signed "Apple Development: …" DriverKit entitlement request 264CFJJU36 approved; profile includes com.apple.developer.driverkit, allow-any-userclient-access, transport.pci Already verified: Dext at Contents/Library/SystemExtensions/RshimDriver.dext CFBundleIdentifier matches the request, CFBundlePackageType=DEXT codesign --verify --deep --strict passes on app + dext embedded.provisionprofile parses, contains the expected entitlements Three IOKitPersonalities (BF2 / BF2-alt / BF3) using Apple's placeholder IOPCIPrimaryMatch Installer app entitled with com.apple.developer.system-extension.install only spctl -a -vv on the dext reports "rejected" — expected for development signing, should be bypassed under developer mode Minimal repro: https://github.com/jfabienke/bluefield-macos-toolkit/tree/dev-stub-entitlements/rshim-dext — build.sh produces the failing app dext. Captured artefacts (build output, embedded profile dump, signing report, repro shell script) under rshim-dext/dts-artifacts/. Looking for either (a) the right log show predicate to find the actual refusal reason, or (b) an environmental requirement on macOS 26 I'm missing.

Hi, I have an approved com.apple.developer.family-controls entitlement for my main app bundle (com.maxflame.prove-it) and submitted a request on April 18, 2026 to extend it to an embedded extension: com.maxflame.prove-it.DeviceActivityMonitorExtension Request ID: 65CKJZ7DQ4 — status still shows "Submitted" with no further response. The extension uses DeviceActivity callbacks and needs to decode FamilyActivitySelection, which requires the entitlement on the extension bundle as well. In my experience, Family Controls entitlement approvals for the main app bundle have come through within 24 hours. It's now been 5 days with no response for this extension request, which seems unusual. Has anyone else gone through this for extension bundle IDs? Did you need to submit a separate request per bundle, or did Apple extend the approval to your extensions automatically once the main app was approved? And has anyone else experienced longer wait times specifically for extension bundles? Any guidance appreciated.

Hi, I have an approved com.apple.developer.family-controls entitlement for my main app bundle (com.maxflame.prove-it) and submitted a request on April 18, 2026 to extend it to an embedded extension: com.maxflame.prove-it.DeviceActivityMonitorExtension Request ID: 65CKJZ7DQ4 — status still shows "Submitted" with no further response. The extension uses DeviceActivity callbacks and needs to decode FamilyActivitySelection, which requires the entitlement on the extension bundle as well. In my experience, Family Controls entitlement approvals for the main app bundle have come through within 24 hours. It's now been 5 days with no response for this extension request, which seems unusual. Has anyone else gone through this for extension bundle IDs? Did you need to submit a separate request per bundle, or did Apple extend the approval to your extensions automatically once the main app was approved? And has anyone else experienced longer wait times specifically for extension bundles? Any guidance appreciated.

Hi all, and particularly @Eskimo if you spot this — I believe I'm reproducing the backend issuance bug reported in thread 816377 (https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/816377) on a different Team ID and would like a second pair of eyes before I burn a TSI. Feedback Assistant filed as FB22582333. Team ID: MCN4U9B2K4 · Bundle ID: com.michaeltocco.Sanbox · Xcode 17 · iOS 18.5 · Automatic signing Setup App ID com.michaeltocco.Sanbox has ShazamKit ticked in App Services; persists through portal reloads. Local entitlements file declares com.apple.developer.shazamkit = YES only (no MusicKit client entitlement, per DTS guidance in thread 799000: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/799000). CODE_SIGN_ENTITLEMENTS set in both Debug and Release XCBuildConfiguration buildSettings. NSMicrophoneUsageDescription and NSAppleMusicUsageDescription are both present in the generated Info.plist. What Xcode reports After wiping DerivedData and any Sanbox-matching profiles and running xcodebuild … -allowProvisioningUpdates -destination 'generic/platform=iOS': error: Entitlement com.apple.developer.shazamkit not found and could not be included in profile. This likely is not a valid entitlement and should be removed from your entitlements file. (in target 'Sanbox' from project 'Sanbox') What I verified on the profile Apple just issued $ security cms -D -i 0596f302-….mobileprovision | plutil -extract Entitlements xml1 -o - - shows only the baseline four entitlements — application-identifier, keychain-access-groups, get-task-allow, com.apple.developer.team-identifier. com.apple.developer.shazamkit is absent, which is exactly what thread 816377 describes. What I've already tried Deleted and recreated the App ID from scratch — same symptom. Performed the capability-toggle trick (uncheck ShazamKit → Save → wait 60s → re-check → Save → delete local profiles → rebuild) documented in the "Capability & entitlement updates" help page (https://developer.apple.com/help/account/reference/capability-entitlement-updates/) for the Game Center precedent — same symptom. Confirmed I am building for device, not Simulator. Confirmed the entitlement key name matches DTS guidance in thread 799000 and the live profile dumps in thread 816377. Runtime confirmation When I force a build with only the team wildcard profile, SHManagedSession().result() returns com.apple.ShazamKit Code=202 "Missing entitlements", wrapping an AMS 306 wrapping HTTP 401 from api.shazam.apple.com/v1/catalog/US/match. AMS server correlation key: E5VYL5YSUT4L55KQDDP4MJQAZE. So the server side is consistent: the token the client presents lacks ShazamKit scope because the binary doesn't carry the entitlement, and the binary doesn't carry it because Apple isn't issuing it into the profile. Question Is there a configuration step beyond "tick ShazamKit in App Services" that I've missed for Individual-program accounts, or is this the same backend issuance pathology as thread 816377? Happy to share the security cms output, the decoded plist, the build log, or anything else useful. Thanks.

This issue keeps cropping up on the forums and so I decided to write up a single post with all the details. If you have questions or comments: If you were referred here from an existing thread, reply on that thread. If not, feel free to start a new thread. Use whatever topic and subtopic is appropriate for your question, but also add the Entitlements tag so that I see it. Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com" Determining if an entitlement is real In recent months there’s been a spate of forums threads involving ‘hallucinated’ entitlements. This typically pans out as follows: The developer, or an agent working on behalf of the developer, changes their .entitlements file to claim an entitlement that’s not real. That is, the entitlement key is a value that is not, and never has been, supported in any way. Xcode’s code signing machinery tries to find or create a provisioning profile to authorise this claim. That’s impossible, because the entitlement isn’t a real entitlement. Xcode reports this as a code signing error. The developer misinterprets that error [1] in one of two ways: As a generic Xcode code signing failure, and so they start a forums thread asking about how to fix that problem. As an indication that the entitlement is managed — that is, requires authorisation from Apple to use — and so they start a forums thread asking how to request such authorisation. The fundamental problem is step 1. Once you start claiming entitlements that aren’t real, you’re on a path to confusion. Note If you’re curious about how provisioning profiles authorise entitlement claims, read TN3125 Inside Code Signing: Provisioning Profiles. There are a couple of ways to check whether an entitlement is real. My preferred option is to create a new test project and use Xcode’s Signing & Capabilities editor to add the corresponding capability to it. Then look at what Xcode did. You might find that Xcode claimed a different entitlement, or added an Info.plist key, or did nothing at all. IMPORTANT If you can’t find the correct capability in the Signing & Capabilities editor, it’s likely that this feature is available to all apps, that is, it’s not gated by an entitlement or anything else. Another thing you can do is search the documentation. The vast majority of real entitlements are documented in Bundle Resources > Entitlements. IMPORTANT When you search for documentation, focus on the Apple documentation. If, for example, you search the Apple Developer Forums, you might be mislead by other folks who are similarly confused. If you find that you’re mistakenly trying to claim a hallucinated entitlement, the fix is trivial: Remove it from your .entitlements file so that your app starts to build again. Then add the capability using Xcode’s Signing & Capabilities editor. This will do the right thing. If you continue to have problems, feel free to ask for help here on the forums. See the top of this post for advice on how to do that. [1] Xcode 26.2, currently being seeded as Release Candidate, is much better about this (r. 155327166). Give it a whirl! Commonly Hallucinated Entitlements This section lists some of the more commonly hallucinated entitlements: com.apple.developer.push-notifications — The correct entitlement is aps-environment (com.apple.developer.aps-environment on macOS), documented here. There’s also the remote-notification value in the UIBackgroundModes property. com.apple.developer.in-app-purchase — There’s no entitlement for in-app purchase. Rather, in-app purchase is available to all apps with an explicit App ID (as opposed to a wildcard App ID). com.apple.InAppPurchase — Likewise. com.apple.developer.storekit — Likewise. com.apple.developer.in-app-purchase.non-consumable — Likewise. com.apple.developer.in-app-purchase.subscription — Likewise. com.apple.developer.app-groups — The correct entitlement is com.apple.security.application-groups, documented here. And if you’re working on the Mac, see App Groups: macOS vs iOS: Working Towards Harmony. com.apple.developer.background-modes — Background modes are controlled by the UIBackgroundModes key in your Info.plist, documented here. UIBackgroundModes — See the previous point. com.apple.developer.voip-push-notification — There’s no entitlement for this. VoIP is gated by the voip value in the UIBackgroundModes property. com.apple.developer.family-controls.user-authorization — The correct entitlement is com.apple.developer.family-controls, documented here. IMPORTANT As explained in the docs, this entitlement is available to all developers during development but you must request authorisation for distribution. com.apple.developer.device-activity — The DeviceActivity framework has the same restrictions as Family Controls. com.apple.developer.managed-settings — If you’re trying to use the ManagedSettings framework, that has the same restrictions as Family Controls. If you’re trying to use the ManagedApp framework, that’s not gated by an entitlement. com.apple.developer.callkit.call-directory — There’s no entitlement for the Call Directory app extension feature. com.apple.developer.nearby-interaction — There’s no entitlement for the Nearby interaction framework. com.apple.developer.secure-enclave — On iOS and its child platforms, there’s no entitlement required to use the Secure Enclave. For macOS specifically, any program that has access to the data protection keychain also has access to the Secure Enclave [1]. See TN3137 On Mac keychain APIs and implementations for more about the data protection keychain. com.apple.developer.networking.configuration — If you’re trying to configure the Wi-Fi network on iOS, the correct entitlement is com.apple.developer.networking.HotspotConfiguration, documented here. com.apple.developer.musickit — There is no MusicKit capability. Rather, enable MusicKit via the App Services column in the App ID editor, accessible from Developer > Certificates, Identifiers, and Profiles > Identifiers. These app services are tied to your App ID on the server side, meaning that they have no presence in your code signature. com.apple.developer.shazamkit — There is no ShazamKit capability. Like MusicKit, this is an app service. com.apple.mail.extension — Creating an app extension based on the MailKit framework does not require any specific entitlement. com.apple.security.accessibility — There’s no entitlement that gates access to the Accessibility APIs on macOS. Rather, this is controlled by the user in System Settings > Privacy & Security. Note that sandboxed apps can’t use these APIs. See the Review functionality that is incompatible with App Sandbox section of Protecting user data with App Sandbox. com.apple.developer.adservices — Using the AdServices framework does not require any specific entitlement. [1] While technically these are different features, they are closely associated and it turns out that, if you have access to the data protection keychain, you also have access to the SE. Revision History 2026-04-23 Added com.apple.developer.shazamkit to the common hallucinations list. Added a little more info about app services. 2025-12-09 Updated the Xcode footnote to mention the improvements in Xcode 26.2rc. 2025-11-03 Added com.apple.developer.adservices to the common hallucinations list. 2025-10-30 Added com.apple.security.accessibility to the common hallucinations list. 2025-10-22 Added com.apple.mail.extension to the common hallucinations list. Also added two new in-app purchase hallucinations. 2025-09-26 Added com.apple.developer.musickit to the common hallucinations list. 2025-09-22 Added com.apple.developer.storekit to the common hallucinations list. 2025-09-05 Added com.apple.developer.device-activity to the common hallucinations list. 2025-09-02 First posted.

We have an app with the default email entitlement that was granted several years ago. During our latest deployment, we received an error from our pipeline. When testing a manual submission in Xcode, we saw this error: Entitlement com.apple.developer.mail-client not found and could not be included in profile. This likely is not a valid entitlement and should be removed from your entitlements file. We checked the provisioning profile, and the default email entitlement is still present. It is visible on the certificate portal and also in the embedded.mobileprovision file. Can you suggest what we can do to release a new version of our app?

Hi, I’m hoping someone can help clarify the correct entitlement format for the Enhanced Security capability in a macOS App Store build. Context Our app is a sandboxed macOS app built with Xcode 26.4. We enabled the Enhanced Security capability in Signing & Capabilities, and we configured the entitlements based on the current documentation. What’s confusing me The Xcode 26.4 release notes say apps that already adopted Enhanced Security should remove: com.apple.security.hardened-process.enhanced-security-version com.apple.security.hardened-process.platform-restrictions and replace them with: com.apple.security.hardened-process.enhanced-security-version-string with value 1 com.apple.security.hardened-process.platform-restrictions-string with value 2 Reference: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode-release-notes/xcode-26_4-release-notes The entitlement reference pages also seem consistent with that: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/bundleresources/entitlements/com.apple.security.hardened-process.enhanced-security-version-string https://developer.apple.com/documentation/bundleresources/entitlements/com.apple.security.hardened-process.platform-restrictions-string So our app currently uses the new -string entitlements with values "1" and "2". Our App Review rejection said: The app incorrectly implements sandboxing, or it contains one or more entitlements with invalid values. Entitlement "com.apple.security.hardened-process.enhanced-security-version-string" value must be boolean and true. Entitlement "com.apple.security.hardened-process.platform-restrictions-string" value must be boolean and true. That’s the part I can’t reconcile with the documentation. Questions For a Mac App Store submission built with Xcode 26.4, should these two entitlements use the new string-based form, or Boolean true? If the expected format has changed, is there any updated guidance beyond the Xcode 26.4 release notes and current entitlement reference? If Apple staff or anyone familiar with this can clarify what format is currently expected, I’d really appreciate it. Thanks.

I have an existing app in App Store Connect. I added the SharedWithYou functionality to the app code and tested it on several devices. Everything is working as expected. One of the first steps was to add the com.apple.developer.shared-with-you entitlement to the Entitlements.plist file. This required a round of updates for app identifiers and provisioning profiles. When I upload the production build for testing in TestFlight I receive the following error: 90919: Invalid entitlement. The “” bundle has the com.apple.developer.shared-with-you entitlement, but it doesn’t use the Shared with You framework. Please remove the entitlement and upload a new build. I'm using SWHighlight, SWHighlightCenter, and SWAttributionView in several places throughout my app... I filed an issue in the Feedback Assistant but so far, have not received any response.

Hi, I submitted a Family Controls (Distribution) entitlement request on March 9, 2026 for my iOS app, but I still have not received any approval, rejection, or other status update. At this point, I’m mainly trying to understand: whether this waiting time is currently normal, whether there is any way to check if the request is actually under review, and whether Apple provides any follow-up if more information is needed. This is blocking my progress, because the app depends on the Screen Time / Family Controls APIs. Has anyone recently experienced similar delays, and is there any recommended next step besides waiting? Thanks. Imi