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RSS for tagExplore the art and science of app design. Discuss user interface (UI) design principles, user experience (UX) best practices, and share design resources and inspiration.
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We all know that the feature “Always On Display” is available only on pro models.
I checked in iPhone 14 Plus, that feature became visible in “Search” menu under “Settings”. If a user types “Displa”, then the search results show “Always On Display” as a result.
When I click on that, it navigates inside “Display and Brightness” and we found no toggle for “Always On Display”.
So, displaying the same on search result is a big bug which needs immediate attention from Apple. Users are getting confused whether iPhone 14 plus has that feature or not..
**Possible reason: **
I believe Apple releases iPhone OS versions in a single release each time and must be applying any kind of feature flagging to enable / disable a feature in a version or for a model. The feature flagging might not be working with Settings menu’s Search service or the code is not properly modular.
What type of licensing does it apply for the usage of FONT_FAMILY='System' in Apple/iOS app?
Hello! I am developing an ebook reader iOS app that uses c/c++ codec as a page renderer.
The codec uses TrueType as a font rendering engine that requires access to .ttf (or .ttc) files.
Currently, I supply TrueType with fonts embedded in the app package, so they lay within the app sandbox.
The codec supports the whole unicode plane and many languages that ebooks may use, but the fonts I supply don't have some of the important glyphs (i.e. katakana or hangul).
I see that iOS has its own font storage, located in /System/Library/Fonts/ directory. The codec is able to parse this directory and read .ttf files located inside, using these fonts as a fallback in the case when the supplied fonts can't draw certain glyphs.
I use opendir and fopen(in "rb" mode) as a way to read the data, and it works well.
Does this type of access to the system directory violate the sandbox rule for an app distribution, and, if yes, is there a way to get access to stored .ttf files not violating the mentioned rule?
I've made the code in xcode for apple watch with 2 swift view (contentView.swift and interfaceController.swift).The swift for sound and haptic feedback is in InterfaceController.swift. But the the sound does not appear with haptic feedback in apple watch after complete the xcode.
the app is done but no sound appear with haptic feedback when rotate apple watch digital crown. when crown rotated but sound appear
code
import WatchKit
import AVFoundation
import WatchKit
class InterfaceController: WKInterfaceController {
// ... your UI elements
func playSelectionHapticAndSound() {
// Play a haptic feedback pattern
WKInterfaceDevice.current().play(.success)
// Load and play a selection sound effect
guard let soundURL = Bundle.main.url(forResource: "spin", withExtension: "wav") else { return }
do {
let player = try AVAudioPlayer(contentsOf: soundURL)
player.play()
} catch {
print("Error playing sound: \(error)")
}
}
}
I couldn't help noticing that the Maps and Find My apps make extensive use of "sheets stacked on top of each other" to represent its navigation hierarchy, with a "new content comes in from the bottom" orientation instead of a navigation stack with
"new content comes in from the right side" oriented transitions.
I'm interested in this topic because I have a similar navigation-hierarchy-over-a-map case in my app (with a custom map view though) and I'm torn back and forth between the approach of replicating the "stacked sheets" vs. putting a navigation stack in a sheet, esp. with the navstack approach being way more attainable with the iOS 26 glass design.
I couldn't find any guidance for this kind of UI in the Human Interface Guidelines; I'm leaning towards the navstack-approach for my app; but in terms of the behavior of the SwiftUI container views in this scenario it seems a little bit of an uphill path.
Any thoughts on what pattern should be preferred for presenting a deep navigational hierarchy on top of a map-like view?
Hello,
I used icon composer to create an icon for my Mac OS app and it seemed to have worked. I see the app icon everywhere except for window expose or stage manager.
Any help or guidance would be greatly appreciated!
Hi everyone,
I've noticed that on iOS 26 beta 1 through beta 4, when using a List with the .plain style, the section header overlaps with the cell content below it, as there is no background for the header. This creates a poor visual experience.
Additionally, when using NavigationSplitView on iPad, the second column's list always shows this issue.
Is this an intentional design change, or just a temporary issue? I haven't found a good workaround so far.
Thanks!
FB19066489
Building an app to edit the various parameters of digital musical instruments. A typical user would have perhaps max 6 instruments, out of the hundreds of possibilities.
Would like to structure the app with a global window, menu, etc which would be a free download. The user could download editor inserts for their particular set of instruments and ignore all of the others. The downloaded editors would show as options in a menu.
It seem like more than a widget but less than a library. Building a monolithic app containing all possible editors doesn't seem like an option, but separate full-app editors for each piece of gear doesn't sound right either.
Any suggestions out there?
Thanks very much
Brian
I'm developing an iPadOS 18+ application that uses a UITabBarController, styled as a sidebar, to serve as the primary navigation interface. This setup includes 20 different tabs, each representing a distinct section of the app.
For the user experience, each tab needs to present a master-detail interface, implemented using a UISplitViewController. The goal is to allow users to navigate between tabs via the sidebar, and within each tab, access related content through the split view's list-detail pattern.
The Problem:
Currently, my implementation involves instantiating a separate UISplitViewController for each tab, resulting in 20 unique split view instances embedded inside the UITabBarController. While this works functionally, it leads to significant memory usage, especially after the user opens each tab at least once. The accumulation of all these instantiated view controllers in memory eventually causes performance degradation or even memory warnings/crashes on lower-end iPads.
The Question:
What is the best approach to implement this type of architecture without running into memory management issues?
Specifically:
Is there a way to reuse or lazily load the UISplitViewController instances only when needed?
Can we unload or release split view controllers that haven't been used for a while to reduce memory pressure?
Would a custom container controller be more appropriate than using UITabBarController in this case?
Are there iPadOS 18+ best practices or newer APIs that support this kind of complex multi-tab, multi-split-view structure efficiently?
Any advice on how to optimize memory usage while preserving the sidebar navigation and split view layout would be highly appreciated.
Hi everyone 👋 I’m a new iOS developer working on my first app and I’ve run into a frustrating visual bug involving my app icon during the launch/close transition.
Issue:
When I use Icon Composer (the new tool introduced for iOS 26) to generate my app icon, I consistently see a thin white border or “fringe” around the icon only during the transition animation (when the app opens or closes). It disappears once the animation ends.
What I tested and confirmed:
• I exported the exact same design directly from Adobe Illustrator as a 1024×1024 PNG, fully opaque, RGB color mode, background color filling the entire canvas (no transparency, no borders, no rounded corners).
• When I place that exported PNG directly into the AppIcon asset catalog in Xcode, the icon renders perfectly — no white fringe appears, just a slightly darker shade of blue during transitions (expected and acceptable).
• But when I generate the icon using Icon Composer, the white edge always appears, even if I disable effects, use full coverage layers, or only keep a flat color layer.
Notes:
• Tested on iOS 26 (latest beta) using Xcode 16.
• The issue seems specific to Icon Composer’s export format or metadata — maybe it’s not stripping alpha correctly or something related to the squircle mask?
• I followed all recommended specs: 1024×1024 px, PNG, sRGB, no transparency, exported from Illustrator at 72ppi with solid background.
Even tested without the logo, just the icon made with icon composer
Is anyone else experiencing this issue with Icon Composer exports?
Is there an official recommendation to avoid this during transitions or should I simply avoid Icon Composer for production icons for now and stick with Illustrator / Figma exports?
Thanks so much
Here’s a visual example:
What is the step-by-step process to run an iOS application paired with the Mac in my MAUI project?
I am using Windows with Visual Studio 2022 V17.13.5.
Application: Multiplatform;
Language: C#;
Framework: MAUI 8;
Xcode: 16.2;
Objective: Identify and fix the issue to allow the application to run correctly.
Hello Apple Developer Support,
We initially uploaded our INRx App on a different Apple Developer account for internal testing purposes.
Now, we would like to publish the same app under a new Apple Developer account for production, but we're currently facing a design-related rejection during the review process.
We believe the app meets all guidelines, and there were no design issues flagged previously when submitted from the testing account.
Could you please help us understand:
Why the same app is now being rejected for design issues?
Is there a way to resolve this while moving the app to the new account?
Any advice or clarification would be greatly appreciated so we can successfully proceed with publishing.
Thank you!
I'm working to emulate the Activity Rings featured in Apple's Fitness app.
Here's a copy of what's in the swift file so far.
//
// ProgressRingPrototype.swift
// Nutrition
//
// Created by Derek Chestnut on 1/13/25.
//
import SwiftUI
struct ProgressRingPrototype: View {
@State var progress = 0.00
let size: CGSize
let thickness: CGFloat
var color: Color?
var gradientColors: [Color]?
var body: some View {
let color = color ?? .primary
ZStack {
RingPrototype(
size: self.size,
thickness: self.thickness,
color: color.opacity(0.2)
)
let gradient = AngularGradient(
colors: gradientColors ?? [.primary, .secondary],
center: .center
)
let style = StrokeStyle(
lineWidth: 32,
lineCap: .round
)
Circle()
.trim(from: 0, to: progress)
.stroke(gradient, style: style)
.rotationEffect(.degrees(-90))
.frame(width: size.width, height: size.height)
}
.onAppear {
DispatchQueue.main.asyncAfter(deadline: .now() + 1) {
withAnimation(.easeInOut(duration: 1)) {
progress = 0.75
}
}
}
}
}
#Preview {
ZStack {
ProgressRingPrototype(
progress: 0.1,
size: CGSize(width: 256, height: 256),
thickness: CGFloat(32),
color: .primary
)
ProgressRingPrototype(
progress: 0.1,
size: CGSize(width: 190, height: 190),
thickness: CGFloat(32),
color: .primary
)
ProgressRingPrototype(
progress: 0.1,
size: CGSize(width: 124, height: 124),
thickness: CGFloat(32),
color: .primary
)
}
}
Here's a snapshot of the live preview.
I'm experiencing an issue where the trailing line cap generated by the stroke exceeds the start angle of the angular gradient, which creates an ugly artifact at 0 degrees.
Anyone have a solution to this problem?
Derek
I have an ongoing activity in progress.
Think of:
a delivery in progress
house internet reboot in progress
some water / electricity / internet / tv outage.
(food) order processing
I want to show a persistent toast message above the tab bar, across all tabs and screens across the app. It could take 15 minutes until the activity is finished.
Obviously there's a challenge of:
accessibility
content overlaying with each other
extra engineering effort.
What we've thought of doing is:
Option1: show a toast message, but when a modal is presented then it presents on top of the toast message. The toast message no longer updates itself. Once the modal is finished, then the toast message re-appears and continues to update.
Option2: keep the toast message across all tabs and modals and work through the challenges mentioned
Question:
What are some other design approaches that could be taken to persist an ongoing activity (much like 'Live Activity', but just across the app when it's in foreground) or what are some design reasons that the two options considered are bad?
I can't find any documentation on design guidelines for "Login with Game Center" button. My app allows users to "Play as Guest" or "Login with Game Center". Since Apple provides somewhat strict guidelines for designing "Sign in with Apple" button, i was wondering how to design the button for Game Center login. Should i use Game Center icon. And will Apple review reject this?
Hey there! I'd love to know if theres a way where you can animate items between ZStack and VStacks? Just like the native iOS notifications on the Lockscreen stack at the bottom and if tapped, they convert from a Stack to a List - I have a list with items, displayed in a VStack, and I make the list collapsable when swiping down, where the items stack behind eachother with a progresisve reduction in opacity & scale, but I havent figured out a way to animate the items between the list and the stack - where you can visually see items starting to overlap and stack ontop of eachother when collapsing the list.
Hi,
Upon reviewing our app, we got feedback that our app icon within the Wallet app is not behaving as expected when the home screen is set to "light mode" only.
In that case, on the home screen, the app icon remains its default color (e.g., red), regardless of the device's appearance settings (light or dark), which is expected.
However, in the apple Wallet, e.g., under the From Apps from your device, app icons change their color (e.g., red in light mode, black in dark mode) when iOS appearance is changed - which is reported as an app issue.
I've noticed that all apps in that section are changing the color, not just ours, so it seems to me like a bug in iOS or a behavior that was not clearly defined in the app store guidelines.
If there is an API we must use to cover that case, which one would that be?
Is this a bug that Apple should resolve, or is this the intended behaviour?
I have accidentally missed the sign up window for the UX Writing lab by 1 hour, but I'd still love to join it if at all possible. I have had this lab several times in the past and it was always very informative.
I have a time tracking app that helps people make the most of their time. https://apps.apple.com/us/app/timelines-time-tracking/id1112433234
I'm looking for guidance on how to improve copywriting in my onboarding sequence, on my paywall, and overall throughout the app.
Thank you for considering. My Apple ID is lukas[at]glimsoft.com.
Context & Issue
I am developing an iOS application.
My app icon uses colors that are relatively close to each other.
When the user enables Accessibility → Display & Text Size → Color Filters → Grayscale (or similar modes), the icon becomes harder to distinguish because it loses color and contrast is reduced.
Goal
When iOS switches to grayscale mode, I want the app icon to maintain good contrast between its elements so it remains clearly recognizable.
What I’ve tried
Redesigned the icon with more contrasting colors.
Added strokes/outlines, but it still doesn’t look much better in grayscale.
Researched how iOS renders app icons when grayscale is enabled, but couldn’t find a way to override or provide an alternative icon.
Specific questions
Is there any API or mechanism in iOS that allows providing a different version of the app icon when the user has grayscale mode enabled?
If there’s no direct API, are there any best practices for designing iOS app icons to ensure good contrast when converted to grayscale?
Do we have to design grayscale version for app icon?
Thank you!