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Safe Places to Find Dependable App Developers
Hello! Brand new to the Apple developer community, so, hello everyone! I'm a game developer, we just launched our first game on PC and I'm looking to port it to ios. Time is something I'm kind of short on, and I hear it takes some jumping through hoops to get the know-how to port something to mobile. Any good sites you'd recommend for finding programmers to port your game? It's fairly simple - just a visual novel. Any and all suggestions welcome! All the best! Elijah
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586
Dec ’24
How to create CGContext with 10 bits per component?
I’m trying to create a CGContext that matches my screen using the following code let context = CGContext( data: pixelBuffer, width: pixelWidth, // 3456 height: pixelHeight, // 2234 bitsPerComponent: 10, // PixelEncoding = "--RRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGBBBBBBBBBB" bytesPerRow: bytesPerRow, // 13824 space: CGColorSpace(name: CGColorSpace.extendedSRGB)!, bitmapInfo: CGImageAlphaInfo.none.rawValue | CGImagePixelFormatInfo.RGBCIF10.rawValue | CGImageByteOrderInfo.order16Little.rawValue ) But it fails with an error CGBitmapContextCreate: unsupported parameter combination: RGB 10 bits/component, integer 13824 bytes/row kCGImageAlphaNone kCGImageByteOrder16Little kCGImagePixelFormatRGBCIF10 Valid parameters for RGB color space model are: 16 bits per pixel, 5 bits per component, kCGImageAlphaNoneSkipFirst 32 bits per pixel, 8 bits per component, kCGImageAlphaNoneSkipFirst 32 bits per pixel, 8 bits per component, kCGImageAlphaNoneSkipLast 32 bits per pixel, 8 bits per component, kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedFirst 32 bits per pixel, 8 bits per component, kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedLast 32 bits per pixel, 10 bits per component, kCGImageAlphaNone|kCGImagePixelFormatRGBCIF10|kCGImageByteOrder16Little 64 bits per pixel, 16 bits per component, kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedLast 64 bits per pixel, 16 bits per component, kCGImageAlphaNoneSkipLast 64 bits per pixel, 16 bits per component, kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedLast|kCGBitmapFloatComponents|kCGImageByteOrder16Little 64 bits per pixel, 16 bits per component, kCGImageAlphaNoneSkipLast|kCGBitmapFloatComponents|kCGImageByteOrder16Little 128 bits per pixel, 32 bits per component, kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedLast|kCGBitmapFloatComponents 128 bits per pixel, 32 bits per component, kCGImageAlphaNoneSkipLast|kCGBitmapFloatComponents See Quartz 2D Programming Guide (available online) for more information. Why is it unsupported if it matches the 6th option? (32 bits per pixel, 10 bits per component, kCGImageAlphaNone|kCGImagePixelFormatRGBCIF10|kCGImageByteOrder16Little)
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665
Jan ’25
Vision to detect corners and or 3 lines.
End goal: to detect 3 lines, and 2 corners accurately. Trying contours but they are a bit off. Is there a way or settings in contours to detect corners and lines more accurately, maybe less an sharper edged/corner contours? Or some other API or methods please? I would love an email please ;) thank you. 2. also an overlay/scale issue
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644
Jan ’25
Desire to close contour from left & right two top points
Hello all... is there a way to close a contour if you have found say two points on each side top "extension"? see image attached. So in end desire a trapezoid type shape. Code example would be very appreciated. thank you :) Think I have it as a CGPath. So a way to edit a CGPath, or close the top from a top left to a top right point?
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468
Jan ’25
Trying to better understand CGAffineTransform.... and need a bit of guidance.
I have a CoreImage pipeline and one of my steps is to rotate my image about the origin (bottom left corner) and then translate it. I'm not seeing the behaviour I'm expecting, and I think my problem is in how I'm combining these two steps. As an example, I start with an identity transform (lldb) po transform333 ▿ CGAffineTransform - a : 1.0 - b : 0.0 - c : 0.0 - d : 1.0 - tx : 0.0 - ty : 0.0 I then rotate 1.57 radians (approx. 90 degrees, CCW) transform333 = transform333.rotated(by: 1.57) - a : 0.0007963267107332633 - b : 0.9999996829318346 - c : -0.9999996829318346 - d : 0.0007963267107332633 - tx : 0.0 - ty : 0.0 I understand the current contents of the transform. But then I translate by 10, 10: (lldb) po transform333.translatedBy(x: 10, y: 10) - a : 0.0007963267107332633 - b : 0.9999996829318346 - c : -0.9999996829318346 - d : 0.0007963267107332633 - tx : -9.992033562211013 - ty : 10.007960096425679 I was expecting tx and ty to be 10 and 10. I have noticed that when I reverse the order of these operations, the transform contents look correct. So I'll most likely just perform the steps in what feels to me like the incorrect order. Is anyone willing/able to point me to an explanation of why the steps I'm performing are giving me these results? thanks, mike
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538
Jan ’25
JPEG2000 (JP2) Decoding Works on iOS 16 but Fails on iOS 18
I am extracting a JPEG2000 (JP2) facial image from an NFC passport chip (ISO/IEC 19794-5) and attempting to create a UIImage from it. On iOS 16, the following code works fine: import ImageIO import UIKit func getUIImage(from imageData: [UInt8]) -> UIImage? { let data = Data(imageData) guard let imageSource = CGImageSourceCreateWithData(data as CFData, nil), let cgImage = CGImageSourceCreateImageAtIndex(imageSource, 0, nil) else { print("Failed to decode JP2 image!") return nil } return UIImage(cgImage: cgImage) } However, on iOS 18, this fails with errors like: initialize:1415: *** invalid JPEG2000 file *** makeImagePlus:3752: *** ERROR: 'JP2 ' - failed to create image [-50] CGImageSourceCreateImageAtIndex: *** ERROR: failed to create image [-59] Questions: Did Apple remove or modify JPEG2000 support in iOS 18? Is there an official workaround for decoding JPEG2000 on iOS 18? Should I use Vision/Metal/Core Image instead? Is there a recommended way to convert JPEG2000 to JPEG/PNG before creating a UIImage? Are there any Apple-provided APIs that maintain backward compatibility for JPEG2000 decoding? Additional Info: The UInt8 array has a valid JPEG2000 header (0x00 0x00 0x00 0x0C 6A 50 ...). The image works on iOS 16 but fails on iOS 18. Tested on iPhone running iOS 18.0 beta. Any insights on how to handle JPEG2000 decoding in iOS 18 would be greatly appreciated! 🚀
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285
Mar ’25
What good is NSBitmapFormatAlphaNonpremultiplied?
If I create a bitmap image and then try to get ready to draw into it, like so: NSBitmapImageRep* newRep = [[NSBitmapImageRep alloc] initWithBitmapDataPlanes: nullptr pixelsWide: 128 pixelsHigh: 128 bitsPerSample: 8 samplesPerPixel: 4 hasAlpha: YES isPlanar: NO colorSpaceName: NSDeviceRGBColorSpace bitmapFormat: NSBitmapFormatAlphaNonpremultiplied | NSBitmapFormatThirtyTwoBitBigEndian bytesPerRow: 4 * 128 bitsPerPixel: 32]; [NSGraphicsContext setCurrentContext: [NSGraphicsContext graphicsContextWithBitmapImageRep: newRep]]; then the log shows this error: CGBitmapContextCreate: unsupported parameter combination: RGB 8 bits/component, integer 512 bytes/row kCGImageAlphaLast kCGImageByteOrderDefault kCGImagePixelFormatPacked Valid parameters for RGB color space model are: 16 bits per pixel, 5 bits per component, kCGImageAlphaNoneSkipFirst 32 bits per pixel, 8 bits per component, kCGImageAlphaNoneSkipFirst 32 bits per pixel, 8 bits per component, kCGImageAlphaNoneSkipLast 32 bits per pixel, 8 bits per component, kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedFirst 32 bits per pixel, 8 bits per component, kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedLast 32 bits per pixel, 10 bits per component, kCGImageAlphaNone|kCGImagePixelFormatRGBCIF10|kCGImageByteOrder16Little 64 bits per pixel, 16 bits per component, kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedLast 64 bits per pixel, 16 bits per component, kCGImageAlphaNoneSkipLast 64 bits per pixel, 16 bits per component, kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedLast|kCGBitmapFloatComponents|kCGImageByteOrder16Little 64 bits per pixel, 16 bits per component, kCGImageAlphaNoneSkipLast|kCGBitmapFloatComponents|kCGImageByteOrder16Little 128 bits per pixel, 32 bits per component, kCGImageAlphaPremultipliedLast|kCGBitmapFloatComponents 128 bits per pixel, 32 bits per component, kCGImageAlphaNoneSkipLast|kCGBitmapFloatComponents See Quartz 2D Programming Guide (available online) for more information. If I don't use NSBitmapFormatAlphaNonpremultiplied as part of the format, I don't get the error message. My question is, why does the constant NSBitmapFormatAlphaNonpremultiplied exist if you can't use it like this? If you're wondering why I wanted to do this: I want to extract the RGBA pixel data from an image, which might have non-premultiplied alpha. And elsewhere online, I saw advice that if you want to look at the pixels of an image, draw it into a bitmap whose format you know and look at those pixels. And I don't want the process of drawing to premultiply my alpha.
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106
Jun ’25
CGSetDisplayTransferByTable no longer working on macOS Tahoe
For an app of mine I use CGSetDisplayTransferByTable to adjust the gamma table of the device. Since macOS Tahoe, these modifications are silently ignored. The display's actual gamma curve remains unchanged despite the API reporting successful completion. I've filed a FB for it a few weeks ago, and would love to figure out what could be causing this. FB18559786
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268
Aug ’25
CIBumpDistortion filter not working on my view
I'm trying to apply a CIBumpDistortion Core Image filter to a view that contains a UILabel (my storyLabel). The goal is to create a visual bump/magnifying glass effect over the text. However, despite my attempts, the filter doesn't seem to render at all. The view and the label appear as normal, with no distortion effect. I've tried adjusting the filter parameters and reviewing the view hierarchy, but without success. I also haven't been able to find clear documentation or examples for applying this filter to a UIView's layer. // // TVView.swift // Mistery // // Created by Joje on 31/07/25. // import CoreImage import CoreImage.CIFilterBuiltins import UIKit import AVFoundation final class TVView: UIView { // propriedades animacao texto private var textAnimationTimer: Timer? private var fullTextToAnimate: String = "" private var currentCharIndex: Int = 0 // propriedades video estatica private var player: AVQueuePlayer? private var playerLayer: AVPlayerLayer? private var playerLooper: AVPlayerLooper? var onNextButtonTap: () -> Void = {} // MARK: - Subviews // imagem da TV private(set) lazy var tvImageView: UIImageView = { let imageView = UIImageView() imageView.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false imageView.image = UIImage(named: "tvFinal") imageView.contentMode = .scaleAspectFit return imageView }() // texto que passa dentro da TV private(set) lazy var storyLabel: UILabel = { let label = UILabel() label.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false //label.backgroundColor = .gray label.textColor = .red label.font = UIFont(name: "MeltedMonster", size: 30) label.textAlignment = .left label.numberOfLines = 0 label.text = "" return label }() private(set) lazy var nextButton: UIButton = { let button = UIButton(type: .system) button.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false //button.backgroundColor = .darkGray button.addTarget(self, action: #selector(didPressNextButton), for: .touchUpInside) return button }() // MARK: - Lifecycle override init(frame: CGRect) { super.init(frame: frame) backgroundColor = .black setupVideoPlayer() addSubviews() setupConstraints() } override func layoutSubviews() { super.layoutSubviews() playerLayer?.frame = tvImageView.frame.insetBy(dx: tvImageView.frame.width * 0.05, dy: tvImageView.frame.height * 0.18) setupFisheyeEffect() } private func setupFisheyeEffect() { // cria o filtro guard let filter = CIFilter(name: "CIBumpDistortion") else {return print("erro")} storyLabel.layer.shouldRasterize = true storyLabel.layer.rasterizationScale = UIScreen.main.scale // define os parametros filter.setDefaults() // centro do efeito let center = CIVector(x: storyLabel.bounds.midX, y: storyLabel.bounds.midY) filter.setValue(center, forKey: kCIInputCenterKey) // raio de distorção filter.setValue(storyLabel.bounds.width, forKey: kCIInputRadiusKey) // intensidade de distorção filter.setValue(7, forKey: kCIInputScaleKey) storyLabel.layer.filters = [filter] } required init?(coder: NSCoder) { fatalError("init(coder:) has not been implemented") } // MARK: - Button actions @objc private func didPressNextButton() { onNextButtonTap() } @objc private func animateNextCharacter() { guard currentCharIndex < fullTextToAnimate.count else { textAnimationTimer?.invalidate() return } let currentTextIndex = fullTextToAnimate.index(fullTextToAnimate.startIndex, offsetBy: currentCharIndex) let partialText = String(fullTextToAnimate[...currentTextIndex]) storyLabel.text = partialText currentCharIndex += 1 } public func updateStoryText(with text: String) { textAnimationTimer?.invalidate() storyLabel.text = "" fullTextToAnimate = text currentCharIndex = 0 textAnimationTimer = Timer.scheduledTimer(timeInterval: 0.12, target: self, selector: #selector(animateNextCharacter), userInfo: nil, repeats: true) } // MARK: - Setup methods private func setupVideoPlayer() { guard let videoURL = Bundle.main.url(forResource: "static-video", withExtension: "mov") else { print("Erro: Não foi possível encontrar o arquivo de vídeo static-video.mov") return } let playerItem = AVPlayerItem(url: videoURL) player = AVQueuePlayer(playerItem: playerItem) // LINHA COM POSSIVEL ERRO playerLooper = AVPlayerLooper(player: player!, templateItem: playerItem) playerLayer = AVPlayerLayer(player: player) playerLayer?.videoGravity = .resizeAspectFill if let layer = playerLayer { self.layer.addSublayer(layer) } player?.play() } private func addSubviews() { self.addSubview(storyLabel) self.addSubview(tvImageView) self.addSubview(nextButton) } private func setupConstraints() { NSLayoutConstraint.activate([ // TV Image tvImageView.centerXAnchor.constraint(equalTo: centerXAnchor), tvImageView.centerYAnchor.constraint(equalTo: centerYAnchor), tvImageView.widthAnchor.constraint(equalTo: widthAnchor), // TV Text storyLabel.centerXAnchor.constraint(equalTo: tvImageView.centerXAnchor, constant: -50), storyLabel.centerYAnchor.constraint(equalTo: tvImageView.centerYAnchor, constant: -25), storyLabel.widthAnchor.constraint(equalTo: tvImageView.widthAnchor, multiplier: 0.35), storyLabel.heightAnchor.constraint(equalTo: tvImageView.heightAnchor, multiplier: 0.42), //TV Button nextButton.topAnchor.constraint(equalTo: tvImageView.centerYAnchor, constant: -25), nextButton.centerXAnchor.constraint(equalTo: self.centerXAnchor, constant: 190), nextButton.widthAnchor.constraint(equalToConstant: 100), nextButton.heightAnchor.constraint(equalToConstant: 160) ]) } } #Preview{ ViewController() }
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113
Sep ’25
Is there any future for screensavers on macOS?
I haven't been looking at screensavers for a long time because of Apple's lack of will (or resources?) to provide a public version of the private modern SDK used by Apple for a very long time now. I'm now looking at the Screen Saver pane in System Settings (the What-If version of System Preferences in an alternate universe where all screens are in portrait mode). In macOS Sequoia, it seems like 3rd party screensavers are not welcome considering that they are relegated to the "Other" section at the bottom of the list and you have to click Show All to start seeing 3rd party screen savers. I also had a quick look at macOS Tahoe Beta 3 and it looks like that all the real screensavers are gone (3rd party and the ones from Apple: Hello, Message, Flurry, etc.) or at least it requires to be a Nobel Prize to find them (and the Search field is not useful). I tried to install a 3rd party screen saver on macOS Tahoe Beta 3, it doesn't show up in the list. To summarize: No public access to modern APIs AFAIK. UI that is hostile to 3rd party screen savers on macOS Sequoia. Apparently only screensavers that are slideshows or movies curated by Apple in macOS Tahoe b3. Hence the question: Is there any future for screen savers on macOS? Because if there's none, I won't waste my time trying to update some old screen savers.
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478
Aug ’25
Invert a 3x3 matrix in a Metal compute kernel
I searched the Metal Shading Language Specification Version 3.0 document, however I cannot see any function for inverting a matrix. Is there really no function in Metal for inverting a matrix? I often need to this in linear equations and have so far resorted to writing the necessary function each time, most of the time just copy-and-pasting code. inverse exists in SIMD and GLSL, so why not in Metal? It seems so unexpected that this function does not exist that I am almost certain I have just overlooked something obvious. I even tried 1 / M, to no avail.
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1.9k
Feb ’25
Will metal-cpp-extensions headers for Appkit and MetalKit be maintained?
Hi, The metal-cpp distribution appears to only contain headers for Foundation and Quartzcore. The LearnMetalCPP download [1] provides a ZIP with an metal-cpp-extensions directory containing AppKit.hpp and MetalKit.hpp headers. First question: Are these headers distributed anywhere else more publicly? Without these headers only the renderer can be fully written in C++ as far as I can tell, i.e. no complete C++ NSApplication. Second question: Will these headers, if needed, be maintained (e.g. updated and/or extended) by Apple along side metal-cpp? [1] https://developer.apple.com/metal/cpp/ Thank you and regards.
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2k
Feb ’25
CADisplayLink wrongly capping at 90hz on iPhone 15 Pro
I have a game for iOS where I use CADisplayLink to animate a simulation, and for some reason the animation is not getting the full 120hz on capable devices (like iPhone 15 Pro). When I enable a 120hz refresh target, the animation is capped at only 90hz. This looks terrible because the animation works best when doubled (30, 60, 120, 240, etc). The really bizarre thing is that when I turn on Screen Recording, my frame rate instantly jumps to 120, and everything looks perfectly smooth. My game has never looked better on iPhone! When recording is stopped, the animation drops back down to 90 fps. What in the world is going on? [displayLink setPreferredFrameRateRange:CAFrameRateRangeMake(100,240,120)]; //Min. Max, Preferred [displayLink addToRunLoop:[NSRunLoop currentRunLoop] forMode:NSDefaultRunLoopMode]; (Also, CADisableMinimumFrameDurationOnPhone is set to True in info.plist)
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947
Oct ’24
Will CVPixelBuffer created from CVPixelBufferPoolCreatePixelBuffer keep existing pixels
We have a pixel buffer pool managed by the system(created using CVPixelBufferPoolCreate API). And each time when we need a pixel buffer, we call CVPixelBufferPoolCreatePixelBuffer to created one from the pool. Then we override all pixels of the buffer, getting IOSurface from the buffer, and then set the IOSurface as CALayer's contents property in another process to show it, everything works fine. Now we want to do some optimization by only override pixels that's changed between frames. The way we'd like to do is that after we call CVPixelBufferPoolCreatePixelBuffer to create a buffer, we get the underlying IOSurface id map it with a frame info. Next time if we get the same IOSurface id, we just compare the current frame info with the one we stored and only update the changed pixels in CVPixelBuffer. However, there is no document mentioning whether the CVPixelBuffer created using CVPixelBufferPoolCreatePixelBuffer will contain previous pixels(content before it's returned to the pool). Do we have this guarantee? If not, is there any way we can know whether the created buffer contains the previous pixels or not?
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531
Oct ’24
Resolution for Games
Hi, When using a High Definition Display, is there a way to render at exactly the target resolution on the physical screen? My understanding is that the default behavior is to render to a backing store with a resolution (in pixels) which can be twice the size of the logical resolution (in points). Then we let the OS handle the down-scaling to the actual target resolution on the screen. This is all nice for non-graphics intensive apps, but it means that my game will render at a higher resolution than needed, which seems like an obvious loss of performance. My expectation is that, for graphics intensive application such as games, we should be able to query and render to the final resolution on the display. Can it / should it be done? Thank you for your help :) FYI I did find a document which explains how to setup your CAMetalLayer to render at a custom resolution. I suspect that this may be what I have to do?
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729
Oct ’24
build issue with game-porting-toolkit
I am trying to install the game-porting-toolkit using brew -v install apple/apple/game-porting-toolkit but this fails each time because of a dependency on a deprecated openssl version: Fetching dependencies for apple/apple/game-porting-toolkit: cmake, ninja, apple/apple/game-porting-toolkit-compiler, openssl1.1 ... ... Error: openssl@1.1 has been disabled because it is not supported upstream! It was disabled on 2024-10-24. Is there a way to override this dependency or use a newer version of openssl for the check?
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5.2k
Nov ’24
Is there any frameworks/API to deal with app's precise performance tuning for iOS platform?
There is a Android Dynamic Performance Framework, https://developer.android.com/games/optimize/adpf which allows you to monitor device's thermal state and send performance hints to the OS, describing current workload. This helps to consume resources effectively, while having target performance. As I can see from tracing and profiling, hints help OS scheduler to switch tasks between cores more effectively - this helps to reach performance stability between multiple runs. I wonder, is there anything similar for iOS platform?
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655
Dec ’24
Why doesn't mac opengl support alpha textures?
I have used the Mac M1 and M4. Developing OpenGL projects on machines running macOS 15.2 and 13.6. Call the OpenGL library functions of Mac. glTexImage2D If you use GL_LUMINANCE, GL_LUMINANCE_ALPHA, GL_ALPHA these three textures, you will get an error gl 500. It makes me unable to draw normally on Mac. What's the reason for this? Don't they support it?
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658
Jan ’25