Summary CLLocationSourceInformation.isSimulatedBySoftware (iOS 15+) fails to detect location spoofing when using third-party tools like LocaChange, despite Apple's documentation stating it should detect simulated locations. Environment iOS 18.0 (tested and confirmed) Physical device with Developer Mode enabled Third-party location spoofing tools (e.g., LocaChange etc.) Expected Behavior According to Apple's documentation, isSimulatedBySoftware should return true when: "if the system generated the location using on-device software simulation. " Actual Behavior Tested on iOS 18.0: When using LocaChange sourceInformation.isSimulatedBySoftware returns false This occurs even though the location is clearly being simulated. Steps to Reproduce Enable Developer Mode on iOS 18 device Connect device to Mac via USB Use LocaChange to spoof location to a different city/country In your app, request location updates and check CLLocation.sourceInformation?.isSimulatedBySoftware Observe that it returns false or sourceInformation is nil Compare with direct Xcode location simulation (Debug → Simulate Location) which correctly returns true

Since iOS 26, the Apple Maps share sheet no longer provides a com.apple.mapkit.map-item attachment when sharing a location to my Share Extension. Additionally, on real devices the shared URL is now a short link (https://maps.apple/p/...), which does not contain coordinates. On the simulator, the URL still includes coordinates (as in previous iOS versions). I'm trying to find the official or recommended way to extract coordinates from these new short URLs. Environment: Devices: iPhone (real device) on iOS 26.0 / 26.0.1 Simulator: iOS 26.0 / 26.0.1 simulator (behaves like iOS 18 — see below) App: Share Extension invoked from Apple Maps -> Share -> my app Xcode: 26.0.1 Steps to Reproduce Open Apple Maps on iOS 26 (real device). Pick a POI (store/restaurant). Share -> choose my share extension. iOS 18 and earlier (lldb) po extensionContext?.inputItems ▿ Optional<Array<Any>> ▿ some : 1 element - 0 : <NSExtensionItem: 0x60000000c5d0> - userInfo: { NSExtensionItemAttachmentsKey = ( "<NSItemProvider: 0x600002930d20> {types = (\"public.plain-text\")}", "<NSItemProvider: 0x600002930c40> {types = (\"com.apple.mapkit.map-item\")}", "<NSItemProvider: 0x600002930bd0> {types = (\"public.url\")}" ); } Typical URL: https://maps.apple.com/place?address=Apple%20Inc.,%201%20Apple%20Park%20Way,%20Cupertino,%20CA%2095014,%20United%20States&coordinate=37.334859,-122.009040&name=Apple%20Park&place-id=I7C250D2CDCB364A&map=explore iOS 26 (lldb) po extensionContext?.inputItems ▿ 1 element - 0 : <NSExtensionItem: 0x6000000058d0> - userInfo: { NSExtensionItemAttachmentsKey = ( "<NSItemProvider: 0x600002900b60> {types = (\"public.url\")}", "<NSItemProvider: 0x600002900fc0> {types = (\"public.plain-text\")}" ); } URL looks like: https://maps.apple/p/U8rE9v8n8iVZjr On simulator iOS 26 same missing map-item provider - but the URL is still long and contains coordinates, like this: https://maps.apple.com/place?coordinate=37.334859,-122.009040&name=Apple%20Park&.. Issue The short URLs (maps.apple/p/...) cannot be resolved directly - following redirects ends with: https://maps.apple.com/unsupported The only way I've found to get coordinates is to intercept intermediate redirects - one of them contains the expanded URL with coordinate=.... Example of my current workaround: final class RedirectSniffer: NSObject, URLSessionTaskDelegate { private(set) var redirects: [URL] = [] func urlSession(_ session: URLSession, task: URLSessionTask, willPerformHTTPRedirection response: HTTPURLResponse, newRequest request: URLRequest) async -> URLRequest? { if let url = request.url { redirects.append(url) } return request } } Then I look through redirects to find a URL containing "coordinate=". This works, but feels unreliable and undocumented. Questions Was the removal of com.apple.mapkit.map-item from the Maps share payload intentional in iOS 26? If yes, is there a new attachment type or API to obtain an MKMapItem? What’s the official or supported way to resolve https://maps.apple/p/... to coordinates? Is there any MapKit API or documented URL scheme for this? Is intercepting redirect chains the only option for now? Why does the iOS 26 simulator still return coordinate URLs, while real devices don't?

We are currently developing a research-based iOS application that relies heavily on background capabilities, specifically Significant Location Change. We are using CLLocationManager.startMonitoringSignificantLocationChanges(). During development, when using Debug → Simulate Location in Xcode, we receive a location update only once. Subsequent simulated location changes do not trigger additional callbacks, which makes testing and development quite cumbersome. Are there any tools, commands, or workflows (e.g., via Xcode, Instruments, or system-level simulation) to reliably simulate multiple significant location change callbacks for testing purposes? If there aren't such tools, how do I test this behaviour reliably, robustly and rigidly?

Situation: We have an app that only uses location UIBackgroundModes key to restart our app on significant change events as we need it to connect with a BLE device (mounted in the car) when someone starts driving. We cannot use geofence as the car might be used by multiple people so position changes and we don't want to store locations and sent them to multiple users via our servers. So currently we use significant change and just ignore all other location data. During app review we got the following feedback: If the app does not require persistent real-time location updates, please remove the "location" setting from the UIBackgroundModes key. You may wish to use the significant-change location service or the region monitoring location service if persistent real-time location updates are not required for the app features. Question: How to use the significant-change location service without the "location" setting from the UIBackgroundModes key or is there any other way to start the app / connect with the BLE device when it is fully terminated/swiped away? Because the docs state that AuthorizationStatusAuthorizedAlways is required and without the UIBackgroundModes key location that wouldn't be triggered when app is in the background/swiped away. Reference: https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/LocationAwarenessPG/CoreLocation/CoreLocation.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/TP40009497-CH2-SW8

We are currently experiencing a very interesting issue when accessing the location in the background with CLLocationManager. The user has given our app the "whenInUse" permission for locations and in most cases the app provides location updates even when it's in the background. However, when we started to use other navigation apps in the foreground we saw that the func locationManager(_ manager: CLLocationManager, didFailWithError error: Error) method was called with (kCLErrorDomain error 1.). The user hasn't changed the location permission and we saw that locations were delivered once the user opened the app again. I don't see anything in the documentation explaining this issue, but I chatted with other developers that confirm that specific behavior. Am I missing something here?

Hello, I use CLGeocoder to get the CLLocationCoordinate2D and CLRegion for an address. Now that this is deprecated in OS 26, I don't see a replacement for that property on MKMapItem via MKMapItemRequest and PlaceDescriptor. I've filed FB19027378 on this issue. Basically I have some addresses that have a street address, and others that just have a city. With CLGeocoder, when geocoding just the city, the CLRegion was set such that I could show my map zoomed out just right. I'm not sure how to do that now. Thanks!

In my app, I am using geofencing to perform an action when the user enter or leaves a specified location. The geofencing (CLMonitor) is active permanently, and should work across multiple app sessions or after the device is restarted. It should also work after the app was minimized or terminated. This worked perfectly with iOS 17 and prior, but with iOS 18, things changed. As soon as iOS 18 dropped, users were informing me that the app does no longer perform the entry/exit action reliably (without me making any changes to the app). Most of the times, events are missed entirely. Sometimes, after the user opens or resumes the app, duplicate events are delivered and/or events with the current time instead of the correct time of entry/exit. I am making sure that the app has the "Always" location permission before geofencing is enabled The gefocence radius is between 20 and 500m, but even with the max. radius specified, the geofencing is unreliable For the same user and geofence, the entry/exit event is delivered occasionally, but not always I am currently not using CLLocationManager.allowsBackgroundLocationUpdates (even though it's documented as "Apps that receive location updates when running in the background must include the UIBackgroundModes key (with the location value) in their app’s Info.plist file") because it wasn't necessary on iOS 17 and in my tests, using it didn't yield any improvements In my search for what could have caused this change, I found this WWDC video about location authorization: . It appears that with iOS 18, it is now required to have an active CLServiceSession to ensure that location updates are delivered to my app. Even though the video is long (and I've watched it multiple times), some things are still unclear. For example, the docs state: If your app actively receives and processes location updates and terminates, it should restart those APIs upon launch in order to continue receiving updates. Also, in the video it is stated that: ... So your job, ..., is to make sure that your process launch logic knows what features it has been tasked with pursuing, and re-takes session objects... But on the other hand it's also said that: you can only start holding one (a CLServiceSession) when your app is in the foreground and also ... CLMonitor.events won’t yield results when it is not in use, unless a session which was started in the foreground, .... To summarize my questions, for the geofencing to work as described above: when exactly do I need to create a CLServiceSession if the app is launched into the backgorund? Immediately in the applicationDidFinishLaunching method, even though the app is still in the background (applicationState is background)? Or later on, when the app is opened again by the user, e.g. in applicationDidBecomeActive (and applicationState is active)? do I need to specify the background mode capability as noted in the Handling location updates in the background article? do I need to create a CLBackgroundActivitySession as noted in the Handling location updates in the background article? does it matter, which of the four initializer methods I am using to create the CLServiceSession (with CLServiceSessionAuthorizationRequirementAlways)? does it matter if I specify NSLocationRequireExplicitServiceSession in the Info.plist or not when I already do ensure that the app has the "Always" location permission when the feature is being enabled Does a CLServiceSession last indefinitely and should it only be invalidated once the user disables the feature?