Dive into the technical aspects of audio on your device, including codecs, format support, and customization options.

Audio Documentation

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MusicKit playbackTime Accuracy
Hello, Has anyone else experienced variations in the accuracy of the playbackTime value? After a few seconds of playback, the reported time adjusts by a fraction of a second, making it difficult to calculate the actual playbackTime of the audio. This can be recreated by playing a song in MusicKit, recording the start time of the audio, playing for at least 10-20 seconds, and then comparing the playbackTime value to one calculated using the start time of the audio. In my experience this jump occurs after about 10 seconds of playback. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!
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95
May ’25
Memory leak AVAudioPlayer
Let's consider the following code. I've created an actor that loads a list of .mp3 files from a Bundle and then makes it available for audio reproduction. Unfortunately, I'm experiencing a memory leak. At the play method. player.play() From Instruments I get _malloc_type_malloc_outlined libsystem_malloc.dylib start_wqthread libsystem_pthread.dylib private actor AudioActor { enum Failure: Error { case soundsNotLoaded([AudioPlayerClient.Sound: Error]) } enum Player { case music(AVAudioPlayer) } var players: [Sound: Player] = [:] let bundles: [Bundle] init(bundles: UncheckedSendable<[Bundle]>) { self.bundles = bundles.wrappedValue } func load(sounds: [Sound]) throws { try AVAudioSession.sharedInstance().setActive(true, options: []) var errors: [Sound: Error] = [:] for sound in sounds { guard let url = bundle.url(forResource: sound.name, withExtension: "mp3") else { continue } do { self.players[sound] = try .music(AVAudioPlayer(contentsOf: url)) } catch { errors[sound] = error } } guard errors.isEmpty else { throw Failure.soundsNotLoaded(errors) } } func play(sound: Sound, loops: Int?) throws { guard let player = self.players[sound] else { return } switch player { case let .music(player): player.numberOfLoops = loops ?? -1 player.play() } } func stop(sound: Sound) throws { guard let player = self.players[sound] else { throw Failure.soundsNotLoaded([:]) } switch player { case let .music(player): player.stop() } } }
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74
Mar ’25
Anyone has any issues with voice control and high quality visuals in the Vision Pro
We are working on an app for the vision pro which has high polygons count and lots of high resolution textures. Everything looks smooth and in general very well, The issue is the moment we turn on voice control even if it is not being used the visuals at the center start to stutter left to right. Has anyone seen this ?, it must be a bug, any workaround ? Thanks, Guillermo
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504
Oct ’24
No charts genres for some storefronts
Hello, This is about the Get Catalog Top Charts Genres endpoint : GET https://api.music.apple.com/v1/catalog/{storefront}/genres I noticed that for some storefronts, no genre is returned. You can try with the following storefront values : France (fr) Poland (pl) Kyrgyzstan (kg) Uzbekistan (uz) Turkmenistan (tm) Is that a bug or is it on purpose ? Thank you.
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423
Dec ’24
App Randomly Crashes During Continuous Sound Playback Using AVAudioPlayer
Environment→ ・Device: iPad 10th generation ・OS:**iOS18.3.2 We're using AVAudioPlayer to play a sound when a button is tapped. In our use case, this button can be tapped very frequently — roughly every 0.1 to 0.2 seconds. Each tap triggers the following function: var audioPlayer: AVAudioPlayer? func soundPlay(resource: String, type: String){ guard let path = Bundle.main.path(forResource: resource, ofType: type) else { return } do { audioPlayer = try AVAudioPlayer(contentsOf: URL(fileURLWithPath: path)) audioPlayer!.delegate = self try audioSession.setCategory(.playback) } catch { return } self.audioPlayer!.play() } The issue is that under high-frequency tapping (especially around 0.1–0.15s intervals), the app occasionally crashes. The crash does not occur every time, but it happens randomly — sometimes within 30 seconds, within 1 minute, or even 3 minutes of continuous tapping. Interestingly, adding a delay of 0.2 seconds between button taps seems to prevent the crash entirely. Delays shorter than 0.2 seconds (e.g.,0.15s,0.18s) still result in occasional crashes. My questions are: **Is this expected behavior from AVAudioPlayer or AVAudioSession? Could this be a known issue or a limitation in AVFoundation? Is there any documentation or guidance on handling frequent sound playback safely?** Any insights or recommendations on how to handle rapid, repeated audio playback more reliably would be appreciated.
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137
May ’25
Swift iOS CallKit audio resource contention
I noticed the following behavior with CallKit when receiving a VolP push notification: When the app is in the foreground and a CallKit incoming call banner appears, pressing the answer button directly causes the speaker indicator in the CallKit interface to turn on. However, the audio is not actually activated (the iPhone's orange microphone indicator does not light up). In the same foreground scenario, if I expand the CallKit banner before answering the call, the speaker indicator does not turn on, but the orange microphone indicator does light up, and audio works as expected. When the app is in the background or not running, the incoming call banner works as expected: I can answer the call directly without expanding the banner, and the speaker does not turn on automatically. The orange microphone indicator lights up as it should. Why is there a difference in behavior between answering directly from the banner versus expanding it first when the app is in the foreground? Is there a way to ensure consistent audio activation behavior across these scenarios? I tried reconfiguring the audio when answering a call, but an error occurred during setActive, preventing the configuration from succeeding. let audioSession = AVAudioSession.sharedInstance() do { try audioSession.setActive(false) try audioSession.setCategory(.playAndRecord, mode: .voiceChat, options: [.defaultToSpeaker]) try audioSession.setActive(true, options: []) } catch { print("Failed to activate audio session: \(error)") } action.fulfill() } Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=561017449 "Session activation failed" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Session activation failed}
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482
Dec ’24
How to match music with shazamkit for Android ?
Hi all, i can successfully match music using shazamkit on Apple using SwiftUI, a simple app that let user to load an audio file and exctracts the relative match, while i am unable to match music using shamzamkit on Android. I am trying to make the same simple app but i cannot match music as i get MATCH_ATTEMPT_FAILED every time i try to. I don't know what i am doing wrong but the shazam part in the kotlin Android code is in this method : suspend fun processAudioFileInBackground( filePath: String, developerTokenProvider: DeveloperTokenProvider ) = withContext(Dispatchers.IO) { val bufferSize = 1024 * 1024 val audioFile = FileInputStream(filePath) val byteBuffer = ByteBuffer.allocate(bufferSize) byteBuffer.order(ByteOrder.LITTLE_ENDIAN) var bytesRead: Int while (audioFile.read(byteBuffer.array()).also { bytesRead = it } != -1) { val signatureGenerator = (ShazamKit.createSignatureGenerator(AudioSampleRateInHz.SAMPLE_RATE_44100) as ShazamKitResult.Success).data signatureGenerator.append(byteBuffer.array(), bytesRead, System.currentTimeMillis()) val signature = signatureGenerator.generateSignature() println("Signature: ${signature.durationInMs}") val catalog = ShazamKit.createShazamCatalog(developerTokenProvider, Locale.ENGLISH) val session = (ShazamKit.createSession(catalog) as ShazamKitResult.Success).data val matchResult = session.match(signature) println("MatchResult : $matchResult") setMatchResult(matchResult) byteBuffer.clear() } audioFile.close() } I noticed that changing Locale in catalog creation results in different result as i get NoMatch without exception. Can you please help me with this?
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61
Apr ’25
How can I find the user's "Favorite Songs" playlist?
It sounds simple but searching for the name "Favorite Songs" is a non-starter because it's called different names in different countries, even if I specify "&l=en_us" on the query. So is there another property, relationship or combination thereof which I can use to tell me when I've found the right playlist? Properties I've looked at so far: canEdit: will always be false so narrows things down a little inFavorites: not helpful as it depends on whether the user has favourite the favourites playlist, so not relevant hasCatalog: seems always true so again may narrow things down a bit isPublic: doesn't help Adding the catalog relationship doesn't seem to show anything immediately useful either. Can anyone help? Ideally I'd like to see this as a "kind" or "type" as it has different properties to other playlists, but frankly I'll take anything at this point.
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194
Jul ’25
Increased delay when AUGraph's output device is system output
I'm using an AUGraph to mix audio from different sources for a real time streaming application. Whenever the audio device used as the graph's output device is also the Mac's default output device, the measured latency increases by about 35 milliseconds for wired devices. Any idea why this is? Is there a way around this besides nagging the user to not the use the system output in our app?
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288
Dec ’24
Play audio data coming from serial port
Hi. I want to read ADPCM encoded audio data, coming from an external device to my Mac via serial port (/dev/cu.usbserial-0001) as 256 byte chunks, and feed it into an audio player. So far I am using Swift and SwiftSerial (GitHub - mredig/SwiftSerial: A Swift Linux and Mac library for reading and writing to serial ports. 3) to get the data via serialPort.asyncBytes() into a AsyncStream but I am struggling to understand how to feed the stream to a AVAudioPlayer or similar. I am new to Swift and macOS audio development so any help to get me on the right track is greatly appreciated. Thx
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269
Oct ’24
AirPods Audio Sample Rate Issue on macOS Sequoia
I’m experiencing an unusual audio issue with AirPods on macOS Sequoia while developing VoIP applications like Zoom and FaceTime. When AirPods are connected, the other party’s voice sometimes sounds unnaturally stretched (approximately twice as long). This problem can be temporarily fixed by switching the sound output settings from AirPods to speakers and then back to AirPods. From our analysis, the issue appears to be related to the sample rate provided by AudioObjectGetPropertyData. Here’s what we’ve observed: When the issue occurs, the AudioStreamBasicDescription.sampleRate for AirPods is reported as 48000. Under normal conditions, it’s reported as 24000. It seems like the system is mistakenly returning a sample rate that doesn’t match the AirPods’ actual settings, perhaps defaulting to a system speaker value. Once the output setting is toggled, the correct sampleRate (24000) is retrieved. This discrepancy causes our application to transmit the audio stream at 48000, leading to the distorted playback. Has anyone encountered a similar issue or knows how to resolve it?
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581
Dec ’24
AVAssetWriterInput Crash on appendSampleBuffer Converting PCM
Overview We are producing audio in real time from an editing application and are trying to put that on an HLS stream. We attempt to submit PCM samples through an audio writer but are getting a crash after a select number of samples have been appended. Depending on the number of audio frames in the PCM buffer, we might get more iterations before the crash but it always has the same traceback (see below). Code The setup is rather simple. We took inspiration from a few sources around the web. NSMutableDictionary *audio = [[NSMutableDictionary alloc] init]; [audio setObject:@(kAudioFormatMPEG4AAC) forKey:AVFormatIDKey]; [audio setObject:[NSNumber numberWithInt:config.audioSampleRate] // 48000 forKey:AVSampleRateKey]; [audio setObject:[NSNumber numberWithInt:config.audioChannels] // 2 forKey:AVNumberOfChannelsKey]; [audio setObject:@160000 forKey:AVEncoderBitRateKey]; m_audioConfig = [[NSDictionary alloc] initWithDictionary:audio]; m_audio = [[AVAssetWriterInput alloc] initWithMediaType:AVMediaTypeAudio outputSettings:m_audioConfig]; AVAudioFrameCount audioFrames = BUFFER_SAMPLES * bCount; AVAudioPCMBuffer *pcmBuffer = [[AVAudioPCMBuffer alloc] initWithPCMFormat:m_full.pcmFormat frameCapacity:audioFrames]; pcmBuffer.frameLength = pcmBuffer.frameCapacity; AudioChannelLayout layout; memset(&layout, 0, sizeof(layout)); layout.mChannelLayoutTag = kAudioChannelLayoutTag_Stereo; CMFormatDescriptionRef format; OSStatus stats = CMAudioFormatDescriptionCreate( kCFAllocatorDefault, pcmBuffer.format.streamDescription, sizeof(layout), &layout, 0, nil, nil, &format ); for (int i = 0; i < bCount; i++) { AudioPCM pcm; audioCallback->callback(pcm); memcpy(*(pcmBuffer.int16ChannelData) + (bufferSize * i), pcm.data, bufferSize); } size_t samplesConsumed = BUFFER_SAMPLES * bCount; CMSampleBufferRef sampleBuffer; CMSampleTimingInfo timing; timing.duration = CMTimeMake(1, config.audioSampleRate); timing.presentationTimeStamp = presentationTime; timing.decodeTimeStamp = kCMTimeInvalid; OSStatus ostatus = CMSampleBufferCreate( kCFAllocatorDefault, nil, false, nil, nil, format, (CMItemCount)pcmBuffer.frameLength, 1, &timing, 0, nil, &sampleBuffer ); //// ostatus = CMSampleBufferSetDataBufferFromAudioBufferList( sampleBuffer, kCFAllocatorDefault, kCFAllocatorDefault, kCMSampleBufferFlag_AudioBufferList_Assure16ByteAlignment, pcmBuffer.audioBufferList ); if (ostatus != noErr) { NSLog(@"fill audio sample from buffer list failed: %s", logAudioError(ostatus)); return; } ostatus = CMSampleBufferSetDataReady(sampleBuffer); if (ostatus != noErr) { NSLog(@"set sample buffer ready failed: %s", logAudioError(ostatus)); return; } // Finally we can attach it, then shove the presentation time forward [m_audio appendSampleBuffer:sampleBuffer]; The Crash The crash points towards some level of deallocation when the conversion tooling is done or has enough samples to process an output packet? It's had to say. 0 caulk 0x1a1e9532c caulk::alloc::tiered_allocator<caulk::alloc::size_range_tier<0ul, 1008ul, caulk::alloc::tree_allocator<caulk::alloc::chunk_allocator<caulk::alloc::page_allocator, caulk::alloc::bitmap_allocator, caulk::alloc::embed_block_memory, 16384ul, 16ul, 6ul>>>, caulk::alloc::size_range_tier<1009ul, 256000ul, caulk::alloc::guarded_edges_allocator<caulk::alloc::consolidating_free_map<caulk::alloc::page_allocator, 10485760ul>, 4ul>>, caulk::alloc::tracking_allocator<caulk::alloc::page_allocator>>::deallocate(caulk::alloc::block, unsigned long) + 636 1 AudioToolboxCore 0x1993fbfe4 ExtendedAudioBufferList_Destroy + 112 2 AudioToolboxCore 0x1993d5fe0 std::__1::__optional_destruct_base<ACCodecOutputBuffer, false>::~__optional_destruct_base[abi:ne180100]() + 68 3 AudioToolboxCore 0x1993d5f48 acv2::CodecConverter::~CodecConverter() + 196 4 AudioToolboxCore 0x1993d5e5c acv2::CodecConverter::~CodecConverter() + 16 5 AudioToolboxCore 0x1992574d8 std::__1::vector<std::__1::unique_ptr<acv2::AudioConverterBase, std::__1::default_delete<acv2::AudioConverterBase>>, std::__1::allocator<std::__1::unique_ptr<acv2::AudioConverterBase, std::__1::default_delete<acv2::AudioConverterBase>>>>::__clear[abi:ne180100]() + 84 6 AudioToolboxCore 0x199259acc acv2::AudioConverterChain::RebuildConverterChain(acv2::ChainBuildSettings const&) + 116 7 AudioToolboxCore 0x1992596ec acv2::AudioConverterChain::SetProperty(unsigned int, unsigned int, void const*) + 1808 8 AudioToolboxCore 0x199324acc acv2::AudioConverterV2::setProperty(unsigned int, unsigned int, void const*) + 84 9 AudioToolboxCore 0x199327f08 with_resolved(OpaqueAudioConverter*, caulk::function_ref<int (AudioConverterAPI*)>) + 60 10 AudioToolboxCore 0x1993281e4 AudioConverterSetProperty + 72 11 MediaToolbox 0x1a7566c2c FigSampleBufferProcessorCreateWithAudioCompression + 2296 12 MediaToolbox 0x1a754db08 0x1a70b5000 + 4819720 13 MediaToolbox 0x1a754dab4 FigMediaProcessorCreateForAudioCompressionWithFormatWriter + 100 14 MediaToolbox 0x1a77ebb98 0x1a70b5000 + 7564184 15 MediaToolbox 0x1a7804158 0x1a70b5000 + 7663960 16 MediaToolbox 0x1a7801da0 0x1a70b5000 + 7654816 17 AVFCore 0x1ada530c4 -[AVFigAssetWriterTrack addSampleBuffer:error:] + 192 18 AVFCore 0x1ada55164 -[AVFigAssetWriterAudioTrack _flushPendingSampleBuffersReturningError:] + 500 19 AVFCore 0x1ada55354 -[AVFigAssetWriterAudioTrack addSampleBuffer:error:] + 472 20 AVFCore 0x1ada4ebf0 -[AVAssetWriterInputWritingHelper appendSampleBuffer:error:] + 128 21 AVFCore 0x1ada4c354 -[AVAssetWriterInput appendSampleBuffer:] + 168 22 lib_devapple_hls.dylib 0x115d2c7cc detail::AppleHLSImplementation::audioRuntime() + 1052 23 lib_devapple_hls.dylib 0x115d2d094 void* std::__1::__thread_proxy[abi:ne180100]<std::__1::tuple<std::__1::unique_ptr<std::__1::__thread_struct, std::__1::default_delete<std::__1::__thread_struct>>, void (detail::AppleHLSImplementation::*)(), detail::AppleHLSImplementation*>>(void*) + 72 24 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x196e5b2e4 _pthread_start + 136 Any insight would be welcome!
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122
Jun ’25
Is there a way to get lossless music playback on macOS?
I noticed that while playing back the same tracks via MusicKit on different OSes I get different results regarding the audio files being streamed. Playing back a lossless file with 24Bit 48kHz and watching the Console for RemotePlayerService I get: on iPadOS: Lossless; groupID: audio-alac-stereo-48000-24; bitDepth: 24-bit; sampleRate: 48khz; codec: alac; channels: 2; layout: Stereo; on macOS: Creating AudioQueue with format:'paac', framesPerPacket:1024, sampleRate:44100 While the iPad looks perfect, the Mac does not. Is there a way to fix this issue on macOS. BTW: I switched the Audio-Midi Settings before, after and while the macOS App was lunched. I also switched to different output devices. I wasn't able to change the bad audio-output on the mac. I tested this under Sequoia 15.5 and Tahoe beta 1, Xcode 16.4 and 26 beta 1. The AudioVariants of the Album/Tracks are .dolbyAtmos, .lossless, .lossyStereo Apple Music displays Lossless 24 Bit/48 kHz ALAC when clicking on the playercontroll icon on macOS I hope there are only some missing or misconfigured properties to get macOS up to par. Thanks :-)
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102
Jun ’25
AudioUnit may experience silent capture issues on iPadOS 18.4.1 or 18.5.
Among the millions of users of our online product, we have identified through data metrics that the silent audio data capture rate on iPadOS 18.4.1 or 18.5 has increased abnormally. However, we are unable to reproduce the issue. Has anyone encountered a similar issue? The parameters we used are as follows: AudioSession: category:AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayAndRecord mode:AVAudioSessionModeDefault option:77 preferredSampleRate:48000.000000 preferredIOBufferDuration:0.010000 AudioUnit format.mFormatID = kAudioFormatLinearPCM; format.mSampleRate = 48000.0; format.mChannelsPerFrame = 2; format.mBitsPerChannel = 16; format.mFramesPerPacket = 1; format.mBytesPerFrame = format.mChannelsPerFrame * 16 / 8; format.mBytesPerPacket = format.mBytesPerFrame * format.mFramesPerPacket; format.mFormatFlags = kAudioFormatFlagsNativeEndian | kLinearPCMFormatFlagIsPacked | kLinearPCMFormatFlagIsSignedInteger; component.componentType = kAudioUnitType_Output; component.componentSubType = kAudioUnitSubType_RemoteIO; component.componentManufacturer = kAudioUnitManufacturer_Apple; component.componentFlags = 0; component.componentFlagsMask = 0;
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104
Jun ’25
iOS: I need to convert CMSampleBuffer Linear PCM audio to MPEG-4 AAC
Hello, I am a deaf-blind wheelchair user, and I program in Swift using a braille display. I’m reaching out for your help on an issue I’ve been struggling to solve. Basically, when I extract a CMSampleBuffer from an AVAsset of a video, it comes with the Audio Format ID as Linear PCM. However, when I try to pass this CMSampleBuffer to write another video using AVAssetWriter, the video ends up muted. The audio settings of the output video are configured to MPEG-4 AAC, but the input CMSampleBuffer has the Audio Format ID as Linear PCM. I would like to request an extension for CMSampleBuffer that converts Linear PCM audio to MPEG-4 AAC. I’ve searched extensively and couldn’t find anything. Looking forward to your help. Thank you.
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659
Oct ’24
Data Persistence of AVAssets
Hey, I am fairly new to working with AVFoundation etc. As far as I could research on my own, if I want to get metadata from let's say a .m4a audio file, I have to get the data and then create an AVAsset. My files are all on local servers and therefore I would not be able to just pass in the URL. The extraction of the metadata works fine - however those AVAssets create a huge overhead in storage consumption. To my knowledge the data instances of each audio file and AVAsset should only live inside the function I call to extract the metadata, however those data/AVAsset instances still live on on storage as I can clearly see that the app's file size increases by multiple Gigabytes (equal to the library size I test with). However, the only data that I purposefully save with SwiftData is the album artwork. Is this normal behavior for AVAssets or am I missing some detail? PS. If I forgot to mention something important, please ask. This is my first ever post, so I'm not too sure what is worth mentioning. Thank you in advance! Denis
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597
Nov ’24