(Note: this is part 1 of a 3 part posting. See Part 2 or Part 3) At WWDC25 we launched a new type of Lab event for the developer community - Group Labs. A Group Lab is a panel Q&A designed for a large audience of developers. Group Labs are a unique opportunity for the community to submit questions directly to a panel of Apple engineers and designers. Here are the highlights from the WWDC25 Group Lab for Camera & Photos. WWDC25 Camera & Photos group lab ran for one hour at 6 PM PST on Tuesday June 10th, 2025 Introductory kick-off questions Question 1 Tell us a little about the new AVFoundation Capture APIs we've made available in the new iOS 26 developer preview? Cinematic Capture API (strong/weak focus, tracking focus)(scene monitoring)(simulated aperture)(dog/cat heads/groupIDs) Camera Controls and AirPod Stem Clicks Spatial Audio and Studio Quality AirPod Mics in Camera Lens Smudge Detection Exposure and Focus Rect of Interest Question 2 I built QR code scanning into my app, but on newer iPhones I have to hold the phone very far away from the QR code, otherwise the image is blurry and it doesn't scan. Why is this happening and how can I fix it? Every year, the cameras get better and better as we push the state of the art on iPhone photography and videography. This sometimes results in changes to the characteristics of the lenses. min focus distance newer phones have multiple lenses automatic switching behavior Use virtual device like the builtInDualWide or built in Triple, rather than just the builtInWide Set the videoZoomFactor to 2. You're done. Question 3 Last year, we saw some exciting new APIs introduced in AVFoundation in the health space. With Constant Color photography, developers can take pictures that have constant color regardless of ambient lighting. There are some further advancements this year. Davide, could you tell us about them? constant color photography is mean to remove the "tone mapping" applied to photograph captured with camera app, usually incldsuing artistic intent, and instead try to be a close as possible to the real color of the scene, regardless of the illumination constant color images could be captured in HEIF anf JPEG laste year. this year we are adding Support for the DICOM medical imaging photo format. It is a fomrat used by the health industry to store images related to medical subjects like MRI, skin problems, xray and so on. It's writable and also readable format on all OS26, supported through AVCapturePhotoOutput APIs and through the coregraphics api. for coregrapphics there is a new DICOM entry in the property dictionary which includes all the dicom availbale and defined propertie in a file. finder will also display all those in the info panel (Address why a developer would want to use it) - not for regualr picture taking apps. for those HEIF and JPEG are the preferred delivery format. use dicom if your app produces output that are health related, that you can also share with health providers or your doctors Main session developer questions Question 1 LiDAR vs. Dual Camera depth generation: Which resolution does the LiDAR sensor natively have (iPhone 16 Pro) and when to prefer LiDAR over Dual Camera? Both report formats with output resolutions (we don't advertise sensor resolution) Lidar vs Dual, etc: Lidar: Best for absolute depth, real world scale and computer vision Dual, etc: relative, disparity-based, less power, photo effects Also see: 2022 WWDC session "Discovery advancements in iOS camera capture: Depth, focus and multitasking" Question 2 Can true depth and lidar camera run at 60fps? Lidar can do 30fps (edited) Front true depth can do 60fps. Question 3 What’s the first class way to use PhotoKit to reimplement a high performance photo grid? We’ve been using a LazyVGrid and the photos caching manager, but are never able to hit the holy trinity (60hz, efficient memory footprint, minimal flashes of placeholder/empty cells) use the PHCachingImageManager to get media content delivered before you need to display it specify the size you need for grid sized display set the options PHVideoRequestOptionsDeliveryModeFastFormat, PHImageRequestOptionsDeliveryModeFastFormat and PHImageRequestOptionsResizeModeFast Question 4 For rending live preview of video stream, Is there performance overhead from using async and Swift UI for image updates vs UIViewRepresentable + AVCaptureVideoPreviewLayer.self? AVCaptureVideoPreviewLayer is the most efficient display path Use VDO + AVSampleBufferDisplayLayer if you need to modify the image data Swift UI image is optimized for static image content Question 5 Is there a way to configure the AVFoundation BuiltInLiDarDepthCamera mode to provide a depth map as accurate as ARKit at close range? The AVCaptureDepthDataOutput supports filtering that reduces noise and fills in invalid values. Consider using this for smoother depth maps Question 6 Pyramid-based photo editing in core image (such as adobe camera raw highlights and shadows)? First off you may want to look a the builtin filter called CIHighlightShadowAdjust Also the noise reduction in the CIRawFilter uses a pyramid-based algorithm. You can also write your own pyramid-based algorithms by taking an input image: down sample it by two multiply times using imageByApplyingAffineTransform apply additional CIKernels to each downsampled image as needed. use a custom CIKernel to combine the results. Question 7 Is the best way to integrate an in-app camera for a “non-camera” app UIImagePickerController? Yes, UIImagePickerController provides system-provided UI for capturing photos and movies. Question 8 Hello, my question is on Deferred Photo Processing? Say I have a photo capture app that adds a CIFilter to the capture. How can I take advantage of Deferred Photo Processing? Since I don’t know how to detect when the deferred captured photo is ready CIFilter can be called on the final at that point Photo will have to be re-inserted into the Photo library as adjustment Question 9 For shipping photo style assets in the app that need transparency what is the best format to use? JPEG2000? will moving to this save a lot of space comapred to PNG or other options? If you want lossless compression PNG is good and supports unpremutiplied alpha If you want lossy compression HEIF supports premutiplied or unpremutiplied alpha (Note: this is part 1 of a 3 part posting. See Part 2 or Part 3)

(Note: this is part 2 of a 3 part posting. See Part 1 or Part 3) At WWDC25 we launched a new type of Lab event for the developer community - Group Labs. A Group Lab is a panel Q&A designed for a large audience of developers. Group Labs are a unique opportunity for the community to submit questions directly to a panel of Apple engineers and designers. Here are the highlights from the WWDC25 Group Lab for Camera & Photos. WWDC25 Camera & Photos group lab ran for one hour at 6 PM PST on Tuesday June 10th, 2025 Question 10 Can we directly integrate auto-capture triggers (e.g., when image is steady or text is detected) using Vision and AVFoundation? Yes apps can use AVCaptureSession's VDO + AVCapturePhotoOutput, run vision on VDO buffers and capture photo when certain scene or text is detected. Just to be careful to run Vision on VDO buffers async so it doesn't cause frame drops. Question 11 What Camera or Photos framework features support working with images from external media, like connected cameras or SD cards? Any best practices? The ImageCaptureCore framework supports camera devices, memory cards, scanners read and write, where supported check out the docs to see how to browse connected devices, folders, files, etc. Question 12 Hi Brad, to follow up on your SwiftUI cautionary note: using AVCaptureVideoPreview inside a UIViewRepresentable, is okay, right? Thanks all for the great info! Yes, this is totally fine. AppKit or UIKit views inside appropriate SwiftUI representables should be equivalent performance Question 13 What’s the “right” way to transition media in my photos app between HDR modes? When I’m in a one-up view, we use HDR, but in other contexts (like thumbnail) we don’t want HDR. Is there a nice way to tone map? There’s a suite of new System Tone Mapper APIs in this years’ OSes CoreImage ImageKit CoreAnimation, CoreGraphics For example: CoreImage: new CISystemToneMap filter. CoreAnimation: layer.preferredDynamicRange = CADynamicRangeConstrainedHigh Using image views (NSImageView/UIImageView/SwiftUI Image/CALayer) support animations on preferredDynamicRange Can go from high to constrained to standard Tone mapping is provided by the system (CISystemToneMap for controllable example) Question 14 What is your recommendation to preprocess and upscale your depth map in order to render a realistic portrait mode image? One way to do this: the CIEdgePreserveUpsample CIFilter can be use to upsample a lower resolution depth map by using a higher resolution RGB image as a guide. Question 15 For buffering frames for later processing from real-time camera output should we prefer a AVSampleBufferDisplayLayer centered approach or AVCaptureVideoDataOutputSampleBufferDelegate centered approach? When would we use each? AVSampleBufferDisplayLayer and AVCaptureVideoDataOutputSampleBufferDelegate are used hand in hand for custom camera preview. For buffering for later processing, ensure you make copies of VDO buffers to not drop frames from the output Question 16 Hello, my question is on Deferred Photo Processing? Say I have a photo capture app that adds a CIFilter to the capture. How can I take advantage of Deferred Photo Processing? Since I don’t know how to detect when the deferred captured photo is ready CIFilter can be called on the final at that point Photo will have to be re-inserted into the Photo library as adjustment Question 17 Is digital zoom (e.g., 1.5x) before taking a photo the same as cropping the photo afterward? digital zoom upscales the image to output dimensions and cropping will yield a smaller output image while digital zoom will crop, it also upscales Question 18 How do you design camera interfaces that work for both casual users and photography enthusiasts? Progressive disclosure: Put the most common controls up front, and make it easy for pros to drill down. Sensible Defaults: Choose defaults that work well for casual users, but allow those defaults to be modified for photography enthusiasts A good philosophy is: Keep the simple things easy, make the hard things possible Question 19 Recent iPhone models introduced macro mode which automatically switch between lenses to take into account of the focal distance difference. Is there official API to implement this, or should I implement them myself using LiDAR values. Using builtInTripleCamera and builtInDualWideCamera will automatically switch to macro when available Question 20 a couple of years ago at WWDC, the option of replacing a camera with a virtual camera was mentioned. How does one do that - make the “physical” camera effectively disappear, so only the virtual camera is accessible to the user? You can't prevent the built-in camera from being available to the user Question 21 Can developers now integrate custom Core ML models with Vision for on-device photo analysis more seamlessly? Yes they can, use CoreMLRequest , provide their model container Been supported for a while (iOS 18/macOS 15) For more details go to Machine Learning & AI group lab Thursday use smaller images for better performance Question 22 What would you recommend for capture of the new immersive and spatial formats? To capture Spatial Video use AVCaptureMovieFileOutput’s spatialVideoCaptureEnabled property Not all device formats support spatial capture, check AVCaptureDevice.activeFormat.spatialVideoCaptureSupported See WWDC 2024 talk “Build compelling spatial photo and video experiences” for more details Question 23 You mentioned JPEG-XL. What is the current status of support on iOS and macOS for encoding and decoding? For decoding, we support JPEG-XL files in all our OSes, regular SDR files, as well as ISO HDR files. For encoding, we only support JPEG-XL for ProRAW DNG capture in the Camera app or via third-party AVFoundation APIs. If you have any requests for improvement or new features related to JPEG-XL, please file a Feedback request using the Feedback Assistant. (Note: this is part 2 of a 3 part posting. See Part 1 or Part 3)

(Note: this is part 3 of a 3 part posting. See Part 1 or Part 2) At WWDC25 we launched a new type of Lab event for the developer community - Group Labs. A Group Lab is a panel Q&A designed for a large audience of developers. Group Labs are a unique opportunity for the community to submit questions directly to a panel of Apple engineers and designers. Here are the highlights from the WWDC25 Group Lab for Camera & Photos. WWDC25 Camera & Photos group lab ran for one hour at 6 PM PST on Tuesday June 10th, 2025 Question 24 What’s the best approach for optimizing barcode scanning using AVFoundation or Vision in low-light or angled scenarios Turn on flash in low-light scenarios Lower framerate to improve exposure and reduce noise Wait until the capture is in focus/notify your user that they need to get closer Question 25 Recent iPhone models introduced macro mode which automatically switch between lenses to take into account of the focal distance difference. Is there official API to implement this, or should I implement them myself using LiDAR values. Using builtInTripleCamera and builtInDualWideCamera will automatically switch to macro when available Question 26 Is there a way to quickly create a thumbnail after the user selects an image with PhotosPicker? File provider API Additional questions from the WWDC25 in-person labs that occurred later in the WWDC week Question 1 When should I build my custom photo picker instead of using the system one? Always start with the system picker -> try embeddable customization APIs -> fallback to custom picker for very special needs Question 2 I'm building a new camera app for pros and I want to give my users the most un-processed image possible, and the most control over the capture as possible. How can I do that with AVCapture? If stills, Brief Bayer RAW capture overview, or Pro RAW if you want Apple's processing and dynamic range If video, talk about prores LOG. Custom exposure settings are available throguh the apis maybe global/local tonemapping discussion?

If the app is launched from LockedCameraCapture and if the settings button is tapped, I need to launch the main app. CameraViewController: func settingsButtonTapped() { #if isLockedCameraCaptureExtension //App is launched from Lock Screen //Launch main app here... #else //App is launched from Home Screen self.showSettings(animated: true) #endif } In this document: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/lockedcameracapture/creating-a-camera-experience-for-the-lock-screen Apple asks you to use: func launchApp(with session: LockedCameraCaptureSession, info: String) { Task { do { let activity = NSUserActivityTypeLockedCameraCapture activity.userInfo = [UserInfoKey: info] try await session.openApplication(for: activity) } catch { StatusManager.displayError("Unable to open app - \(error.localizedDescription)") } } } However, the documentation states that this should be placed within the extension code - LockedCameraCapture. If I do that, how can I call that all the way down from the main app's CameraViewController?

On iOS 26.1, this throws on the 2020 iPad Pro (4th gen) but works fine on an M4 iPad Pro or iPhone 15 Pro: guard let device = AVCaptureDevice.default(.builtInLiDARDepthCamera, for: .video, position: .back) else { throw ConfigurationError.lidarDeviceUnavailable } It's just the standard code from Apple's own sample code so obviously used to work: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/AVFoundation/capturing-depth-using-the-lidar-camera Does it fail because Apple have silently dumped support for the older LiDAR sensor used prior to the M4 iPad Pro, or is there another reason? What about the 5th and 6th gen iPad Pro, does it still work on those?

Apple Watch app closes when changing photo permissions in the iPhone app. App A is installed simultaneously on both the paired iPhone and Apple Watch. I'm running App A on both my iPhone and Apple Watch. When I change the photo permissions on App A installed on my iPhone, App A running on my Apple Watch automatically closes. At first, I assumed App A on my iPhone was abnormally closing, causing App A on my Apple Watch to also close. However, I've determined that changing the photo permissions is the cause of the app closing. I don't think this behavior existed before WatchOS/iOS 26. Is this behavior a natural addition to WatchOS/iOS 26? If I go to the home screen while running app A on my iPhone and change its photo permissions in the Settings app, app A running on my Apple Watch automatically closes.

1.May I ask if the Background Upload can run normally in the Release version of ios 26.1? I used the Release version of ios 26.1 for debugging and found that the background upload couldn't be triggered for a long time. I debugged in ios 26.2 and found that background upload could be triggered normally, but kept triggering an Error: "Error returned from daemon: error Domain=com.apple.accounts Code=7 "(null)"

The introduction of PHBackgroundResourceUploadExtension is a welcome addition in iOS 26.1. I wonder however, how to attach a debugger and actually get the system to call the process() method of the extension. I tried to run the extension both inside photos app (and also the main app for testing), but when I take a photo or add photos to the library (saving), the process() method does never get called. Any hints would be appreciated to debug the PHBackgroundResourceUploadExtension during development.

Problem Description (1) I am using ARKit in an iOS app to provide AR capabilities. Specifically, I'm trying to use the ARSession's captureHighResolutionFrame(using:) method to capture a high-resolution frame along with its corresponding depth data: open func captureHighResolutionFrame(using photoSettings: AVCapturePhotoSettings?) async throws -> ARFrame (2) However, when I attempt to do so, the call fails at runtime with the following error, which I captured from the Xcode debugger: [AVCapturePhotoOutput capturePhotoWithSettings:delegate:] settings.depthDataDeliveryEnabled must be NO if self.isDepthDataDeliveryEnabled is NO Code Snippet Explanation (1) ARConfig and ARSession Initialization The following code configures the ARConfiguration and ARSession. A key part of this setup is setting the videoFormat to the one recommended for high-resolution frame capturing, as suggested by the documentation. func start(imagesDirectory: URL, configuration: Configuration = Configuration()) { // ... basic setup ... let arConfig = ARWorldTrackingConfiguration() arConfig.planeDetection = [.horizontal, .vertical] // Enable various frame semantics for depth and segmentation if ARWorldTrackingConfiguration.supportsFrameSemantics(.smoothedSceneDepth) { arConfig.frameSemantics.insert(.smoothedSceneDepth) } if ARWorldTrackingConfiguration.supportsFrameSemantics(.sceneDepth) { arConfig.frameSemantics.insert(.sceneDepth) } if ARWorldTrackingConfiguration.supportsFrameSemantics(.personSegmentationWithDepth) { arConfig.frameSemantics.insert(.personSegmentationWithDepth) } // Set the recommended video format for high-resolution captures if let videoFormat = ARWorldTrackingConfiguration.recommendedVideoFormatForHighResolutionFrameCapturing { arConfig.videoFormat = videoFormat print("Enabled: High-Resolution Frame Capturing by selecting recommended video format.") } arSession.run(arConfig, options: [.resetTracking, .removeExistingAnchors]) // ... } (2) Capturing the High-Resolution Frame The code below is intended to manually trigger the capture of a high-resolution frame. The goal is to obtain both a high-resolution color image and its associated high-resolution depth data. To achieve this, I explicitly set the isDepthDataDeliveryEnabled property of the AVCapturePhotoSettings object to true. func requestImageCapture() async { // ... guard statements ... print("Manual image capture requested.") if #available(iOS 16.0, *) { // Assuming 16.0+ for this API if let defaultSettings = arSession.configuration?.videoFormat.defaultPhotoSettings { // Create a mutable copy from the default settings, as recommended let photoSettings = AVCapturePhotoSettings(from: defaultSettings) // Explicitly enable depth data delivery for this capture request photoSettings.isDepthDataDeliveryEnabled = true do { let highResFrame = try await arSession.captureHighResolutionFrame(using: photoSettings) print("Successfully captured a high-resolution frame.") if let initialDepthData = highResFrame.capturedDepthData { // Process depth data... } else { print("High-resolution frame was captured, but it contains no depth data.") } } catch { // The exception is caught here print("Error capturing high-resolution frame: \(error.localizedDescription)") } } } // ... } Issue Confirmation & Question (1) Through debugging, I have confirmed the following behavior: If I call captureHighResolutionFrame without providing the photoSettings parameter, or if photoSettings.isDepthDataDeliveryEnabled is set to false, the method successfully returns a high-resolution ARFrame, but its capturedDepthData is nil. (2) The error message clearly indicates that settings.depthDataDeliveryEnabled can only be true if the underlying AVCapturePhotoOutput instance's own isDepthDataDeliveryEnabled property is also true. (3) However, within the context of ARKit and ARSession, I cannot find any public API that would allow me to explicitly access and configure the underlying AVCapturePhotoOutput instance that ARSession manages. (4) My question is: Is there a way to configure the ARSession's internal AVCapturePhotoOutput to enable its isDepthDataDeliveryEnabled property? Or, is simultaneously capturing a high-resolution frame and its associated depth data simply not a supported use case in the current ARKit framework?

we are working on HDR images and found this problem, asset.mediaSubtypes.contains(.photoHDR) always return false func picker(_ picker: PHPickerViewController, didFinishPicking results: [PHPickerResult]) { guard !results.isEmpty else {return} let fetchResult = PHAsset.fetchAssets(withLocalIdentifiers: results.map({$0.assetIdentifier!}), options: nil) var selectedAssets:[PHAsset] = [] fetchResult.enumerateObjects { asset, _, _ in selectedAssets.append(asset) } for i in selectedAssets.enumerated() { let asset:PHAsset = i.element print("\(i.offset): ") print(PHAssetMediaSubtype.photoHDR.rawValue) print(asset.mediaSubtypes) print("photoHDR \(PHAssetMediaSubtype.photoHDR.rawValue): \(asset.mediaSubtypes.contains(.photoHDR))") print("photoLive \(PHAssetMediaSubtype.photoLive.rawValue): \(asset.mediaSubtypes.contains(.photoLive))") print("photoPanorama \(PHAssetMediaSubtype.photoPanorama.rawValue): \(asset.mediaSubtypes.contains(.photoPanorama))") print("photoScreenshot \(PHAssetMediaSubtype.photoScreenshot.rawValue): \(asset.mediaSubtypes.contains(.photoScreenshot))") print("videoHighFrameRate \(PHAssetMediaSubtype.videoHighFrameRate.rawValue): \(asset.mediaSubtypes.contains(.videoHighFrameRate))") print("videoScreenRecording \(PHAssetMediaSubtype.videoScreenRecording.rawValue): \(asset.mediaSubtypes.contains(.videoScreenRecording))") } }

Fundamentally, my questions are: is there a known transform I can apply onto a given (pixel) position (passed into a Metal Fragment Function) to correctly sample a texture provided by the main cameras + processed by a Vision request. If so, what is it? If not, how can I accurately sample my masks? My goal is to highlight people in a Vision Pro app using Compositor Services. To start, I asynchronously receive camera frames for the main left and right cameras. This is the breakdown of the specific CameraVideoFormat I pass along to the CameraFrameProvider: minFrameDuration: 0.03 maxFrameDuration: 0.033333335 frameSize: (1920.0, 1080.0) pixelFormat: 875704422 cameraType: main cameraPositions: [left, right] cameraRectification: mono From each camera frame sample, I extract the left and right buffers (CVReadOnlyPixelBuffer.withUnsafebuffer ==> CVPixelBuffer). I asynchronously process the extracted buffers by performing a VNGeneratePersonSegmentationRequest on both of them: // NOTE: This block of code and all following code blocks contain simplified representations of my code for clarity's sake. var request = VNGeneratePersonSegmentationRequest() request.qualityLevel = .balanced request.outputPixelFormat = kCVPixelFormatType_OneComponent8 ... let lHandler = VNSequenceRequestHandler() let rHandler = VNSequenceRequestHandler() ... func processBuffers() async { try lHandler.perform([request], on: lBuffer) guard let lMask = request.results?.first?.pixelBuffer else {...} try rHandler.perform([request], on: rBuffer) guard let rMask = request.results?.first?.pixelBuffer else {...} appModel.latestPersonMasks = (lMask, rMask) } I store the two resulting CVPixelBuffers in my appModel. For both of these buffers aka grayscale masks: width (in pixels) = 512 height (in pixels) = 384 byters per row = 512 plane count = 0 pixel format type = 1278226488 I am using Compositor Services to render my content in Immersive Space. My implementation of Compositor Services is based off of the same code from Interacting with virtual content blended with passthrough. Within the Shaders.metal, the tint's Fragment Shader is now passed the grayscale masks (converted from CVPixelBuffer to MTLTexture via CVMetalTextureCacheCreateTextureFromImage() at the beginning of the main render pipeline). fragment float4 tintFragmentShader( TintInOut in [[stage_in]], ushort amp_id [[amplification_id]], texture2d<uint> leftMask [[texture(0)]], texture2d<uint> rightMask [[texture(1)]] ) { if (in.color.a <= 0.0) { discard_fragment(); } float2 uv; if (amp_id == 0) { // LEFT uv = ??????????????????????; } else { // RIGHT uv = ??????????????????????; } constexpr sampler linearSampler (mip_filter::linear, mag_filter::linear, min_filter::linear); // Sample the PersonSegmentation grayscale mask float maskValue = 0.0; if (amp_id == 0) { // LEFT if (leftMask.get_width() > 0) { maskValue = rightMask.sample(linearSampler, uv).r; } } else { // RIGHT if (rightMask.get_width() > 0) { maskValue = rightMask.sample(linearSampler, uv).r; } } if (maskValue > 250) { return (1.0, 1.0, 1.0, 0.5) } return in.color; } I need to correctly sample the masks for a given fragment. The LayerRenderer.Layout is set to .layered. From Developer Documentation. A layout that specifies each view’s content as a slice of a single texture. Using the Metal debugger, I know that the final render target texture for each view / eye is 1888 x 1792 pixels, giving an aspect ratio of 59:56. The initial CVPixelBuffer provided by the main left and right cameras is 1920x1080 (16:9). The grayscale CVPixelBuffer returned by the VNPersonSegmentationRequest is 512x384 (4:3). All of these aspect ratios are different. My questions come down to: is there a known transform I can apply onto a given (pixel) position to correctly sample a texture provided by the main cameras + processed by a Vision request. If so, what is it? If not, how can I accurately sample my masks? Within the tint's Vertex Shader, after applying the modelViewProjectionMatrix, I have tried every version I have been able to find that takes the pixel space position (= vertices[vertexID].position.xy) and the viewport size (1888x1792) to compute the correct clip space position (maybe = pixel space position.xy / (viewport size * 0.5)???) of the grayscale masks but nothing has worked. The "highlight" of the person segmentations is off: scaled a little too big, offset little to far up and off to the side.

In my app, I use api provided in Photos framework to delete specified photo. But after upgrading to iOS 26, the delete function in some iOS device no longer work. The api will never triggers the system confirmation dialog, and the completionHandler is never called. In the iOS Photos app, deletion works correctly on the same assets, but calling the API from my app does not work. Steps to Reproduce Make sure the app has Full Photo Library Access. Execute the following code: PHPhotoLibrary.shared().performChanges({ let assetsToBeDeleted = PHAsset.fetchAssets(withLocalIdentifiers: delUrls, options: nil) PHAssetChangeRequest.deleteAssets(assetsToBeDeleted) }, completionHandler: completionHandler) Expected Behavior The system should present a confirmation dialog asking the user to delete the selected photos. After the user confirms, the deletion should occur, and the completionHandler should be called with success or error. Actual Behavior The system delete confirmation dialog does not appear. The completionHandler is never called. Environment iOS Versions: 26.1 / 26.0.1 It looks like api bug. I want to check Is it a know issue and will be fixed. Thanks

I have the main app that saves preferences to UserDefaults.standard. So I have this one preference that the user is able to toggle - isRawOn UserDefaults.standard.set(self.isRawOn, forKey: "isRawOn") Now, I have LockedCameraCaptureExtension which is required know if that above setting on or off during launch. Also if it's toggled within the extension, the main app should know about it on the next launch. The main app and the extension runs on separate containers and the preferences are not shared due to privacy reasons. Apple mentions of using appContext of CameraCaptureIntent, but not sure how above scenario is possible through that....unless I am missing something. Apple Reference What I have for CameraCaptureIntent: @available(iOS 18, *) struct LaunchMyAppControlIntent: CameraCaptureIntent { typealias AppContext = MyAppContext static let title: LocalizedStringResource = "LaunchMyAppControlIntent" static let description = IntentDescription("Capture photos with MyApp.") @MainActor func perform() async throws -> some IntentResult { .result() } }

iPhone7 : iOS 14.0 Beta 5 Xcode-beta Mac OS : 10.15.5 (19F101) crash info : ** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException', reason: '-[PHPhotoLibrary presentLimitedLibraryPickerFromViewController:]: unrecognized selector sent to instance xxxxxx' terminating with uncaught exception of type NSException my code: (void)viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated {   [super viewDidAppear:animated];   if (@available(iOS 14, *)) {     [[PHPhotoLibrary sharedPhotoLibrary] presentLimitedLibraryPickerFromViewController:self];   } }

Hi, I'm a fan of the gallery in vision pro which has video as well as still photography but I'm wondering if Apple has considered adding the projected media tags to heic so that we can go that next step from Spatial photos to Immersive photos. I have a device that can give me 12k x 6k fisheye images in HDR, but it can't do it at a framerate or resolution that's good enough for video, so I want to cut my losses and show off immersive photos instead. Is there something Apple is already working on for APMP stills or should I create my own app that reads metadata inside a HEIC that I infer in a similar way to the demo "ProjectedMediaConversion" is doing for Video. It would be great to have 180VR photos, which could show as Spatial in a gallery view, but going immersive would half-surround you instead of floating in the blurred view. I think that would be a pretty amazing effect.

In what scenario will an app receive the limitExceeded PHPhotosError code? This case was added in iOS 26.1 and is not currently documented. What PhotoKit APIs can encounter this error and how should it be handled?

Where can I find the documentation of the Genlock feature of the iPhone 17 Pro? How does it work and how can I use it in my app?

The iPhone 17’s front camera with the new 18MP square sensor and iOS 26’s Center Stage feature can auto-rotate between portrait and landscape like the native iOS Camera app. Is there a Swift or AVFoundation API that allows developers to manually control front camera orientation in the same way the native Camera app does? Or is this auto-rotation strictly handled by the system without public API access?

Hi everyone, We're encountering an unexpected issue with our iPhone-only camera app: 👉 TimeMark - Photo Proof https://apps.apple.com/us/app/timemark-photo-proof/id6446071834 Problem Description: Our app uses a full-screen camera view via AVCaptureSession. In some cases reported by users, the camera fails immediately upon app launch, and we receive this interruption reason: AVCaptureSessionInterruptionReasonVideoDeviceNotAvailableWithMultipleForegroundApps According to the Apple documentation https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfoundation/avcapturesession/interruptionreason/videodevicenotavailablewithmultipleforegroundapps?language=objc , this interruption typically occurs when the app is running in a multi-app layout such as Slide Over, Split View, or Picture in Picture — all of which are iPad-only features. However, this issue is being reported on iPhones, and our app does not support iPad at all. Also noted in the documentation: "Given your present AVCaptureSession configuration, the session may only be run if your app occupies the full screen." Additional Context: The issue occurs immediately on app launch, before the user can interact with the camera. We don’t enable multitaskingCameraAccessEnabled. We are 100% sure this is happening on iPhone, not iPad. It’s hard to reproduce; users report it happening sporadically. Locally, we tried playing Picture-in-Picture videos (e.g., Safari/YouTube) before launching our app, but we could not reproduce the issue. Questions: Why is this interruption reason occurring on iPhone, which doesn’t officially support Slide Over or Split View? Could this be caused by some system-level multitasking or resource contention (e.g., Picture in Picture from FaceTime or Safari)? Would enabling multitaskingCameraAccessEnabled help prevent this issue on iPhone, even though it's designed for iPad? Enabling multitaskingCameraAccessEnabled seems to require enabling UIBackgroundModes → voip. Would adding this background mode cause any App Store review risk or rejection if our app doesn't actually use VoIP functionality? Any help, insight, or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Hi, We have created an app which allows recording 4K 60 fps videos in the app. We have noted that some time the recording switched to 20 fps (the value 20 is constant) even though the resolution settings is at 4K 60fps. We are using AVCaptureDevice to invoke the camera. has anyone experienced this problem before ? What is unique to 20 fps? Why does it resort to 20 fps from 60 fps and why not to other numbers ?

I'm writing a program to control a PTZ camera connected via USB. I can get access to target camera's unique_id, and also other infos provided by AVFoundation. But I don't know how to locate my target USB device to send a UVC ControlRequest. There's many Cameras with same VendorID and ProductID connected at a time, so I need a more exact way to find out which device is my target. It looks that the unique_id provided is (locationID<<32|VendorID<<16|ProductID) as hex string, but I'm not sure if I can always assume this behavior won't change. Is there's a document declares how AVFoundation generate the unique_id for USB camera, so I can assume this convert will always work? Or is there's a way to send a PTZ control request to AVCaptureDevice? https://stackoverflow.com/questions/40006908/usb-interface-of-an-avcapturedevice I have seen this similar question. But I'm worrying that Exacting LocationID+VendorID+ProductID from unique_id seems like programming to implementation instead of interface. So, if there's any other better way to control my camera? here's my example code for getting unique_id: // // camera_unique_id_test.mm // // 测试代码：使用C++获取当前系统摄像头的AVCaptureDevice unique_id // // 编译命令: // clang++ -framework AVFoundation -framework CoreMedia -framework Foundation // camera_unique_id_test.mm -o camera_unique_id_test // #include <iostream> #include <string> #include <vector> #import <AVFoundation/AVFoundation.h> #import <Foundation/Foundation.h> struct CameraInfo { std::string uniqueId; }; std::vector<CameraInfo> getAllCameraDevices() { std::vector<CameraInfo> cameras; @autoreleasepool { NSArray<AVCaptureDevice*>* devices = [AVCaptureDevice devicesWithMediaType:AVMediaTypeVideo]; AVCaptureDevice* defaultDevice = [AVCaptureDevice defaultDeviceWithMediaType:AVMediaTypeVideo]; // 遍历所有设备 for (AVCaptureDevice* device in devices) { CameraInfo info; // 获取unique_id info.uniqueId = std::string([device.uniqueID UTF8String]); cameras.push_back(info); } } return cameras; } int main(int argc, char* argv[]) { std::vector<CameraInfo> cameras = getAllCameraDevices(); for (size_t i = 0; i < cameras.size(); i++) { const CameraInfo& camera = cameras[i]; std::cout << " 设备 " << (i + 1) << ":" << std::endl; std::cout << " unique_id: " << camera.uniqueId << std::endl; } return 0; } and here's my code for UVC control: // clang++ -framework Foundation -framework IOKit uvc_test.cpp -o uvc_test #include <iostream> #include <CoreFoundation/CoreFoundation.h> #include <IOKit/IOCFPlugIn.h> #include <IOKit/IOKitLib.h> #include <IOKit/IOMessage.h> #include <IOKit/usb/IOUSBLib.h> #include <IOKit/usb/USB.h> CFStringRef CreateCFStringFromIORegistryKey(io_service_t ioService, const char* key) { CFStringRef keyString = CFStringCreateWithCString(kCFAllocatorDefault, key, kCFStringEncodingUTF8); if (!keyString) return nullptr; CFStringRef result = static_cast<CFStringRef>( IORegistryEntryCreateCFProperty(ioService, keyString, kCFAllocatorDefault, kIORegistryIterateRecursively)); CFRelease(keyString); return result; } std::string GetStringFromIORegistry(io_service_t ioService, const char* key) { CFStringRef cfString = CreateCFStringFromIORegistryKey(ioService, key); if (!cfString) return ""; char buffer[256]; Boolean success = CFStringGetCString(cfString, buffer, sizeof(buffer), kCFStringEncodingUTF8); CFRelease(cfString); return success ? std::string(buffer) : std::string(""); } uint32_t GetUInt32FromIORegistry(io_service_t ioService, const char* key) { CFStringRef keyString = CFStringCreateWithCString(kCFAllocatorDefault, key, kCFStringEncodingUTF8); if (!keyString) return 0; CFNumberRef number = static_cast<CFNumberRef>( IORegistryEntryCreateCFProperty(ioService, keyString, kCFAllocatorDefault, kIORegistryIterateRecursively)); CFRelease(keyString); if (!number) return 0; uint32_t value = 0; CFNumberGetValue(number, kCFNumberSInt32Type, &value); CFRelease(number); return value; } int main() { // Get matching dictionary for USB devices CFMutableDictionaryRef matchingDict = IOServiceMatching(kIOUSBDeviceClassName); // Get iterator for matching services io_iterator_t serviceIterator; IOServiceGetMatchingServices(kIOMasterPortDefault, matchingDict, &serviceIterator); // Iterate through matching devices io_service_t usbService; while ((usbService = IOIteratorNext(serviceIterator))) { uint32_t locationId = GetUInt32FromIORegistry(usbService, "locationID"); uint32_t vendorId = GetUInt32FromIORegistry(usbService, "idVendor"); uint32_t productId = GetUInt32FromIORegistry(usbService, "idProduct"); IOCFPlugInInterface** plugInInterface = nullptr; IOUSBDeviceInterface** deviceInterface = nullptr; SInt32 score; // Get device plugin interface IOCreatePlugInInterfaceForService(usbService, kIOUSBDeviceUserClientTypeID, kIOCFPlugInInterfaceID, &plugInInterface, &score); // Get device interface (*plugInInterface) ->QueryInterface(plugInInterface, CFUUIDGetUUIDBytes(kIOUSBDeviceInterfaceID), (LPVOID*)&deviceInterface); (*plugInInterface)->Release(plugInInterface); // Try to find UVC control interface using CreateInterfaceIterator io_iterator_t interfaceIterator; IOUSBFindInterfaceRequest interfaceRequest; interfaceRequest.bInterfaceClass = kUSBVideoInterfaceClass; // 14 interfaceRequest.bInterfaceSubClass = kUSBVideoControlSubClass; // 1 interfaceRequest.bInterfaceProtocol = kIOUSBFindInterfaceDontCare; interfaceRequest.bAlternateSetting = kIOUSBFindInterfaceDontCare; (*deviceInterface) ->CreateInterfaceIterator(deviceInterface, &interfaceRequest, &interfaceIterator); (*deviceInterface)->Release(deviceInterface); io_service_t usbInterface = IOIteratorNext(interfaceIterator); IOObjectRelease(interfaceIterator); if (usbInterface) { std::cout << "Get UVC device with:" << std::endl; std::cout << "locationId: " << std::hex << locationId << std::endl; std::cout << "vendorId: " << std::hex << vendorId << std::endl; std::cout << "productId: " << std::hex << productId << std::endl << std::endl; IOObjectRelease(usbInterface); } IOObjectRelease(usbService); } IOObjectRelease(serviceIterator); }

Device: iPhone 16 Pro Max OS: iOS 26.0.1 AVCaptureDevice.DeviceType: builtInUltraWideCamera avtiveFormat: <AVCaptureDeviceFormat: 0x10ffb9ac0 'vide'/'420v' 1440x1080, { 1- 60 fps}, photo dims:{1440x1080,2016x1512}, fov:101.022, gdc fov:103.625, binned, max zoom:94.50 (upscales @1.40), system zoom range:1.0-3.0, AF System:1, ISO:15.0-3600.0, SS:0.000023-1.000000, system exposure bias range:-2.0-2.0, supports multicam, supports CS RoI, supports Smart Style, supports Smudge Detection> API: device.isFocusModeSupported(.continuousAutoFocus) == true setting: device.focusMode = .continuousAutoFocus setting is ok, but it's not working actually with continuousAutoFocus

Issue: After iOS 18.5 release, our app is experiencing a significant increase in AVCaptureSessionInterruptionReason.videoDeviceNotAvailableWithMultipleForegroundApps errors. Details: Our camera-related code has not been updated recently.However, we've observed that the error rate has significantly increased starting from May 2025. The error rate has risen from approximately 0.02% (2 in 10,000 users) to 0.1% (1 in 1,000 users). This represents a 5x increase in error occurrence. The frequency has increased noticeably since iOS 18.5 This is affecting our app's camera functionality and user experience Questions: Are there any known changes in iOS 18.5 regarding camera access management? What are the recommended best practices to handle this interruption reason? Are there any API changes we should be aware of? Best, Shay