Hey, Quick question. I noticed that Adobe's new app, Project Indigo, allows you to open the app using the Camera Control button. However, when your device is locked it just shows this screen: Would this normally be approved by the Appstore approval process? I ask because I would like to do something similar with my camera app. I know that this is not the best user experience, but my apps UI is not built in Swift and I don't have the resources to build the UI again. At least this way the user experience would be improved from what it is now, where users cannot even launch the app. I get many requests per week about this feature and would love to improve the UX for my users, even if it's not the best possible. Thanks, Alex

Hi all, I'm working on a custom Metal-based video pipeline using AVCaptureVideoDataOutput, and I've run into an unexpected issue related to exposure. Setup: I'm capturing video frames using kCVPixelFormatType_420YpCbCr8BiPlanarFullRange. In my Metal shader, I: Convert YCbCr (full range Rec.709) to linear Rec.709 RGB. Apply Rec.709 → sRGB gamma encoding. Output to .bgra8Unorm_srgb via MTKView. Everything renders correctly in terms of colorspace math, but the image appears significantly brighter (~+3 stops EV) compared to AVCaptureVideoPreviewLayer and the native iOS Camera app under the same camera exposure settings. What I’ve verified: The color transforms are correct: YCbCr709 to RGB, then linear to sRGB. I'm not applying any tone mapping or aggressive look LUTs yet. Camera exposure is locked using: device.setExposureModeCustom(duration: ..., iso: ...) The same EV (e.g., ISO 50, 1/125s, f/5.6) on my iPhone appears visually 3 stops brighter than on my digital cameras (Sony/Canon etc). To match the look of the preview layer or camera app, I have to simulate a ~–3 EV shift in my custom pipeline. Questions: Is AVCaptureVideoPreviewLayer applying extra tone mapping, digital gain, or contrast shaping (like OOTF etc)? Does the camera ISP expose "hotter" (i.e., with more light) internally for the preview layer than what we get in video frame buffers? Is there a standard way to compensate for this ISP behavior in custom pipelines using AVCaptureVideoDataOutput? Can this be accounted for using metadata (e.g., exposure bias, gain, gamma curve)?

I'm using Picture-in-Picture (PiP) mode in my native iOS application, which is similar to Google Meet, using the VideoSDK.live Native iOS SDK. The SDK has built-in support for PiP and it's working fine for the most part. However, I'm running into a problem: When the app enters PiP mode, the local camera (self-video) of the participant freezes or stops. I want to fix this and achieve the same smooth behavior seen in apps like Google Meet and WhatsApp, where the local camera keeps working even in PiP mode. I've been trying to find documentation or examples on how to achieve this but haven't had much luck. I came across a few mentions that using the camera in the background may require special entitlements from Apple (like in the entitlements file). Most of the official documentation says background camera access is restricted due to Apple’s privacy policies. So my questions are: Has anyone here successfully implemented background camera access in PiP mode on iOS? If yes, what permissions or entitlements are required? How do apps like WhatsApp and Google Meet achieve this functionality on iPhones? Any help, advice, or pointers would be really appreciated!

After Picture-in-Picture is opened on the camera interface, the custom UI cannot be displayed. Is there any way to make the custom UI visible? If custom UI cannot be displayed, how do teleprompter-type apps in the store manage to show custom teleprompter text within the camera?

Hello, I'm developing an app that displays a photo library using UICollectionView and PHCachingImageManager. I'd like to achieve a user experience similar to the native iOS Photos app, where low-quality images are shown quickly while scrolling, and higher-quality images are loaded for visible cells once scrolling stops. I'm currently using the following approach: While Scrolling: I'm using the UICollectionViewDataSourcePrefetching protocol. In the prefetchItemsAt method, I call startCachingImages with low-quality options to cache images in advance. After Scrolling Stops: In the scrollViewDidEndDecelerating method, I intend to load high-quality images for the currently visible cells. I have a few questions regarding this approach: What is the best practice for managing both low-quality and high-quality images efficiently with PHCachingImageManager? Is it correct to call startCachingImages with fastFormat options and then call it again with highQualityFormat in scrollViewDidEndDecelerating? How can I minimize the delay when a low-quality image is replaced by a high-quality one? Are there any additional strategies to help pre-load high-quality images more effectively?

In iOS 26 (Developer Beta), the AVCaptureMetadataOutputObjectsDelegate no longer receives callbacks when metadataOutput.metadataObjectTypes = [.face] is set. On earlier iOS versions the issue does not occur. Interestingly, face detection works if I set the sessionPreset to .medium, but not with .high — except on the iPhone 16 Pro Max, where it works regardless.

I'm creating Live Photos programmatically in my app using the Photos and AVFoundation frameworks. While the Live Photos work perfectly in the Photos app (long press shows motion), users cannot set them as motion wallpapers. The system shows "Motion not available" message. Here's my approach for creating Live Photos: // 1. Create video with required metadata let writer = try AVAssetWriter(outputURL: videoURL, fileType: .mov) let contentIdentifier = AVMutableMetadataItem() contentIdentifier.identifier = .quickTimeMetadataContentIdentifier contentIdentifier.value = assetIdentifier as NSString writer.metadata = [contentIdentifier] // Video settings: 882x1920, H.264, 30fps, 2 seconds // Added still-image-time metadata at middle frame // 2. Create HEIC image with asset identifier var makerAppleDict: [String: Any] = [:] makerAppleDict["17"] = assetIdentifier // Required key for Live Photo metadata[kCGImagePropertyMakerAppleDictionary as String] = makerAppleDict // 3. Generate Live Photo PHLivePhoto.request( withResourceFileURLs: [photoURL, videoURL], placeholderImage: nil, targetSize: .zero, contentMode: .aspectFit ) { livePhoto, info in // Success - Live Photo created } // 4. Save to Photos library PHAssetCreationRequest.forAsset().addResource(with: .photo, fileURL: photoURL, options: nil) PHAssetCreationRequest.forAsset().addResource(with: .pairedVideo, fileURL: videoURL, options: nil) What I've Tried Matching exact video specifications from Camera app (882x1920, H.264, 30fps) Adding all documented metadata (content identifier, still-image-time) Testing various video durations (1.5s, 2s, 3s) Different image formats (HEIC, JPEG) Comparing with exiftool against working Live Photos Expected Behavior Live Photos created programmatically should be eligible for motion wallpapers, just like those from the Camera app. Actual Behavior System shows "Motion not available" and only allows setting as static wallpaper. Any insights or workarounds would be greatly appreciated. This is affecting our users who want to use their created content as wallpapers. Questions Are there additional undocumented requirements for Live Photos to be wallpaper-eligible? Is this a deliberate restriction for third-party apps, or a bug? Has anyone successfully created Live Photos that work as motion wallpapers? Environment iOS 17.0 - 18.1 Xcode 16.0 Tested on iPhone 16 Pro

I have a feature requirement: to switch the writer for file writing every 5 minutes, and then quickly merge the last two files. How can I ensure that the merged file is seamlessly combined and that the audio and video information remains synchronized? Currently, the merged video has glitches, and the audio is also out of sync. If there are experts who can provide solutions in this area, I would be extremely grateful.

I'm working on a photo app and I want to allow the user to display, edit and delete photos. I can fetch all photos using PHAsset.fetchAssets(with: options). This works as intended. However, I can't seem to find a way to prevent the user from seeing photos from a Shared Library. The PHAssetSourceType only contains typeCloudShared to only show items from a specific album; not library. How can I filter by iCloud Shared Library?

Hello, Does anyone have a recipe on how to raycast VNFaceLandmarkRegion2D points obtained from a frame's capturedImage? More specifically, how to construct the "from" parameter of the frame's raycastQuery from a VNFaceLandmarkRegion2D point? Do the points need to be flipped vertically? Is there any other transformation that needs to be performed on the points prior to passing them to raycastQuery?

When changing a camera's exposure, AVFoundation provides a callback which offers the timestamp of the first frame captured with the new exposure duration: AVCaptureDevice.setExposureModeCustom(duration:, iso:, completionHandler:). I want to get a similar callback when changing frame duration. After setting AVCaptureDevice.activeVideoMinFrameDuration or AVCaptureDevice.activeVideoMinFrameDuration to a new value, how can I compute the index or the timestamp of the first camera frame which was captured using the newly set frame duration?

Hi everyone, I’m running into an issue with PHPickerFilter when using PHPickerViewController. When I configure the picker with a .videos and .livePhotos filter, it seems to work correctly in the Photos tab. However, when I switch to the Collections tab, the filter doesn’t always apply — users can still see and select static image assets in certain collections (e.g. from one of the People & Pets sections). Here’s a simplified snippet of my setup: var configuration = PHPickerConfiguration(photoLibrary: .shared()) configuration.selectionLimit = 1 var filters = [PHPickerFilter]() filters.append(.videos) filters.append(.livePhotos) configuration.filter = PHPickerFilter.any(of: filters) configuration.preferredAssetRepresentationMode = .current let picker = PHPickerViewController(configuration: configuration) picker.delegate = self present(picker, animated: true) Expected behavior: The picker should consistently respect the filter across both Photos and Collections tabs, only showing assets that match the filter. Actual behavior: The filter seems to apply correctly in the Photos tab, but in the Collections tab, other asset types are still visible/selectable. Has anyone else encountered this behavior? Is this expected or a known issue, or am I missing something in the configuration? Thanks in advance!

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?

What options do I have if I don't want to use Blackmagic's Camera ProDock as the external Sync Hardware, but instead I want to create my own USB-C hardware accessory which would show up as an AVExternalSyncDevice on the iPhone 17 Pro? Which protocol does my USB-C device have to implement to show up as an eligible clock device in AVExternalSyncDevice.DiscoverySession?

I tested the accuracy of the depth map on iPhone 12, 13, 14, 15, and 16, and found that the variance of the depth map after iPhone 12 is significantly greater than that of iPhone 12. Enabling depth filtering will cause the depth data to be affected by the previous frame, adding more unnecessary noise, especially when the phone is moving. This is not friendly for high-precision reconstruction. I tried to add depth map smoothing in post-processing to solve the problem of large depth map deviation, but the performance is still poor. Is there any depth map smoothing solutions already announced by Apple?

I'm getting an error writing a ciImage as a heif image: // Create CIImage directly from pixel buffer let ciImage = CIImage(cvPixelBuffer: pixelBuffer, options: [CIImageOption.properties: combinedMetadata]) // Write HEIC synchronously do { try ciContext.writeHEIFRepresentation(of: ciImage, to: url, format: .RGBA8, colorSpace: colorSpace) The error I'm getting is: Error Domain=CINonLocalizedDescriptionKey Code=3 "(null)" UserInfo={CINonLocalizedDescriptionKey=failed to write HEIC data to file., NSUnderlyingError=0x11b1a1ec0 {Error Domain=CINonLocalizedDescriptionKey Code=10 "(null)" UserInfo={CINonLocalizedDescriptionKey=failed to add image to the PhotoCompressionSession.}}} Both try ciContext.writeJPEGRepresentation(of: copiedCIImage, to: url, colorSpace: colorSpace, options: options) and try ciContext.writePNGRepresentation(of: copiedCIImage, to: url, format: .RGBA8, colorSpace: colorSpace) work. I also verified that the code works with iOS 18. Is there something new we need to do for Heif images? Thanks in advance

I tried to modify the AVCam sample code by copying the code here https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfoundation/adopting-smart-framing-in-your-camera-app#Configure-the-smart-framing-monitor smart framing monitors I can ensure the activeformat supports smart framing, but the supported frames in monitor is always nil. In my another project it has supported value, but the observation has never been triggered, then I tried to keep printing the recommended frame, it's always nil. Could the engineer embed the code into AVCam rather than posting a few code pieces?

I'm receiving output from avcapturesession and capturing an image using Vision, but the image is output in landscape orientation instead of portrait. Even when I set the orientation to up in ciimage, cgimage, and uiimage, the image is still output in landscape orientation. On iPhones 16 and below, the image is output in portrait orientation. But on iPhones 17 and above, the image is output in landscape orientation. Please help.

I want to use both front UW and TrueDepth cameras in iPad which has front UW camera. Firstly, I have used only front builtInDualCamera by AVFoundation and tried all the formats that can be used with builtInDualCamera, but there was no format that could capture UW. Secondly, I have tried to both front builtInDualCamera and builtInUltraWideCamera, but there was no combination that could use builtInUltraWideCamera and builtInDualCamera. Is there any way ?

I'm experiencing an issue with my app when saving images to the camera roll. This is intermittent, but it happens several times a day. The error I receive is the following: Connection to assetsd was interrupted - assetsd exited, died, or closed the photo library Error getting remote object proxy for -[PLNonBindingAssetsdPhotoKitClient sendChangesRequest:reply:]_block_invoke: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4097 "connection to service named com.apple.photos.service" UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=connection to service named com.apple.photos.service} PhotoKit XPC proxy is invalid. Dropping request on the floor and returning an error: Error Domain=PHPhotosErrorDomain Code=3301 "(null)" (underlying error Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4097 "connection to service named com.apple.photos.service" UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=connection to service named com.apple.photos.service}) CoreData: error: XPC: synchronousRemoteObjectProxyWithErrorHandler: store 'file:///var/mobile/Media/PhotoData/Photos.sqlite' encountered error: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4099 "The connection to service created from an endpoint was invalidated: failed to check-in, peer may have been unloaded: mach_error=10000003." UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=The connection to service created from an endpoint was invalidated: failed to check-in, peer may have been unloaded: mach_error=10000003.} CoreData: error: XPC: synchronousRemoteObjectProxyWithErrorHandler: store 'file:///var/mobile/Media/PhotoData/Photos.sqlite' encountered error: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4099 "The connection to service created from an endpoint was invalidated: failed to check-in, peer may have been unloaded: mach_error=10000003." UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=The connection to service created from an endpoint was invalidated: failed to check-in, peer may have been unloaded: mach_error=10000003.} My code is unchanged from using my app daily on an iPhone 16 Pro with iOS 26. I never saw the issue on this device. Here is an excerpt from my code for saving the image: var localIdentifier = String() PHPhotoLibrary.shared().performChanges({ let albumChangeRequest = PHAssetCollectionChangeRequest(for: album) let assetCreationRequest = PHAssetCreationRequest.forAsset() let options = PHAssetResourceCreationOptions() assetCreationRequest.addResource(with: .photo, data: imageData, options: options) assetCreationRequest.creationDate = Date.now let placeHolder = assetCreationRequest.placeholderForCreatedAsset albumChangeRequest?.addAssets([placeHolder!] as NSArray) if placeHolder != nil { localIdentifier = (placeHolder?.localIdentifier)! } }) { (didSucceed, error) in OperationQueue.main.addOperation({ didSucceed ? success(localIdentifier) : failure(error) }) } I'm not sure why this would be device specific but I have had users with iPhone 17 Pro and iPhone Air reporting the issue. Alex