Since iOS 12 it has become difficult to detect the end of playback using the system music player. In earlier iOS versions, the now playing item would be set nil and you would receive a notification that the player stopped. In iOS 12 and later, nowPlayingItem still contains the current song and the only notification you get is MPMusicPlayerControllerPlaybackStateDidChangeNotification with the playbackState set to MPMusicPlaybackStatePaused. Pressing pause in my car (or any remote access) generates the same conditions making it difficult to correctly detect the difference. It would be nice if they added a notification that playback was done (similar to the other players). Any suggestions?

Hi All, I'm working on a camera system extension where the main app is supposed to transfer a video stream using IOSurface memory sharing to the cam extension. I have built a sample app that does contains all the logic, but without a camera extension. So I'm essentially using IOSurface to render a video in one SwiftUI view and show the result in another SwiftUI view. Just for testing purposes. And everything works fine so far. Now, when moving the receiver code to the camera extensions, I'm having problems in accessing the IOSurface via ID. I am sharing the IOSurface ID via UserDefaults. I know from the logs the ID is correctly transferred. Here is the code that uses IOSurfaceLookup to get the IOSurface. But this fails with the given message. The error message prints the surface ID which is the correct one. I know this from the main app where I get the ID and print it as well. private var surfaceId: Int = -1 { didSet { logger.info("surfaceId has changed") if surfaceId == -1 { stopReceivingFrames() ioSurface = nil } else { guard let surface = IOSurfaceLookup(IOSurfaceID(surfaceId)) else { logger.error("failed to lookup IOSurface with ID: \(self.surfaceId)") return } self.ioSurface = surface logger.info("surface set, now starting receiving frames") startReceivingFrames() } } } My gut feeling says that this issue might be related to some missing entitlement, sandboxing. In general, I have a working camera extension. I'm just not able to render a video in the main app, and send it over to the camera extension to overlay another web cam. Both, the main app and camera extension are in the same XCode workspace and share the same AppGroup. In short, my actual questions are: Is there any entitlement required for using IOSurface between app and camera system extension? Is using IOSurface actually possible in system extensions? Is there any specific setting/requirement that I need to handle to make this work?

Hey, I have a camera app that captures a ProRaw photo and then runs a few Core Image filters before saving it to the device as a HEIC. However I'm finding that capturing at 48MP is rather slow. Testing a minimal pipeline on an iPhone 16 Pro: Shutter press => file received in output: 1.2 ~ 1.6s CIRawFilter created using photo file representation then rendered to context, without any filters: 0.8s ~ 1s Saving to device ~0.15s Is this the expected time for capturing processing? The native camera app seems to save the images within half a second. I'm using QualityPrioritization.balanced and the highest resolution available which is 48MP. Would using the CIRawFilter with the pixelBuffer from the photo output be faster? I tried it but couldn't get it to output an image. Are there any other things I could try to speed this up? Is it possible to capture at 24MP instead? Thanks, Alex

Our streaming app uses FairPlay-protected video streams, which previously worked fine when using AVAssetResourceLoaderDelegate to provide CKCs. Recently, we migrated to AVContentKeySession, and while everything works as expected during regular playback, we encountered an issue with AirPlay. Our CKC has a 120-second expiry, so we renew it by calling renewExpiringResponseData.. This trigger the didProvideRenewingContentKeyRequest delegate and we respond with updated CKC. However, when streaming via AirPlay, both video and audio freeze exactly after 120 seconds. To validate the issue, I tested with AVAssetResourceLoaderDelegate and found that I can reproduce the same freeze if I do not renew the key. This suggests that AirPlay is not accepting the renewed CKC when using AVContentKeySession. Additional Details: This issue occurs across different iOS versions and various AirPlay devices. The same content plays without issues when played directly on the device. The renewal process is successful, and segments continue to load, but playback remains frozen. Tried renewing the CKC bit early (100s). I also tried setting player.usesExternalPlaybackWhileExternalScreenIsActive = true, but the issue persists. We don't use persistentKey. Is there anything else that needs to be considered for proper key renewal when AirPlaying? Any help on how to fix this or confirmation if this is a known issue would be greatly appreciated.

I'm building a UIKit app that reads user's Apple Music library and displays it. In MusicKit there is the Artwork structure which I need to use to display artwork images in the app. Since I'm not using SwiftUI I cannot use the ArtworkImage view that is recommended way of displaying those images but the Artwork structure has a method that returns url for the image which can be used to read the image. The way I have it setup is really simple: extension MusicKit.Song { func imageURL(for cgSize: CGSize) -> URL? { return artwork?.url( width: Int(cgSize.width), height: Int(cgSize.height) ) } func localImage(for cgSize: CGSize) -> UIImage? { guard let url = imageURL(for: cgSize), url.scheme == "musicKit", let data = try? Data(contentsOf: url) else { return nil } return .init(data: data) } } Now, everytime I access .artwork property (so a lot of times) the main thread gets blocked and the console output gets bombared with messages like these: 2023-07-26 11:49:47.317195+0200 Plum[998:297199] [Artwork] Failed to create color analysis for artwork: <MPMediaLibraryArtwork: 0x289591590> with error; Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4099 "The connection to service named com.apple.mediaartworkd.xpc was invalidated: failed at lookup with error 159 - Sandbox restriction." UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=The connection to service named com.apple.mediaartworkd.xpc was invalidated: failed at lookup with error 159 - Sandbox restriction.} 2023-07-26 11:49:47.317262+0200 Plum[998:297199] [Artwork] Failed to create color analysis for artwork: file:///var/mobile/Media/iTunes_Control/iTunes/Artwork/Originals/4b/48d7b8d349d2de858413ae4561b6ba1b294dc7 2023-07-26 11:49:47.323099+0200 Plum[998:297013] [Plum] IIOImageWriteSession:121: cannot create: '/var/mobile/Media/iTunes_Control/iTunes/Artwork/Caches/320x320/4b/48d7b8d349d2de858413ae4561b6ba1b294dc7.sb-f9c7943d-6ciLNp'error = 1 (Operation not permitted) My guess is that the most performance-heavy task here is performing the color analysis for each artwork but IMO the property backgroundColor should not be a stored property if that's the case. I am not planning to use it anywhere and if so it should be a computed async property so it doesn't block the caller. I know I can move the call to a background thread and that fixes the issue of blocking main thread but still the loading times for each artwork are terribly slow and that impacts the UX. SwiftUI's ArtworkImage loads the artworks much quicker and without the errors so there must be a better way to do it.

Recently I've been trying to play some AV1-encoded streams on my iPhone 15 Pro Max. First, I check for hardware support: VTIsHardwareDecodeSupported(kCMVideoCodecType_AV1); // YES Then I need to create a CMFormatDescription in order to pass it into a VTDecompressionSession. I've tried the following: { mediaType:'vide' mediaSubType:'av01' mediaSpecific: { codecType: 'av01' dimensions: 394 x 852 } extensions: {{ CVFieldCount = 1; CVImageBufferChromaLocationBottomField = Left; CVImageBufferChromaLocationTopField = Left; CVPixelAspectRatio = { HorizontalSpacing = 1; VerticalSpacing = 1; }; FullRangeVideo = 0; }} } but VTDecompressionSessionCreate gives me error -8971 (codecExtensionNotFoundErr, I assume). So it has something to do with the extensions dictionary? I can't find anywhere which set of extensions is necessary for it to work 😿. VideoToolbox has convenient functions for creating descriptions of AVC and HEVC streams (CMVideoFormatDescriptionCreateFromH264ParameterSets and CMVideoFormatDescriptionCreateFromHEVCParameterSets), but not for AV1. As of today I am using XCode 15.0 with iOS 17.0.0 SDK.

We are experiencing thousands of crashes in our application when attempting to present the camera through a Web View. The app crashes during this process, and the crash logs point to WebCore::AVVideoCaptureSource::create WebCore::RealtimeMediaSourceCenter::getUserMediaDevices. This issue has only been observed in iOS 18.2 beta versions (beta 1 - 22C5109p, beta 2 - 22C5125e, beta 3 - 22C5131e). In iOS versions below 18.2, the functionality works and we haven't identified any correlation with specific device models. The problem seems to stem from a WebCore framework introduced in these beta releases 18.2. We kindly request a review and fix for this issue in upcoming beta releases to restore functionality. Let us know if there are any workarounds or adjustments we can implement in the interim. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Hello, Environment macOS 15.6.1 / Xcode 26 beta 7 / iOS 26 Beta 9 In a simple AVFoundation video-playback sample, I’m seeing different behavior between iOS 18 and iOS 26 regarding AVPlayerItem.didPlayToEndTimeNotification. I’ve attached a minimal sample below. Please replace videoURL with a valid short video URL. Repro steps Tap “Play” to start playback and let the video finish. The AVPlayerItem.didPlayToEndTimeNotification registered with NotificationCenter should fire, and you should see Play finished. in the console. Without relaunching, tap “Play” again. This is where the issue arises. Observed behavior On iOS 18 and earlier: The video does not play again (it does not restart from the beginning), but AVPlayerItem.didPlayToEndTimeNotification is posted and Play finished. appears in the console. The same happens every time you press “Play”. On iOS 26: Pressing “Play” does not post AVPlayerItem.didPlayToEndTimeNotification. The code path that prints Play finished. is never called (the callback enclosing that line is not invoked again). Building the same program with Xcode 16.4 and running it on an iOS 26 beta device shows the same phenomenon, which suggests there has been a behavioral change for AVPlayerItem.didPlayToEndTimeNotification on iOS 26. I couldn’t find any mention of this in the release notes or API Reference. Because the semantics around AVPlayerItem.didPlayToEndTimeNotification appear to differ, we’re forced to adjust our logic. If there is a way to achieve the iOS 18–style behavior on iOS 26, I would appreciate guidance. Alternatively, if this change is intentional, could you share the reasoning? Is iOS 26 the correct behavior from Apple’s perspective and iOS 18 (and earlier) behavior considered incorrect? Any official clarification would be extremely helpful. import UIKit import AVFoundation final class ViewController: UIViewController { private let videoURL = URL(string: "https://......mp4")! private var player: AVPlayer? private var playerItem: AVPlayerItem? private var playerLayer: AVPlayerLayer? private var observeForComplete: NSObjectProtocol? // UI private let playerContainerView = UIView() private let playButton = UIButton(type: .system) private let stopButton = UIButton(type: .system) private let replayButton = UIButton(type: .system) deinit { if let observeForComplete { NotificationCenter.default.removeObserver(observeForComplete) } } override func viewDidLoad() { super.viewDidLoad() view.backgroundColor = .systemBackground setupUI() setupPlayer() } override func viewDidLayoutSubviews() { super.viewDidLayoutSubviews() playerLayer?.frame = playerContainerView.bounds } // MARK: - Setup private func setupUI() { playerContainerView.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false playerContainerView.backgroundColor = .black view.addSubview(playerContainerView) // Buttons playButton.setTitle("Play", for: .normal) stopButton.setTitle("Pause", for: .normal) replayButton.setTitle("RePlay", for: .normal) [playButton, stopButton, replayButton].forEach { $0.titleLabel?.font = .systemFont(ofSize: 16, weight: .semibold) $0.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false $0.contentEdgeInsets = UIEdgeInsets(top: 10, left: 16, bottom: 10, right: 16) } let stack = UIStackView(arrangedSubviews: [playButton, stopButton, replayButton]) stack.axis = .horizontal stack.spacing = 16 stack.alignment = .center stack.distribution = .equalCentering stack.translatesAutoresizingMaskIntoConstraints = false view.addSubview(stack) NSLayoutConstraint.activate([ playerContainerView.topAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.safeAreaLayoutGuide.topAnchor, constant: 20), playerContainerView.leadingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.leadingAnchor), playerContainerView.trailingAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.trailingAnchor), playerContainerView.heightAnchor.constraint(equalToConstant: 200), stack.topAnchor.constraint(equalTo: playerContainerView.bottomAnchor, constant: 20), stack.centerXAnchor.constraint(equalTo: view.centerXAnchor) ]) // Action playButton.addTarget(self, action: #selector(didTapPlay), for: .touchUpInside) stopButton.addTarget(self, action: #selector(didTapStop), for: .touchUpInside) replayButton.addTarget(self, action: #selector(didTapReplayFromStart), for: .touchUpInside) } private func setupPlayer() { // AVURLAsset -> AVPlayerItem → AVPlayer let asset = AVURLAsset(url: videoURL) let item = AVPlayerItem(asset: asset) self.playerItem = item let player = AVPlayer(playerItem: item) player.automaticallyWaitsToMinimizeStalling = true self.player = player let layer = AVPlayerLayer(player: player) layer.videoGravity = .resizeAspect playerContainerView.layer.addSublayer(layer) layer.frame = playerContainerView.bounds self.playerLayer = layer // Notification if let observeForComplete { NotificationCenter.default.removeObserver(observeForComplete) } if let playerItem { observeForComplete = NotificationCenter.default.addObserver( forName: AVPlayerItem.didPlayToEndTimeNotification, object: playerItem, queue: .main ) { [weak self] _ in guard self != nil else { return } Task { @MainActor in print("Play finished.") } } } } // MARK: - Actions @objc private func didTapPlay() { player?.play() } @objc private func didTapStop() { player?.pause() } // RePlay @objc private func didTapReplayFromStart() { player?.seek(to: .zero, toleranceBefore: .zero, toleranceAfter: .zero) { [weak self] _ in self?.player?.play() } } } I would greatly appreciate an official response from Apple engineering on whether this is an intentional change, a regression, or an API contract clarification, and what the recommended approach is going forward. Thank you.

I have a custom app running on a Mac Studio with Ventura that grabs a snapshot image from a network camera. It then adds some extra information into the EXIF "MakerNote" field. However the metadata cannot be read back out of the image when running Ventrua, it can however be read out of the same image file on a Mac that is not running Ventura. It would appear Apple has removed support for reading MakerNote in Ventura but still supports writing MakerNote in Ventura. This code is about 7 years old and written in ObjC and has worked with no issue until Ventura came along. Calls used CGImageDestinationAddImageFromSource(); // used to write the image to disk with the extra metadata - Works on Ventura CGImageSourceCopyPropertiesAtIndex(); // used to read the meta data from an image - does not return "MakeNote" data Is there a new way to read EXIF "MakeNote" data from image files that was introduced with Ventura?

Hello, I submitted a Request for a Deployment Package. However, I have not received any emails yet. Could you please let me know when I can expect a confirmation message? Thank you.

Hey there, I'm trying to display all user's albums using the MediaPlayer library. I'm getting many albums returning nil, but I know artwork exists because they show up in the default Music app. There doesn't seem to be much rhyme or reason for what shows up and what doesn't. All downloaded albums display artwork, but some cloud album artwork displays as well. Here's the code I'm using to debug this. let query = MPMediaQuery.albums() if let albumCollections = query.collections { albums = albumCollections } for album in albums { let artwork = album.representativeItem?.artwork print(artwork, artwork?.image(at: CGSize(width: 100, height: 100))) } Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

We are processing videos with Core Image filters in our apps, using an AVMutableVideoComposition (for playback/preview and export). For older devices, we want to limit the resolution at which the video frames are processed for performance and memory reasons. Ideally, we would tell AVFoundation to give us video frames with a defined maximum size into our composition. We thought setting the renderSize property of the composition to the desired size would do that. However, this only changes the size of output frames, not the size of the source frames that come into the composition's handler block. For example: let composition = AVMutableVideoComposition(asset: asset, applyingCIFiltersWithHandler: { request in let input = request.sourceImage // <- this still has the video's original size // ... }) composition.renderSize = CGSize(width: 1280, heigth: 720) // for example So if the user selects a 4K video, our filter chain gets 4K input frames. Sure, we can scale them down inside our pipeline, but this costs resources and especially a lot of memory. It would be way better if AVFoundation could decode the video frames in the desired size already before passing it into the composition handler. Is there a way to tell AVFoundation to load smaller video frames?

I am using the sample app from: https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2025/277/?time=763 I installed this on an Iphone 15 Pro with iOS 26 beta 1. I was able to get good transcription with it. The app did crash sometimes when transcribing and I was going to post here with the details. I then installed iOS beta 2 and uninstalled the sample app. Now every time I try to run the sample app on the 15 Pro I get this message: SpeechAnalyzer: Input loop ending with error: Error Domain=SFSpeechErrorDomain Code=10 "Cannot use modules with unallocated locales [en_US (fixed en_US)]" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Cannot use modules with unallocated locales [en_US (fixed en_US)]} I can't continue our our work towards using SpeechAnalyzer now with this error. I have set breakpoints on all the catch handlers and it doesn't catch this error. My phone region is "United States"

Hi Apple Team, We have integrated FairPlay Streaming Server SDK v3 into our MDRM platform since 2017, the system works stable and stayed untouched. As you know, both Widevine and Playready have requirements to upgrade the Server SDK regularly. We want to know if Apple imposes similar requirements for upgrading the FPS SDK, or if we may continue using the old one without any updates. Thanks for your support！

I am writing an iOS app to present a slide show of assets in a Photo album, in a random order, including videos and live photos. I have got it all working quite nicely but for a Live Photo, I need to know what effect is selected (Live, Loop, Bounce, Long Exposure, Live Off) to display the image correctly. I can't find any mention of getting this information in the documentation. Anyone know how to do this? Thanks in advance. Adrian. (Xcode 16.1 iOS 18.0)

Hi, I'm developing a musicKit integration in my iOS App, and I want to select songs from recently played (done it), the problem is that the queue is not auto-generated and the user have to select other song if they want to go forward. There is any method to ask for similar songs, or recommended songs, from a song that the user has already selected? It will be really great :) Also if you know it... There is any publisher for the music duration or I need to do a timer?? Thanks. David.

How does a third party developer go about supporting the new Enhanced Dialogue option for video apps in tvOS 18? If an app is using the standard AVPlayerViewController, I had assumed it would be a simple-ish matter of building against the tvOS 18 SDK but apparently not, the options don't appear, not even greyed out.

Hi fellow iOS developers! 👋 I've written a Swift code that converts a video (from a URL) into a Live Photo after downloading it. The conversion process seems fine, but when I try to set the generated Live Photo as a wallpaper on iOS 17+, it shows the message 'Motion not Available.' Has anyone else experienced this issue or know why this might be happening? Could it be related to changes in iOS 17 Live Photo handling or the generated file structure? Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated! 🙏

On Xcode 16 (16A242) app execution and UI will stall / lag as soon as an AVAudioPlayer is initialized. let audioPlayer = try AVAudioPlayer(contentsOf: URL) audioPlayer.volume = 1.0 audioPlayer.delegate = self audioPlayer.prepareToPlay() Typically you would not notice this in a music app for example, but it is especially noticable in games where multiple sounds are being played using multiple instances of AVAudioPlayer. The entire app slows down because of it. This is similar to this issue from last year. I have reported it to Apple in FB15144369, as this messes up my production games where fps goes down to nothing when sounds are enabled. Unfortunately I cannot find a solution. Anyone?

The presentation "create audio drivers with DriverKit" from WWDC 2021 demonstrates how to use a dext to implement a virtual audio driver. It also says " If a virtual audio driver or device is all that is needed, the audio server plug-in driver model should continue to be used". Indeed, in AudioDriverKit/AudioDriverKitTypes.h, there is no IOUserAudioTransportType Virtual, although CoreAudio/AudioHardwareBase.h includes kAudioDeviceTransportTypeVirtual. For one of our products, we require virtual devices to implement a software loopback "cable". We've implemented this using the "traditional" HAL plugin, and as a proof-of-concept, also using a dext. In the dext, I tried setting the transport type to 'virt', which seems to only have the effect of changing the icon shown in Audio Midi Setup. HAL plugins require an installer, and the installer has to kill coreaudiod in a post-install script. You have to turn off SIP to debug them. Just like AudioDriverKit drivers, they are out-of-process and run in a process not owned by the hosting app. Our HAL plugin's interface is property based; we had to write a lot of boiler-plate code to implement required properties. Writing an AudioDriverKit driver is in most respects easier - a lot of the scaffolding is implemented in the base driver, which we only alter where required. Debugging and installation is much easier. The dext works just fine, as far as we can ascertain, just as well as a HAL plugin. So, my question is - is the advice to use a HAL plugin for a virtual device still correct in 2025? And if so, what's the objection? We'd really prefer to ship the AudioDriverKit virtual audio device.