Explore the integration of media technologies within your app. Discuss working with audio, video, camera, and other media functionalities.

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Clean up render files saved to PHContentEditingOutput.renderedContentURL
I discovered when editing photos with the PhotoKit API, PHContentEditingOutput's renderedContentURL is a file in the app container's tmp directory with a filename that seems to follow the format render.<uuid>.JPG, and that file does not get deleted if the edit does not complete successfully (the user cancels the edit request, an error occurs, the app crashes, etc). I understand the system is supposed to automatically delete tmp files every once in a while, but some users are noticing my app's Documents & Data inflates, so I'm considering deleting these render files each time the app is launched. But I don't want to delete everything in the tmp directory as there could possibly be other data in there. What's the best way to remove those temporary files? Does the filename always start with render. no matter the device language? I thought I'd delete files in NSTemporaryDirectory() with that prefix but then I discovered in Mac Catalyst the location is not the tmp directory directly, they're in tmp/TemporaryItems/<bundleid>. Thanks!
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129
Oct ’25
Async AVAudioPlayerNode.scheduleBuffer stutters
My code that streams buffers into AVAudioPlayerNode is stuttering when the buffer is finished and before the next one is played. while engine.isRunning { let framesToCopy = min(buffer.frameLength - framePosition, Self.BufferSize) let srcRaw = UnsafeRawPointer(srcPtr) let playbackBuffer = AVAudioPCMBuffer(pcmFormat: buffer.format, frameCapacity: Self.BufferSize)! let playbackPtr = playbackBuffer.floatChannelData![0] let destRaw = UnsafeMutableRawPointer(mutating: playbackPtr) memcpy(destRaw, srcRaw, Int(framesToCopy) * MemoryLayout<Float>.stride) srcPtr = srcPtr.advanced(by: Int(framesToCopy)) playbackBuffer.frameLength = framesToCopy await player.scheduleBuffer(playbackBuffer, at: nil, options: [], completionCallbackType: .dataRendered) } I've tried to schedule multiple buffers at once using a combination of both the synchronous and async versions of scheduleBuffer because I thought the delay might be but it still stutters and the data copied into the playbackBuffer matches the source buffer. I've tried all combinations of options and completionCallbackType but no luck. I've tried increasing the buffer size but that just spaces out the stutters because the buffer is larger. What am I missing about this API?
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3w
ioreg AVBControllerState - AVB/EAV Mode
Hello. To determine wether "AVB/EAV Mode" of a AV-capable network interfaces is turned on or off I query the IO registry and evaluate the property "AVBControllerState". I was wondering if this is the "correct" approach and if there is anything known about the values for this property? Network interfaces without AV capability may also carry this property (e.g.: for my WiFi adapter the value of 1) whereas the value for interfaces with AV capability can be 0 and 3. At least as far as I could observe with my limited amount of test devices at hand. Is it safe to assume that a value of 3 means this feature is turned on, 0 that it is turned off and ignore values of 1? Is there another approach to get to know the status of the "AVB/EAV Mode"? Thanks for any insight. Best regards, Ingo
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108
Feb ’26
iPhone 17 smart framing api not working
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?
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164
Sep ’25
Frequent crashes related to com.apple.coreaudio.AQClient thread
I'm encountering numerous crashes involving the com.apple.coreaudio.AQClient thread on our application. The crash details are as follows: #10 com.apple.coreaudio.AQClient SIGSEGV SEGV_ACCERR 0 libobjc.A.dylib _objc_msgSend + 44 1 AudioToolbox ClientMessageHandler::PropertyChanged(unsigned int) + 872 2 AudioToolbox ClientAudioQueue::FetchAndDeliverPendingCallbacks(unsigned int) + 924 3 AudioToolbox __XCallbackNotificationsAvailable + 212 4 libAudioToolboxUtility.dylib _mshMIGPerform + 260 5 CoreFoundation ___CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_A_SOURCE1_PERFORM_FUNCTION__ + 56 6 CoreFoundation ___CFRunLoopDoSource1 + 596 7 CoreFoundation ___CFRunLoopRun + 2392 8 CoreFoundation _CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 572 9 AudioToolbox CADeprecated::GenericRunLoopThread::Entry(void*) + 156 10 libAudioToolboxUtility.dylib CADeprecated::CAPThread::Entry(CADeprecated::CAPThread*) + 88 11 libsystem_pthread.dylib __pthread_start + 116 All these crashes occur on system versions below iOS/iPadOS 17, primarily when the device's available RAM is low. What steps can I take to resolve this issue? Any insights would be greatly appreciated!
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191
Nov ’25
How to use Front UW and TrueDepth in iPad
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 ?
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164
Sep ’25
How to Keep Camera Running in iOS PiP Mode (Like WhatsApp/Google Meet)?
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!
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Aug ’25
SystemAudio Capture API Fails with OSStatus error 1852797029 (kAudioCodecIllegalOperationError)
Issue Description I'm implementing a system audio capture feature using AudioHardwareCreateProcessTap and AudioHardwareCreateAggregateDevice. The app successfully creates the tap and aggregate device, but when starting the IO procedure with AudioDeviceStart, it sometimes fails with OSStatus error 1852797029. (The operation couldn’t be completed. (OSStatus error 1852797029.)) The error occurs inconsistently, which makes it particularly difficult to debug and reproduce. Questions Has anyone encountered this intermittent "nope" error code (0x6e6f7065) when working with system audio capture? Are there specific conditions or system states that might trigger this error sporadically? Are there any known workarounds for handling this intermittent failure case? Any insights or guidance would be greatly appreciated. I'm wondering if anyone else has encountered this specific "nope" error code (0x6e6f7065) when working with system audio capture.
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187
May ’25
AVAudioPlayer/SKAudioNode audio no longer plays after interruption
Hi 👋! We have a SpriteKit-based app where we play AVAudio sounds in three different ways: Effects (incl. UI sounds) with AVAudioPlayer. Long looping tracks with AVAudioPlayer. Short animation effects on the timeline of SpriteKit's SKScene files (effectively SKAudioNode nodes). We've found that when you exit the app or otherwise interrupt audio plays, future audio plays often fail. For example, there's a WebKit-based video trailer inside the app, and if you play it, our looping background music track (2.) will stop playing, and won't resume as you close the trailer (return from WebKit). This is probably due to us not manually restarting the track (so may well be easily fixed). Periodically played AVAudioPlayer audio (1.) are not affected. However, the more concerning thing is that the audio tracks on SKScene file timelines (3.) will no longer play. My hypothesis is that AVAudioEngine gets interrupted, and needs to be restarted for those AVAudioNode elements to regain functionality. Thing is, we don't deal with AVAudioEngine at all currently in the app, meaning it is never initiated to begin with. Obviously things return to normal when you remove the app from short-term memory and restart it. However, it seems many of our users aren't doing this, and often report audio failing presumably due to some interruption in the past without the app ever being cleared from memory. Any idea why timeline-run SKAudioNodes would fail like this? Should the app react to app backgrounding/foregrounding regarding audio? Any help would be very much appreciated ✌️!
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May ’25
Homepod Crossfade
I’m running HomePod OS 26 on two HomePod minis and OS 18.6 on main HomePod (original) I’ve enabled Crossfade in the Home app. I’m playing Apple Music directly in the HomePod mini. Crossfade just doesn’t work on any HomePod. I can understand it not working on the HomePod - but why isn’t it working on the minis running OS 26? I’ve tried disabling and enabling Crossfade, rebooting HomePods etc but nothing?!
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Aug ’25
WWDC25 Camera & Photos group lab summary (Part 2 of 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)
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Jul ’25
Switching default input/output channels using Core Audio
I wrote a Swift macOS app to control a PCI audio device. The code switches between the default output and input channels. As soon as I launch the Audio-Midi Setup utility, channel switching stops working. The driver properties allow switching, but the system doesn't respond. I have to delete the contents of /Library/Preferences/Audio and reset Core Audio. What am I missing? func setDefaultChannelsOutput() { guard let deviceID = getDeviceIDByName(deviceName: "PCI-424") else { return } let selectedIndex = DefaultChannelsOutput.indexOfSelectedItem if selectedIndex < 0 || selectedIndex >= 24 { return } let channel1 = UInt32(selectedIndex * 2 + 1) let channel2 = UInt32(selectedIndex * 2 + 2) var channels: [UInt32] = [channel1, channel2] var propertyAddress = AudioObjectPropertyAddress( mSelector: kAudioDevicePropertyPreferredChannelsForStereo, mScope: kAudioDevicePropertyScopeOutput, mElement: kAudioObjectPropertyElementWildcard ) let dataSize = UInt32(MemoryLayout<UInt32>.size * channels.count) let status = AudioObjectSetPropertyData(deviceID, &propertyAddress, 0, nil, dataSize, &channels) if status != noErr { print("Error setting default output channels: \(status)") } }
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Dec ’25
AVPlayerItem. externalMetadata not available
According to the documentation (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfoundation/avplayeritem/externalmetadata), AVPlayerItem should have an externalMetadata property. However it does not appear to be visible to my app. When I try, I get: Value of type 'AVPlayerItem' has no member 'externalMetadata' Documentation states iOS 12.2+; I am building with a minimum deployment target of iOS 18. Code snippet: import Foundation import AVFoundation /// ... in function ... // create metadata as described in https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2022/110338 var title = AVMutableMetadataItem() title.identifier = .commonIdentifierAlbumName title.value = "My Title" as NSString? title.extendedLanguageTag = "und" var playerItem = await AVPlayerItem(asset: composition) playerItem.externalMetadata = [ title ]
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104
Apr ’25
WWDC25 Camera & Photos group lab summary (Part 3 of 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?
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365
Jul ’25
Clean up render files saved to PHContentEditingOutput.renderedContentURL
I discovered when editing photos with the PhotoKit API, PHContentEditingOutput's renderedContentURL is a file in the app container's tmp directory with a filename that seems to follow the format render.<uuid>.JPG, and that file does not get deleted if the edit does not complete successfully (the user cancels the edit request, an error occurs, the app crashes, etc). I understand the system is supposed to automatically delete tmp files every once in a while, but some users are noticing my app's Documents & Data inflates, so I'm considering deleting these render files each time the app is launched. But I don't want to delete everything in the tmp directory as there could possibly be other data in there. What's the best way to remove those temporary files? Does the filename always start with render. no matter the device language? I thought I'd delete files in NSTemporaryDirectory() with that prefix but then I discovered in Mac Catalyst the location is not the tmp directory directly, they're in tmp/TemporaryItems/<bundleid>. Thanks!
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129
Activity
Oct ’25
phone keeps ringing after the call has been answered
Just downloaded iOS 26.1 and my phone keeps ringing after the call has been answered. Any fixes for this?
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116
Activity
Oct ’25
Async AVAudioPlayerNode.scheduleBuffer stutters
My code that streams buffers into AVAudioPlayerNode is stuttering when the buffer is finished and before the next one is played. while engine.isRunning { let framesToCopy = min(buffer.frameLength - framePosition, Self.BufferSize) let srcRaw = UnsafeRawPointer(srcPtr) let playbackBuffer = AVAudioPCMBuffer(pcmFormat: buffer.format, frameCapacity: Self.BufferSize)! let playbackPtr = playbackBuffer.floatChannelData![0] let destRaw = UnsafeMutableRawPointer(mutating: playbackPtr) memcpy(destRaw, srcRaw, Int(framesToCopy) * MemoryLayout<Float>.stride) srcPtr = srcPtr.advanced(by: Int(framesToCopy)) playbackBuffer.frameLength = framesToCopy await player.scheduleBuffer(playbackBuffer, at: nil, options: [], completionCallbackType: .dataRendered) } I've tried to schedule multiple buffers at once using a combination of both the synchronous and async versions of scheduleBuffer because I thought the delay might be but it still stutters and the data copied into the playbackBuffer matches the source buffer. I've tried all combinations of options and completionCallbackType but no luck. I've tried increasing the buffer size but that just spaces out the stutters because the buffer is larger. What am I missing about this API?
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68
Activity
3w
iPhone UVC camera
We are planning to develop an app that connects to a UVC camera to capture and display video via AVFoundation. Could you please advise on which iPhone models support UVC cameras?
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151
Activity
Dec ’25
ioreg AVBControllerState - AVB/EAV Mode
Hello. To determine wether "AVB/EAV Mode" of a AV-capable network interfaces is turned on or off I query the IO registry and evaluate the property "AVBControllerState". I was wondering if this is the "correct" approach and if there is anything known about the values for this property? Network interfaces without AV capability may also carry this property (e.g.: for my WiFi adapter the value of 1) whereas the value for interfaces with AV capability can be 0 and 3. At least as far as I could observe with my limited amount of test devices at hand. Is it safe to assume that a value of 3 means this feature is turned on, 0 that it is turned off and ignore values of 1? Is there another approach to get to know the status of the "AVB/EAV Mode"? Thanks for any insight. Best regards, Ingo
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108
Activity
Feb ’26
iPhone 17 smart framing api not working
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?
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164
Activity
Sep ’25
Frequent crashes related to com.apple.coreaudio.AQClient thread
I'm encountering numerous crashes involving the com.apple.coreaudio.AQClient thread on our application. The crash details are as follows: #10 com.apple.coreaudio.AQClient SIGSEGV SEGV_ACCERR 0 libobjc.A.dylib _objc_msgSend + 44 1 AudioToolbox ClientMessageHandler::PropertyChanged(unsigned int) + 872 2 AudioToolbox ClientAudioQueue::FetchAndDeliverPendingCallbacks(unsigned int) + 924 3 AudioToolbox __XCallbackNotificationsAvailable + 212 4 libAudioToolboxUtility.dylib _mshMIGPerform + 260 5 CoreFoundation ___CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_A_SOURCE1_PERFORM_FUNCTION__ + 56 6 CoreFoundation ___CFRunLoopDoSource1 + 596 7 CoreFoundation ___CFRunLoopRun + 2392 8 CoreFoundation _CFRunLoopRunSpecific + 572 9 AudioToolbox CADeprecated::GenericRunLoopThread::Entry(void*) + 156 10 libAudioToolboxUtility.dylib CADeprecated::CAPThread::Entry(CADeprecated::CAPThread*) + 88 11 libsystem_pthread.dylib __pthread_start + 116 All these crashes occur on system versions below iOS/iPadOS 17, primarily when the device's available RAM is low. What steps can I take to resolve this issue? Any insights would be greatly appreciated!
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191
Activity
Nov ’25
How to use Front UW and TrueDepth in iPad
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 ?
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164
Activity
Sep ’25
How to Keep Camera Running in iOS PiP Mode (Like WhatsApp/Google Meet)?
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!
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274
Activity
Aug ’25
How to display custom UI in Picture-in-Picture after iOS 15
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?
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211
Activity
Aug ’25
SystemAudio Capture API Fails with OSStatus error 1852797029 (kAudioCodecIllegalOperationError)
Issue Description I'm implementing a system audio capture feature using AudioHardwareCreateProcessTap and AudioHardwareCreateAggregateDevice. The app successfully creates the tap and aggregate device, but when starting the IO procedure with AudioDeviceStart, it sometimes fails with OSStatus error 1852797029. (The operation couldn’t be completed. (OSStatus error 1852797029.)) The error occurs inconsistently, which makes it particularly difficult to debug and reproduce. Questions Has anyone encountered this intermittent "nope" error code (0x6e6f7065) when working with system audio capture? Are there specific conditions or system states that might trigger this error sporadically? Are there any known workarounds for handling this intermittent failure case? Any insights or guidance would be greatly appreciated. I'm wondering if anyone else has encountered this specific "nope" error code (0x6e6f7065) when working with system audio capture.
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187
Activity
May ’25
AVPlayer keyframes request on mobile device but don't see on safari browser
We are seeing logs were on iOS devices we see some keyframes request. but on safari browser don’t see any request like this. could you please explain what is it. /d8ceb9244ff889b42b82eb807327531-c27dbcb10e0bbf3cde6c-1/d8ceb9244ff88e9b42b82eb807327531-c27dbcb10e0bbf3cde6c-1/keyframes/hls/.
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133
Activity
Jun ’25
Logic Pro for iPad Session Player
Session player regions populate blank, with no sound media when tracks or regions are created.
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357
Activity
Aug ’25
AVAudioPlayer/SKAudioNode audio no longer plays after interruption
Hi 👋! We have a SpriteKit-based app where we play AVAudio sounds in three different ways: Effects (incl. UI sounds) with AVAudioPlayer. Long looping tracks with AVAudioPlayer. Short animation effects on the timeline of SpriteKit's SKScene files (effectively SKAudioNode nodes). We've found that when you exit the app or otherwise interrupt audio plays, future audio plays often fail. For example, there's a WebKit-based video trailer inside the app, and if you play it, our looping background music track (2.) will stop playing, and won't resume as you close the trailer (return from WebKit). This is probably due to us not manually restarting the track (so may well be easily fixed). Periodically played AVAudioPlayer audio (1.) are not affected. However, the more concerning thing is that the audio tracks on SKScene file timelines (3.) will no longer play. My hypothesis is that AVAudioEngine gets interrupted, and needs to be restarted for those AVAudioNode elements to regain functionality. Thing is, we don't deal with AVAudioEngine at all currently in the app, meaning it is never initiated to begin with. Obviously things return to normal when you remove the app from short-term memory and restart it. However, it seems many of our users aren't doing this, and often report audio failing presumably due to some interruption in the past without the app ever being cleared from memory. Any idea why timeline-run SKAudioNodes would fail like this? Should the app react to app backgrounding/foregrounding regarding audio? Any help would be very much appreciated ✌️!
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203
Activity
May ’25
Homepod Crossfade
I’m running HomePod OS 26 on two HomePod minis and OS 18.6 on main HomePod (original) I’ve enabled Crossfade in the Home app. I’m playing Apple Music directly in the HomePod mini. Crossfade just doesn’t work on any HomePod. I can understand it not working on the HomePod - but why isn’t it working on the minis running OS 26? I’ve tried disabling and enabling Crossfade, rebooting HomePods etc but nothing?!
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351
Activity
Aug ’25
WWDC25 Camera & Photos group lab summary (Part 2 of 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)
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Jul ’25
Audio Unit MIDI Plugin documentation
Hi folks - I'm having trouble finding specific documentation about Audio Unit MIDI plugins - as in MIDI -only. Any suggestions welcome as searches aren't returning much. (too niche? user error?)
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Dec ’25
Switching default input/output channels using Core Audio
I wrote a Swift macOS app to control a PCI audio device. The code switches between the default output and input channels. As soon as I launch the Audio-Midi Setup utility, channel switching stops working. The driver properties allow switching, but the system doesn't respond. I have to delete the contents of /Library/Preferences/Audio and reset Core Audio. What am I missing? func setDefaultChannelsOutput() { guard let deviceID = getDeviceIDByName(deviceName: "PCI-424") else { return } let selectedIndex = DefaultChannelsOutput.indexOfSelectedItem if selectedIndex < 0 || selectedIndex >= 24 { return } let channel1 = UInt32(selectedIndex * 2 + 1) let channel2 = UInt32(selectedIndex * 2 + 2) var channels: [UInt32] = [channel1, channel2] var propertyAddress = AudioObjectPropertyAddress( mSelector: kAudioDevicePropertyPreferredChannelsForStereo, mScope: kAudioDevicePropertyScopeOutput, mElement: kAudioObjectPropertyElementWildcard ) let dataSize = UInt32(MemoryLayout<UInt32>.size * channels.count) let status = AudioObjectSetPropertyData(deviceID, &propertyAddress, 0, nil, dataSize, &channels) if status != noErr { print("Error setting default output channels: \(status)") } }
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Dec ’25
AVPlayerItem. externalMetadata not available
According to the documentation (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfoundation/avplayeritem/externalmetadata), AVPlayerItem should have an externalMetadata property. However it does not appear to be visible to my app. When I try, I get: Value of type 'AVPlayerItem' has no member 'externalMetadata' Documentation states iOS 12.2+; I am building with a minimum deployment target of iOS 18. Code snippet: import Foundation import AVFoundation /// ... in function ... // create metadata as described in https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2022/110338 var title = AVMutableMetadataItem() title.identifier = .commonIdentifierAlbumName title.value = "My Title" as NSString? title.extendedLanguageTag = "und" var playerItem = await AVPlayerItem(asset: composition) playerItem.externalMetadata = [ title ]
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Apr ’25
WWDC25 Camera & Photos group lab summary (Part 3 of 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?
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Jul ’25