Hi All, I am working on a DJ playout app (MACOS). The app has a few AVAudioPlayerNode's combined with the ApplicationMusicPlayer from Musickit. I can route the output of the AVaudioPlayer to a hardware device so that the audio files are directed to their own dedicated output on my Mac. The ApplicationMusicPlayer is following the default output and this is pretty annoying. Has anyone found a solution to chain the ApplicationMusicPlayer and get it set to a output device? Thanks Pancras

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.

Hello, I have an iOS app that is recording audio that is working fine on iPads/iPhones. It asks for microphone permission and after that recording works. I installed the same app on my M3 MacBook via TestFlight since iPad apps are supposed to work without a change that way. The app starts fine and everything, but it never asks for Microphone permission, so I can't record. Do I need to do something to make this happen (this is not macCatalyst, its running the arm64 iPhone binary on macOS) thanks

Since iOS/iPadOs/tvOS 18 then we have run into a new problem with streaming of FairPlay encrypted video. On the affected streams then the audio plays perfectly but the video freezes for periods of a few seconds, so it will freeze for 5s or so, then be OK for a few seconds then freeze again. It is entirely reproducible when all the following are true the video streams were produced by a particular encoder (or particular settings, not sure on that) the video must be encrypted device is running some variety of iOS 18 (or iPadOS or tvOS) the device is an affected device Known devices are AppleTV 4K 2nd Gen iPad Pro 11" 1st and 2nd gen Devices known not to show the problem are all other AppleTV models iPhone 13 Pro and 16 Pro If we stream the same content, but unencrypted, then it plays perfectly, or if you play the encrypted stream on, say, tvOS 17. When the freezing occurs then we can see in the console logs repeating blocks of lines like the following default 18:08:46.578582+0000 videocodecd AppleAVD: AppleAVDDecodeFrameResponse(): Frame# 5771 DecodeFrame failed with error 0x0000013c default 18:08:46.578756+0000 videocodecd AppleAVD: AppleAVDDecodeFrameInternal(): failed - error: 316 default 18:08:46.579018+0000 videocodecd AppleAVD: AppleAVDDecodeFrameInternal(): avdDec - Frame# 5771, DecodeFrame failed with error: 0x13c default 18:08:46.579169+0000 videocodecd AppleAVD: AppleAVDDisplayCallback(): Asking fig to drop frame # 5771 with err -12909 - internalStatus: 315 also more relevant looking lines: default 18:17:39.122019+0000 kernel AppleAVD: avdOutbox0ISR(): FRM DONE (cid: 2.0, fno: 10970, codecT: 1) FAILED!! default 18:17:39.122155+0000 videocodecd AppleAVD: AppleAVDDisplayCallback(): Asking fig to drop frame # 10970 with err -12909 - internalStatus: 315 default 18:17:39.122221+0000 kernel AppleAVD: ## client[ 2.0] @ frm 10970, errStatus: 0x10 default 18:17:39.122338+0000 kernel AppleAVD: decodeFailIdentify(): VP error bit 4 has EP3B0 error default 18:17:39.122401+0000 kernel AppleAVD: processHWResponse(): clientID 2.0 frameNumber 10970 error 315, offsetIndex 10, isHwErr 1 So it would seem to me that one of the following must be happening: When these particular HLS files are encrypted then the data is being corrupted in some way that played back on iOS 17 and earlier but now won't on 18+, or There's a regression in iOS 18 that means that this particular format of video data is corrupted on decryption If anyone has seen similar behaviour, or has any ideas how to identify which of the two scenarios it is, please say. Unfortunately we don't have control of the servers so can't make changes there unless we can identify they are definitely the cause of the problem. Thanks, Simon.

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.

Hi, just generated a HDR10 MVHEVC file, mediainfo is below: Color range : Limited Color primaries : BT.2020 Transfer characteristics : PQ Matrix coefficients : BT.2020 non-constant Codec configuration box : hvcC+lhvC then generate the segment files with below command: mediafilesegmenter --iso-fragmented -t 4 -f av_1 av_new_1.mov then upload the segment files and prog_index.m3u8 to web server. just find that can not play the HLS stream on Safari... the url is http://ip/vod/prog_index.m3u8 just checked that if i remove the tag Transfer characteristics : PQ when generating the MVHEVC file. above same mediafilesegmenter command and upload the files to web server. the new version of HLS stream is can play on Safari... Is there any way to play HLS PQ video on Safari. thanks.

I am would like to look at AVMetricEvent data during video playback, so I have added this code to a test video player app: let playerItem: AVPlayerItem = ... let allMetrics = playerItem.allMetrics() Task.init { print("metrics task started") do { for try await metricEvent in allMetrics { print("metric event: \(metricEvent.description)") } } catch { print("unexpected metric iterator error \(error)") } } Running this in Simulator on iPhone 16 Pro (18.0) does not result in any "metric event" diagnostic messages being printed when the video associated with this AVPlayerItem is playing. Only the "metric task started" diagnostic message is seen. What am I doing wrong that prevents metric data being received?

I’m using the shared instance of AVAudioSession. After activating it with .setActive(true), I observe the outputVolume, and it correctly reports the device’s volume. However, after deactivating the session using .setActive(false), changing the volume, and then reactivating it again, the outputVolume returns the previous volume (before deactivation), not the current device volume. The correct volume is only reported after the user manually changes it again using physical buttons or Control Center, which triggers the observer. What I need is a way to retrieve the actual current device volume immediately after reactivating the audio session, even on the second and subsequent activations. Disabling and re-enabling the audio session is essential to how my application functions. I’ve tested this behavior with my colleagues, and the issue is consistently reproducible on iOS 18.0.1, iOS 18.1, iOS 18.3, iOS 18.5 and iOS 18.6.2. On devices running iOS 17.6.1 and iOS 16.0.3, outputVolume correctly reflects the current volume immediately after calling .setActive(true) multiple times.

I would appreciate help in coding or an explanation what to use in swift for an app which will be able to capture LiDAR scanning and RGB data from taken pictures, generate a 3D mesh, and create .OBJ, .MTL, and .JPEG file set for further manipulation of 3D model.

Hello! Just curious if AVAssetWriter append() randomly fails for anyone but me? Seems to happen when live streaming (encoding with VTCompressionSession) and recording (with AVAssetWriter) at the same time.

I am trying to debug the AAX version of my plugin (MIDI effect) on Pro Tools, but I am getting the following error (Mac console) when attempting to load it: dlsym cannot find symbol g_dwILResult in CFBundle etc.. I used Xcode 16.4 to build the plugin. Has anybody come across the same or a similar message? Best, Achillefs Axart Labs

I'm developing the VisionOS app. I want to know how to play spatial audio in addition to RealityKit? If it's iOS or macOS, how to play spatial audio in addition to RealityKit?

Hello there, I need to move through video loaded in an AVPlayer one frame at a time back or forth. For that I tried to use AVPlayerItem's method step(byCount:) and it works just fine. However I need to know when stepping happened and as far as I observed it is not immediate using the method. If I check the currentTime() just after calling the method it's the same and if I do it slightly later (depending of the video itself) it shows the correct "jumped" time. To achieve my goal I tried subclassing AVPlayerItem and implement my own async method utilizing NotificationCenter and the timeJumpedNotification assuming it would deliver it as the time actually jumps but it's not the case. Here is my "stripped" and simplified version of the custom Player Item: import AVFoundation final class PlayerItem: AVPlayerItem { private var jumpCompletion: ( (CMTime) -> () )? override init(asset: AVAsset, automaticallyLoadedAssetKeys: [String]?) { super .init(asset: asset, automaticallyLoadedAssetKeys: automaticallyLoadedAssetKeys) NotificationCenter.default.addObserver(self, selector: #selector(timeDidChange(_:)), name: AVPlayerItem.timeJumpedNotification, object: self) } deinit { NotificationCenter.default.removeObserver(self, name: AVPlayerItem.timeJumpedNotification, object: self) jumpCompletion = nil } @discardableResult func step(by count: Int) async -> CMTime { await withCheckedContinuation { continuation in step(by: count) { time in continuation.resume(returning: time) } } } func step(by count: Int, completion: @escaping ( (CMTime) -> () )) { guard jumpCompletion == nil else { completion(currentTime()) return } jumpCompletion = completion step(byCount: count) } @objc private func timeDidChange(_ notification: Notification) { switch notification.name { case AVPlayerItem.timeJumpedNotification where notification.object as? AVPlayerItem [==](https://www.example.com/) self: jumpCompletion?(currentTime()) jumpCompletion = nil default: return } } } In short the notification never gets called thus the above is not working. I guess the key there is that in the docs about the timeJumpedNotification: is said: "A notification the system posts when a player item’s time changes discontinuously." so the step(byCount:) is not considered as discontinuous operation and doesn't trigger it. I'd be really helpful if somebody can help as I don't want to use seek(to:toleranceBefore:toleranceAfter:) mainly cause it's not accurate in terms of the exact next/previous frame as the video might have VFR and that causes repeating frames sometimes or even skipping one or another. Thanks a lot

I'm writing some camera functionality that uses AVCaptureVideoDataOutput. I've set it up so that it calls my AVCaptureVideoDataOutputSampleBufferDelegate on a background thread, by making my own dispatch_queue and configuring the AVCaptureVideoDataOutput. My question is then, if I configure my AVCaptureSession differently, or even stop it altogether, is this guaranteed to flush all pending jobs on my background thread? For example, does [AVCaptureSession stopRunning] imply a blocking call until all pending frame-callbacks are done? I have a more practical example below, showing how I am accessing something from the foreground thread from the background thread, but I wonder when/how it's safe to clean up that resource. I have setup similar to the following: // Foreground thread logic dispatch_queue_t queue = dispatch_queue_create("qt_avf_camera_queue", nullptr); AVCaptureSession *captureSession = [[AVCaptureSession alloc] init]; setupInputDevice(captureSession); // Connects the AVCaptureDevice... // Store some arbitrary data to be attached to the frame, stored on the foreground thread FrameMetaData frameMetaData = ...; MySampleBufferDelegate *sampleBufferDelegate = [MySampleBufferDelegate alloc]; // Capture frameMetaData by reference in lambda [sampleBufferDelegate setFrameMetaDataGetter: [&frameMetaData]() { return &frameMetaData; }]; AVCaptureVideoDataOutput *captureVideoDataOutput = [[AVCaptureVideoDataOutput alloc] init]; [captureVideoDataOutput setSampleBufferDelegate:sampleBufferDelegate queue:queue]; [captureSession addOutput:captureVideoDataOutput]; [captureSession startRunning]; [captureSession stopRunning]; // Is it now safe to destroy frameMetaData, or do we need manual barrier? And then in MySampleBufferDelegate: - (void)captureOutput:(AVCaptureOutput *)captureOutput didOutputSampleBuffer:(CMSampleBufferRef)sampleBuffer fromConnection:(AVCaptureConnection *)connection { // Invokes the callback set above FrameMetaData *frameMetaData = frameMetaDataGetter(); emitSampleBuffer(sampleBuffer, frameMetaData); }

Hi everyone, I noticed that Apple recently added a few new beta sample codes related to video encoding: Encoding video for low-latency conferencing Encoding video for live streaming While experimenting with H.264 encoding, I came across some questions regarding certain configurations: When I enable kVTVideoEncoderSpecification_EnableLowLatencyRateControl, is it still possible to use kVTCompressionPropertyKey_VariableBitRate? In my tests, I get an error. It also seems that kVTVideoEncoderSpecification_EnableLowLatencyRateControl cannot be used together with kVTCompressionPropertyKey_ConstantBitRate when encoding H264. Is that expected? When using kVTCompressionPropertyKey_ConstantBitRate with kVTCompressionPropertyKey_MaxKeyFrameInterval set to 2, the encoder outputs only keyframes, and the frame size keeps increasing, which doesn’t seem like the intended behavior. Regarding the following code from the sample: let byteLimit = (Double(bitrate) / 8) * 1.5 as CFNumber let secLimit = Double(1.0) as CFNumber let limitsArray = [ byteLimit, secLimit ] as CFArray // Each 1 second limit byte as bitrate err = VTSessionSetProperty(session, key: kVTCompressionPropertyKey_DataRateLimits, value: limitsArray) This DataRateLimits setting doesn’t seem to have any effect in my tests. Whether I set it or not, the values remain unchanged. Since the documentation on developer.apple.com/documentation doesn’t clearly explain these cases, I’d like to ask if anyone has insights or recommendations about the proper usage of these settings. Thanks in advance!

If new photo is added to library and app is not running in foreground or was not opened after the new photo was added but the app is having full access to gallery, can it access, read the new photo - If the app is not specifically a cloud syncing app, can it have this attached function, suppose it is a game app or beauty camera app?

I've got a web app built with MusicKit that displays a list of songs. I have player controls for play, pause, skip next, skip, previous, toggle shuffle and set repeat mode. All of these work by using music. The play button, when nothing is playing and nothing is in the queue, will enqueue all the tracks and start playing with the below, for example: await music.setQueue({ songs, startPlaying: true }); I've implemented a progress slider based on feedback from the "playbackProgressDidChange" listener. Now, how in the world can I set the volume? This seems like it should be simple, but I am at a complete loss here. The docs say: "The volume of audio playback, which is set directly on the HTMLMediaElement as the HTMLMediaElement.volume property. This value ranges between 0, which would be muting the audio, and 1, which would be the loudest possible." Given that all my controls work off the music instance, I don't understand how I can do that. In this video from WWDC 2022, music web components are touched on briefly. These are also documented very sparsely. The volume docs are here. For the life of me, I can't even get the volume web component to display in the UI. It appears that MusicKit Web is hobbled compared to the native implementation, but surely adjusting volume shouldn't be that hard right? I'd appreciate any insight on how to do this, including how to get web components to work (in a Next JS app). Thanks.

AVAudioSessionCategoryOptionAllowBluetooth is marked as deprecated in iOS 8 in iOS 26 beta 5 when this option was not deprecated in iOS 18.6. I think this is a mistake and the deprecation is in iOS 26. Am I right? It seems that the substitute for this option is "AVAudioSessionCategoryOptionAllowBluetoothHFP". The documentation does not make clear if the behaviour is exactly the same or if any difference should be expected... Has anyone used this option in iOS 26? Should I expect any difference with the current behaviour of "AVAudioSessionCategoryOptionAllowBluetooth"? Thank you.

Hey, I'm building a camera app and I want to use the captured HDRGainMap along side the photo to do some processing with a CIFilter chain. How can this be done? I can't find any documentation any where on this, only on how to access the HDRGainMap from an existing HEIC file, which I have done successfully. For this I'm doing something like the following: let gainmap = CGImageSourceCopyAuxiliaryDataInfoAtIndex(source, 0, kCGImageAuxiliaryDataTypeHDRGainMap) let gainDict = NSDictionary(dictionary: gainmap) let gainData = gainDict[kCGImageAuxiliaryDataInfoData] as? Data let gainDescription = gainDict[kCGImageAuxiliaryDataInfoDataDescription] let gainMeta = gainDict[kCGImageAuxiliaryDataInfoMetadata] However I'm not sure what the approach is with a AVCapturePhoto output from a AVCaptureDevice. Thanks!

Hi all, with my app ScreenFloat, you can record your screen, along with system- and microphone audio. Those two audio feeds are recorded into separate audio tracks in order to individually remove or edit them later on. Now, these recordings you create with ScreenFloat can be drag-and-dropped to other apps instantly. So far, so good, but some apps, like Slack, or VLC, or even websites like YouTube, do not play back multiple audio tracks, just one. So what I'm trying to do is, on dragging the video recording file out of ScreenFloat, instantly baking together the two individual audio tracks into one, and offering that new file as the drag and drop file, so that all audio is played in the target app. But it's slow. I mean, it's actually quite fast, but for drag and drop, it's slow. My approach is this: "Bake together" the two audio tracks into a one-track m4a audio file using AVMutableAudioMix and AVAssetExportSession Take the video track, add the new audio file as an audio track to it, and render that out using AVAssetExportSession For a quick benchmark, a 3'40'' movie, step 1 takes ~1.7 seconds, and step two adds another ~1.5 seconds, so we're at ~3.2 seconds. That's an eternity for a drag and drop, where the user might cancel if there's no immediate feedback. I could also do it in one step, but then I couldn't use the AV*Passthrough preset, and that makes it take around 32 seconds then, because I assume it touches the video data (which is unnecessary in this case, so I think the two-step approach here is the fastest). So, my question is, is there a faster way? The best idea I can come up with right now is, when initially recording the screen with system- and microphone audio as separate tracks, to also record both of them into a third, muted, "hidden" track I could use later on, basically eliminating the need for step one and just ripping the two single audio tracks out of the movie and only have the video and the "hidden" track (then unmuted), but I'd still have a ~1.5 second delay there. Also, there's the processing and data overhead (basically doubling the movie's audio data). All this would be great for an export operation (where one expects it to take a little time), but for a drag-and-drop operation, it's not ideal. I've discarded the idea of doing a promise file drag, because many apps do not accept those, and I want to keep wide compatibility with all sorts of apps. I'd appreciate any ideas or pointers. Thank you kindly, Matthias