I am reporting what appears to be a serious integrity flaw in Safari under iPadOS 26.3 (and lower) that materially undermines the reliability of Screen Time parental controls. This is not merely a UX inconsistency but a functional contradiction within a system explicitly marketed and positioned as secure parental control infrastructure. Device / Environment Device: iPad Air M3 13" (2025) OS: iPadOS 26.3 Safari (system version) Screen Time enabled with active restrictions Child account (10 years old) Background We deliberately chose an Apple device for school use based on the expectation that Apple’s system-level parental control mechanisms — especially Screen Time — are robust, tamper-resistant, and technically consistent. Screen Time is configured with: App limits Downtime Parental controls enabled with limited web content restrictions (school requirements prevent strict blocking) Safari enabled (mandatory for educational use) further parental control restrictions Because aggressive website blocking would interfere with legitimate school activities, monitoring Safari browsing history is a central supervisory mechanism. When Screen Time is active: Clearing the entire browsing history via Safari is correctly blocked. Clearing history via system settings is correctly blocked. The system explicitly communicates that deletion is not permitted due to Screen Time restrictions. This behavior establishes a clear user expectation: Browsing history is protected against manipulation. The Issue Despite the above safeguards, individual browsing history entries can be deleted easily and silently through the address bar suggestion interface. This creates a structural contradiction: Full deletion is blocked. Selective deletion — which is arguably more problematic — remains possible. Steps to Reproduce Enable Screen Time with restrictions that prevent deletion of browsing history (for example on a student device with a child account). Open Safari and visit any website. Confirm it appears in Safari history. Tap the Safari address bar. Type part of the URL or page title. Safari suggests the previously visited page below the address bar. Swipe left on that suggestion. A red “Delete from History” button appears. Tap it. Actual Result The entry disappears immediately: No Screen Time PIN required No authentication request No warning No restriction triggered No parental notification No audit trace visible Deletion occurs silently and irreversibly. Expected Result When Screen Time is configured to prevent browsing history deletion: Individual entries must not be deletable Deletion must require Screen Time authentication Anything else defeats the protective purpose of the restriction. Real-World Impact In practical use, this allows minors to selectively sanitize browsing history while preserving a seemingly intact record. In our case, this method is widely known among classmates and routinely used to conceal visits to gaming or social media platforms during school hours. The technical barrier to exploitation is negligible. This results in: A false sense of security for parents A discrepancy between advertised functionality and actual system behavior A material weakening of parental control integrity When a system explicitly blocks full history deletion but permits silent selective deletion, the protection mechanism becomes functionally inconsistent and unreliable. Given that Screen Time is publicly positioned as a dependable parental control framework, this issue raises concerns not only about implementation quality but also about user trust and reasonable reliance on advertised safeguards. Request Please classify this as a parental control integrity and trust issue. Specifically: Disable individual history deletion while Screen Time restrictions are active OR Require Screen Time passcode authentication for deleting single entries Screen Time is presented as a secure supervisory environment for minors. In its current implementation under iPadOS 26.3 and before, that expectation is technically not met. This issue warrants prioritization.

The passkey authentication dialog appears, and after unlocking with Touch ID, the dialog closes without any notification of success or failure. This issue occurs with high frequency. access to the https://passkeys-demo.appspot.com/ register account and create passkey. logoff access to the url again you can see the passkey dialog unlock device then the dialog disappears nothing happens reload the page proceed 5) to 6) nothing happens or success webauthn.

Hi there I've been having trouble finding any details around how safari is supposed to behave when a FairPlay license expires. My assumption was that the video segments would stop getting decrypted and playback would stop, however I just see that the playback continues like nothing has happened. I've setup the "fps_safari_has_key_renewal.html" sample code from the Fairplay SDK and got encrypted playback working. The renewal method also appears to work. However, if I don't issue a renew call, or if I wait several minutes after the renew has succeeded the video never stops (my license is set with a 1 minute expiry so I can test this quickly). I've also observed that the MediaKeySession expiration property is always set to NaN even though my license has an expiry. I've tried with both Lease and Rental expiries set in the license (separately AND at the same time in separate tests). I'm using EZDRM as my drm provider. Just looking for some feedback on if this is supposed to work this way in safari or if license expiry isn't supported in safari. Thanks!

Create shortcut to open chrome with url and put it on the desktop. Tap the shortcut. Tap the username text field. When launching Safari from an iOS shortcut on an iOS device with a valid passkey registered, the passkey suggestion does not appear; instead, the password suggestion appears sometimes.

Starting in iOS 26 (tested on 26.1), when I use any of the “policy” methods of WKNavigationDelegate to return an action policy of cancel I get a trace like this printed to console: 1 0x18de71bbc WebKit::WebFramePolicyListenerProxy::ignore(WebKit::WasNavigationIntercepted) 2 0x18db3dd50 WebKit::NavigationState::NavigationClient::decidePolicyForNavigationAction(WebKit::WebPageProxy&, WTF::Ref<API::NavigationAction, WTF::RawPtrTraits<API::NavigationAction>, WTF::DefaultRefDerefTraits<API::NavigationAction>>&&, WTF::Ref<WebKit::WebFramePolicyListenerProxy, WTF::RawPtrTraits<WebKit::WebFramePolicyListenerProxy>, WTF::DefaultRefDerefTraits<WebKit::WebFramePolicyListenerProxy>>&&)::$_0::operator()(WKNavigationActionPolicy, WKWebpagePreferences*) 3 0x100189e5c $sSo24WKNavigationActionPolicyVIeyBhy_ABIeghy_TR 4 0x100189d38 $s16WebkitPolicyTrap14ViewControllerC03webD0_06decideB3For15decisionHandlerySo05WKWebD0C_So18WKNavigationActionCySo0lmB0VctF 5 0x100189df4 $s16WebkitPolicyTrap14ViewControllerC03webD0_06decideB3For15decisionHandlerySo05WKWebD0C_So18WKNavigationActionCySo0lmB0VctFTo 6 0x18db255c0 WebKit::NavigationState::NavigationClient::decidePolicyForNavigationAction(WebKit::WebPageProxy&, WTF::Ref<API::NavigationAction, WTF::RawPtrTraits<API::NavigationAction>, WTF::DefaultRefDerefTraits<API::NavigationAction>>&&, WTF::Ref<WebKit::WebFramePolicyListenerProxy, WTF::RawPtrTraits<WebKit::WebFramePolicyListenerProxy>, WTF::DefaultRefDerefTraits<WebKit::WebFramePolicyListenerProxy>>&&) 7 0x18dea9848 WebKit::WebPageProxy::decidePolicyForNavigationAction(WTF::Ref<WebKit::WebProcessProxy, WTF::RawPtrTraits<WebKit::WebProcessProxy>, WTF::DefaultRefDerefTraits<WebKit::WebProcessProxy>>&&, WebKit::WebFrameProxy&, WebKit::NavigationActionData&&, WTF::CompletionHandler<void (WebKit::PolicyDecision&&)>&&) 8 0x18dea7a34 WebKit::WebPageProxy::decidePolicyForNavigationActionAsync(IPC::Connection&, WebKit::NavigationActionData&&, WTF::CompletionHandler<void (WebKit::PolicyDecision&&)>&&) 9 0x18d9cbbf4 void IPC::handleMessageAsync<Messages::WebPageProxy::DecidePolicyForNavigationActionAsync, IPC::Connection, WebKit::WebPageProxy, WebKit::WebPageProxy, void (IPC::Connection&, WebKit::NavigationActionData&&, WTF::CompletionHandler<void (WebKit::PolicyDecision&&)>&&)>(IPC::Connection&, IPC::Decoder&, WebKit::WebPageProxy*, void (WebKit::WebPageProxy::*)(IPC::Connection&, WebKit::NavigationActionData&&, WTF::CompletionHandler<void (WebKit::PolicyDecision&&)>&&)) 10 0x18d9c7728 WebKit::WebPageProxy::didReceiveMessage(IPC::Connection&, IPC::Decoder&) 11 0x18e49a0d8 IPC::MessageReceiverMap::dispatchMessage(IPC::Connection&, IPC::Decoder&) 12 0x18df1908c WebKit::WebProcessProxy::dispatchMessage(IPC::Connection&, IPC::Decoder&) 13 0x18d9dfc28 WebKit::WebProcessProxy::didReceiveMessage(IPC::Connection&, IPC::Decoder&) 14 0x18e47f72c IPC::Connection::dispatchMessage(WTF::UniqueRef<IPC::Decoder>) 15 0x18e47fac4 IPC::Connection::dispatchIncomingMessages() 16 0x199ad3758 WTF::RunLoop::performWork() 17 0x199ad4eb0 WTF::RunLoop::performWork(void*) 18 0x1804563a4 __CFRUNLOOP_IS_CALLING_OUT_TO_A_SOURCE0_PERFORM_FUNCTION__ 19 0x1804562ec __CFRunLoopDoSource0 20 0x180455a78 __CFRunLoopDoSources0 21 0x180454c4c __CFRunLoopRun 22 0x18044fcec _CFRunLoopRunSpecificWithOptions 23 0x1926be9bc GSEventRunModal 24 0x18630f0d8 -[UIApplication _run] 25 0x186313300 UIApplicationMain 26 0x18554ac38 block_destroy_helper.15 27 0x10018a70c $sSo21UIApplicationDelegateP5UIKitE4mainyyFZ 28 0x10018a67c $s16WebkitPolicyTrap11AppDelegateC5$mainyyFZ 29 0x10018a818 __debug_main_executable_dylib_entry_point 30 0x1000cd3d0 29 dyld 0x00000001000cd3d0 start_sim + 20 31 0x1002bab98 30 ??? 0x00000001002bab98 0x0 + 4297829272 This doesn’t happen in 18.6. Also, it doesn’t seem to have any negative consequences other than the console spam? But then, the navigation is being cancelled anyway, so maybe it’s trapping and just happens to have the effect of not loading the request? Anyway, I guess I can’t upload zips. But it’s pretty easy to reproduce. Just assign a WKWebView a navigationDelegate with an implementation like: func webView(_ webView: WKWebView, decidePolicyFor navigationAction: WKNavigationAction, decisionHandler: @escaping @MainActor (WKNavigationActionPolicy) -> Void) { decisionHandler(.cancel) } and then have it .load() anything. Have I been doing this wrong and 26 exposes it? Or is this a bug in 26? If the latter, any downstream consequences I should be looking out for? macOS 15.7.1 (24G231) Xcode 26.1.1 (17B100) iOS 26.1 (23B86)

I'm encountering an issue with front camera video recordings via browser (Safari/Chrome) on devices running iOS/iPadOS 18 and above: On iPad, the recorded video appears upside down. On iPhone, the recorded video is rotated 90 degrees. The rear camera functions correctly without orientation issues. This problem seems specific to browser-based recordings, as the native Camera app records videos with the correct orientation. Has anyone else experienced this behavior? Is there a known workaround or fix? The preview while recording is fine, the recorded video is oriented incorrectly.

I'm trying to sync authentication data from my iOS app to a Safari Web Extension using App Groups, but the extension isn't consistently receiving the data. Setup: App Group: group.com.airaai.AiraApp (configured in both app and extension) iOS app writes auth data using UserDefaults(suiteName: "group.com.airaai.AiraApp") Extension's Swift SafariWebExtensionHandler reads from App Groups in beginRequest() Extension's JavaScript reads from browser.storage.local Problem: Extension popup always shows "logged out" even when: User is logged into main iOS app Auth data exists in App Groups (verified via native module logs) Handler successfully writes test values to extension storage Current Behavior: Handler CAN read from App Groups ✅ Handler CAN write test values to extension storage ✅ But auth data doesn't appear in browser.storage.local when popup checks ❌ Popup reads empty keys even though handler logged writing them Code: // Handler reads from App Groups guard let sharedDefaults = UserDefaults(suiteName: "groupName") else { return } let authData = sharedDefaults.string(forKey: "auth_data") // Handler writes to extension storage (tried multiple suite names) let extensionDefaults = UserDefaults(suiteName: Bundle.main.bundleIdentifier ?? "") extensionDefaults?.set(authData, forKey: "oauth_token") extensionDefaults?.synchronize() // Popup reads from storage browser.storage.local.get(['oauth_token']).then(data => { console.log(data); // Always empty {} }); What I've tried: ✅ App Groups properly configured in both targets ✅ Extension has App Groups capability enabled ✅ Multiple UserDefaults suite names (bundle ID, bundle ID + suffix) ✅ Delayed sync attempts in handler ✅ Comprehensive logging Questions: What is the correct UserDefaults suite name for Safari extension storage on iOS? When does beginRequest() get called? Can it be triggered manually? Is App Groups the right approach, or should I use a different pattern? Alternatives I've considered: Deep link/redirect method (app opens Safari with token in URL) Content script intercepts URL and sends to background script Is this a supported approach for iOS Safari extensions? Any guidance or examples would be greatly appreciated!

Ever since the iOS and iPadOS 26.2 beta I can’t open Safari at all. Safari tries to open but crashes and goes back to my home screen. I’ve restored my devices and restarted everything and the same issue occurs. I didn’t have this problem on the beta 26.1 but this whole thing started on 26.2.

Based on the "Build immersive web experiences with WebXR"-Video for visionOS there is no way to disable the consent prompts for entering an immersive experience or consent hand-tracking. For the microphone it's possible to "greenlight" specific websites for mic input, which works great. I'd welcome it, if it were possible to add specific websites in the settings, in which those consent dialogs aren't shown each time. In my opinion, the user interaction through a button that launches the experience would be sufficient to not disorient.

Hello We've encountered an issue with WKWebView in the latest iOS 26 beta. When loading a PDF URL, the background of the PDF viewer now displays as a dark gray instead of the expected white. Device: iOS 26 Simulator/Device Component: WKWebView Issue: The background color of the loaded PDF is gray. Expected Behavior: The background should be white, as it has been in all previous iOS versions. Link for Testing: https://help.apple.com/pdf/security/en_US/apple-platform-security-guide.pdf We confirmed that the same PDF and code render with a white background on iOS 26 and earlier. Questions: Is this an intentional change in iOS 26's WKWebView? If so, is there a new property or configuration setting available to control the background color of the PDF viewer within WKWebView? We would like to have the ability to set it back to white. Any insights, workarounds, or information on this matter would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

iPadOS 26, dark mode Open Safari Search for anything or open a website that has white background Kill Safari Open Safari again I still can reproduce it with Safari on iPadOS 26.0.1 This issue also happens to my app when opening a HTML/JS on WKWebView with white background while using dark mode. I did send a feedback ticket when using iPadOS 26 beta but havent seen any reply. This is my first time sending a feedback so I dont know if Apple would reply or not.

YouTube now requires a Referer to be sent to be able to embed Youtube videos, otherwise the videos won't work. But WKWebView doesn't send a Referer when using a custom scheme, so Youtube videos stopped working in that case. This affects Ionic apps, both using Cordova or Capacitor. There's an open issue for Cordova and another one for Capacitor. In these apps, the app is served using a custom scheme like capacitor://localhost or ionic://localhost. I tried modifying the Ionic WebView source code to force adding a referrer to the URL loaded using WKWebView's loadRequest: [request addValue:@"https://my.test.app" forHTTPHeaderField:@"Referer"]; [_engineWebView loadRequest:request] But the Referer is still not sent in the Requests, I guess because the app is using a custom scheme (e.g. capacitor://localhost). However, if I modify this code to force loading an "online URL" (using https) instead of capacitor://localhost, then the my.test.app Referer is sent to the requests. Is there any way to make WKWebView send a Referer when using a custom scheme?

Hello, I'm not able to get the webauthn attestation statement using the option (attestation.direct) on Safari. The answer I get is a fmt of none and a aaguid of zeros. The same code works on Chrome and I was able to get a none zero aaguid and a packed fmt attestation. Can you explain why this does not work on Safari ? Thank you.

Hi, this is my first post in the community, so please correct me if i am posting this somewhat in a wrong manner. Im using my Apple M1 Pro(14inch, 2021) and installed the os 26 yesterday. Today, I was using Safari, and all of sudden it gets frozen, then the following window popped up. Is this something expected? i.e. my usage is somewhat unusual or is there any report around potential memory leak in Safari? appreciate any suggestions, as Safari is my main browser and currently on hold due to this issue. Thanks

Since Xcode 26 our tests are crashing due to the Main Thread not being able to deallocate WKNavigationResponse. Following an example: import Foundation import WebKit final class WKNavigationResponeMock: WKNavigationResponse { private let urlResponse: URLResponse override var response: URLResponse { urlResponse } init(urlResponse: URLResponse) { self.urlResponse = urlResponse super.init() } convenience init(httpUrlResponse: HTTPURLResponse) { self.init(urlResponse: httpUrlResponse) } convenience init?(url: URL, statusCode: Int) { guard let httpURLResponse = HTTPURLResponse(url: url, statusCode: statusCode, httpVersion: nil, headerFields: nil) else { return nil } self.init(httpUrlResponse: httpURLResponse) } } import WebKit import XCTest final class ExampleTests: XCTestCase { @MainActor func testAllocAndDeallocWKNavigationResponse() { let expectedURL = URL(string: "https://galaxus.ch/")! let expectedStatusCode = 404 let instance = WKNavigationResponeMock() // here it should dealloc/deinit `instance` automatically } Here the call stack: Thread 0 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.main-thread 0 CoreFoundation 0x101f3dd54 CFRetain.cold.1 + 16 1 CoreFoundation 0x101e14860 CFRetain + 104 2 WebKit 0x10864dd24 -[WKNavigationResponse dealloc] + 52

We’ve noticed that the ApplePaySession.applePayCapabilities() check has stopped working correctly in Safari over the past couple of days. Behavior observed: 1.) In Safari Private Window, paymentCredentialStatus behaves as expected and case 1 is triggered. 2.) In a normal Safari window, it always triggers case 3 (paymentCredentialsUnavailable), even when the user has active cards provisioned in Wallet. We tested across multiple devices, and the behavior is consistent. if (window.ApplePaySession) { var merchantIdentifier = 'YOUR MERCHANT IDENTIFIER'; var promise = ApplePaySession.applePayCapabilities(merchantIdentifier); promise.then(function(capabilities) { switch (capabilities.paymentCredentialStatus) { case "paymentCredentialsAvailable": // Show Apple Pay button as primary option case "paymentCredentialStatusUnknown": // Offer Apple Pay case "paymentCredentialsUnavailable": // Consider showing Apple Pay button case "applePayUnsupported": // Don’t show Apple Pay button } }) } This used to work fine until a few days ago, but now the capability check in non-private Safari windows always indicates unavailable, even with valid active cards. Has anyone else faced this issue recently? Could this be a Safari regression or a change on Apple’s side? Thanks in advance!

Hi Apple Team, We’ve noticed a couple of issues with launching default App Clip in safari and would appreciate your guidance. App Clip Popup Timing: When launching the App Clip using default URL, we sometimes see the small App Clip popup appear before the App Clip banner is displayed. Ideally, the banner should appear first. Cached URL Handling: In certain cases, the App Clip appears to be using a cached URL instead of the most recent one. For example, when we invoke two different App Clip URLs with unique parameters, the App Clip sometimes launches using the previous URL’s data instead of the new one. This behavior is inconsistent and makes it difficult to ensure users are directed to the correct experience each time. Could you please help us understand whether this is expected behavior or if there are any known issues or recommended solutions? Thank you for your time and support. Example

After updating to the new iOS, in Safari, my overlays and backdrops using 100dvh no longer cover the full screen there's now a gap at the bottom. Switching to 100vh fixes it, but that causes scrolling issues on older Safari versions since 100vh includes extra height. Has anyone else experienced this? What's the recommended fix that works across iOS versions?

I’m developing a Safari App Extension and I want to debug the background.js script. However, I can’t find any tool or option to do this. When I run the extension from Xcode using the ProjectName Extension (macOS) scheme, I expect to see a “ProjectName” item under the Develop → Web Extension Background Content menu. But there’s nothing there. Has anyone encountered the same issue? How did you fix it? Environment: Manifest Version: V3 Safari: 26.0.1 (21622.1.22.11.15) Xcode: 26.0.1 (17A400)

Hi, we have PWA for which we´ve built a wrapper using PWA Builder tool and we are experiencing an issue with apple sign in. When we try to redirect the user to "https://appleid.apple.com/auth/authorize?...params...", a bottom sheet login prompt appears and only once the user signs in using the prompt he is then redirected to the url where he needs to sign in again and then we get the callback. We want to get rid of that bottom sheet prompt. The code we´ve tried: ` iosButton.addEventListener('click', function () { window.location.href = "https://appleid.apple.com/auth/authorize?client_id=xxxxx&redirect_uri=xxxxx&response_type=code%20id_token&scope=name%20email&response_mode=form_post"; });` The alternative code we´ve tried for which it seems that nothing happens, we only see the "Started" alert, we´ve confirmed that there is no other error : ` <script src="https://appleid.cdn-apple.com/appleauth/static/jsapi/appleid/1/en_US/appleid.auth.js"></script> <script> (function initAppleSignIn() { try { window.AppleID.auth.init({ clientId: "{{ env('APPLE_WEB_CLIENT_ID') }}", scope: "name email", redirectURI: window.location.origin +"/auth/apple/callback", usePopup: true }); } catch (e) { console.warn('Apple Sign-In init skipped:', e); } })(); function appleButtonClicked() { alert("Started"); try { const res = await window.AppleID.auth.signIn(); } catch (err) { alert("Got error"); } alert("Got here"); } </script>