When using the new RealityKit Manipulation Component on Entities, indirect input will never translate the entity - no matter what settings are applied. Direct manipulation works as expected for both translation and rotation.
Is this intended behaviour? This is different from how indirect manipulation works on Model3D. How else can we get translation from this component?
visionOS 26 Beta 2
Build from macOS 26 Beta 2 and Xcode 26 Beta 2
Attached is replicable sample code, I have tried this in other projects with the same results.
var body: some View {
RealityView { content in
// Add the initial RealityKit content
if let immersiveContentEntity = try? await Entity(named: "MovieFilmReel", in: reelRCPBundle) {
ManipulationComponent.configureEntity(immersiveContentEntity, allowedInputTypes: .all, collisionShapes: [ShapeResource.generateBox(width: 0.2, height: 0.2, depth: 0.2)])
immersiveContentEntity.position.y = 1
immersiveContentEntity.position.z = -0.5
var mc = ManipulationComponent()
mc.releaseBehavior = .stay
immersiveContentEntity.components.set(mc)
content.add(immersiveContentEntity)
}
}
}
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Hello,
I am writing this post because the Apple Developer Program enrollment process is clearly malfunctioning, and I have reached a point where this situation is unacceptable.
First payment
I initially purchased the Apple Developer Program on December 3rd, 2025 at 16:03 (Turkey time).
The payment was fully completed, confirmed by my bank, and I received the official Apple Store receipt.
• Order ID: W1557478965
• Amount: 1029 TRY
• Status: Completed / Posted
Despite this, my account continued to show:
• “Purchase your membership”
• Enrollment status: Pending
• No access to App Store Connect
After several days with no response from Apple Support and no activation, I assumed something had gone wrong on Apple’s side.
Second payment
Because I was completely blocked and received no reply from support or the forums, I made a second payment to rule out any payment failure.
• Order ID: W1694587309
• Amount: 1029 TRY
• Status: Completed / Posted
Current situation
At this point:
• Two separate payments
• Two unique Apple Store order IDs
• Zero activation
• Zero response from Apple Support
• Enrollment still Pending
• App Store Connect still inaccessible
Support case details:
• Apple Support Case ID: 102769533427
• Multiple follow-ups sent
• No reply
• No action taken
This is no longer a delay — this is a system-level failure.
I have paid twice for a single Developer Program membership and received nothing in return: no activation, no explanation, and no support.
I am formally requesting manual intervention by Apple staff to:
1. Immediately activate my Apple Developer Program membership
2. Investigate and resolve the duplicate payment (refund or clarification)
3. Explain why a paid enrollment can remain blocked with no support response
If this forum is monitored by Apple employees, this issue requires urgent escalation.
This situation should not happen in a paid developer program.
Thank you.
Topic:
Developer Tools & Services
SubTopic:
Apple Developer Program
When I've tried to use UIDevice on my Mac running my Catalyst application, testing code
UIDevice *d=UIDevice.currentDevice;
for (NSString *k in @[@"name", @"systemName", @"systemVersion", @"model", @"localizedModel"])
NSLog(@"%@ -> %@", k, [d valueForKey:k]);
to my great surprise I am getting
name -> iPad
systemName -> iPadOS
systemVersion -> 26.3
model -> iPad
localizedModel -> iPad
What the. How do I determine the real values? Thanks!
A user of my app reported that when my app copies files from a QNAP NAS to a folder on their Mac, they get the error "Result too large". When copying the same files from the Desktop, it works.
I asked them to reproduce the issue with the sample code below and they confirmed that it reproduces. They contacted QNAP for support who in turn contacted me saying that they are not sure they can do anything about it, and asking if Apple can help.
Both the app user and QNAP are willing to help, but at this point I'm also unsure how to proceed. Can someone at Apple say anything about this? Is this something QNAP should solve, or is this a bug in macOS?
P.S.: I've had users in the past who reported the same issue with other brands, mostly Synology.
import Cocoa
@main
class AppDelegate: NSObject, NSApplicationDelegate {
func applicationDidFinishLaunching(_ aNotification: Notification) {
let openPanel = NSOpenPanel()
openPanel.canChooseDirectories = true
openPanel.runModal()
let source = openPanel.urls[0]
openPanel.canChooseFiles = false
openPanel.runModal()
let destination = openPanel.urls[0]
do {
try copyFile(from: source, to: destination.appendingPathComponent(source.lastPathComponent, isDirectory: false))
} catch {
NSAlert(error: error).runModal()
}
NSApp.terminate(nil)
}
private func copyFile(from source: URL, to destination: URL) throws {
if try source.resourceValues(forKeys: [.isDirectoryKey]).isDirectory == true {
try FileManager.default.createDirectory(at: destination, withIntermediateDirectories: false)
for source in try FileManager.default.contentsOfDirectory(at: source, includingPropertiesForKeys: nil) {
try copyFile(from: source, to: destination.appendingPathComponent(source.lastPathComponent, isDirectory: false))
}
} else {
try copyRegularFile(from: source, to: destination)
}
}
private func copyRegularFile(from source: URL, to destination: URL) throws {
let state = copyfile_state_alloc()
defer {
copyfile_state_free(state)
}
var bsize = UInt32(16_777_216)
if copyfile_state_set(state, UInt32(COPYFILE_STATE_BSIZE), &bsize) != 0 {
throw NSError(domain: NSPOSIXErrorDomain, code: Int(errno))
} else if copyfile_state_set(state, UInt32(COPYFILE_STATE_STATUS_CB), unsafeBitCast(copyfileCallback, to: UnsafeRawPointer.self)) != 0 {
throw NSError(domain: NSPOSIXErrorDomain, code: Int(errno))
} else if copyfile(source.path, destination.path, state, copyfile_flags_t(COPYFILE_DATA | COPYFILE_SECURITY | COPYFILE_NOFOLLOW | COPYFILE_EXCL | COPYFILE_XATTR)) != 0 {
throw NSError(domain: NSPOSIXErrorDomain, code: Int(errno))
}
}
private let copyfileCallback: copyfile_callback_t = { what, stage, state, src, dst, ctx in
if what == COPYFILE_COPY_DATA {
if stage == COPYFILE_ERR {
return COPYFILE_QUIT
}
}
return COPYFILE_CONTINUE
}
}
I've created the following Foundation Models Tool, which uses the .anyOf guide to constrain the LLM's generation of suitable input arguments. When calling the tool, the model is only allowed to request one of a fixed set of sections, as defined in the sections array.
struct SectionReader: Tool {
let article: Article
let sections: [String]
let name: String = "readSection"
let description: String = "Read a specific section from the article."
var parameters: GenerationSchema {
GenerationSchema(
type: GeneratedContent.self,
properties: [
GenerationSchema.Property(
name: "section",
description: "The article section to access.",
type: String.self,
guides: [.anyOf(sections)]
)
]
)
}
func call(arguments: GeneratedContent) async throws -> String {
let requestedSectionName = try arguments.value(String.self, forProperty: "section")
...
}
}
However, I have found that the model will sometimes call the tool with invalid (but plausible) section names, meaning that .anyOf is not actually doing its job (i.e. requestedSectionName is sometimes not a member of sections).
The documentation for the .anyOf guide says, "Enforces that the string be one of the provided values."
Is this a bug or have I made a mistake somewhere?
Many thanks for any help you provide!
Topic:
Machine Learning & AI
SubTopic:
Foundation Models
Seeing an issue in iOS 26.2 iPhone 17 simulator (haven't been able to reproduce on device or other simulators), where a view's state is reset after an alert is shown.
In this example the first LibraryView has the issue when alert is shown, the second LibraryView maintains state as expected.
struct ContentView: View {
var body: some View {
NavigationStack {
List {
VStack {
LibraryView(title: "Show view (Loss of state)")
}
LibraryView(title: "Show view (Works as expected)")
}
}
}
}
/// This view is from a package dependency and wants to control the presentation of the sheet internally
public struct LibraryView: View {
@State private var isPresented: Bool = false
let title: String
public init(title: String) {
self.title = title
}
public var body: some View {
Button(self.title) {
self.isPresented = true
}
.sheet(isPresented: self.$isPresented) {
ViewWithAlert()
}
}
}
private struct ViewWithAlert: View {
@State private var isPresented: Bool = false
@State private var presentedCount = 0
var body: some View {
Button("Show Alert, count: \(presentedCount)") {
isPresented = true
presentedCount += 1
}
.alert("Hello", isPresented: self.$isPresented) {
Button("OK") { }
}
}
}
Any ideas?
The issue can be corrected by moving the .sheet to a higher level within the layout (i.e. on the NavigationStack). However, the library wants to control that presentation and not require the integration to present the sheet.
Topic:
UI Frameworks
SubTopic:
SwiftUI
Hi — we’re testing our app on iOS 26 and ran into strange behavior with GKLocalPlayer.local.authenticateHandler.
GKLocalPlayer.local.authenticateHandler = { [weak self] viewController, error in
// additional code
}
What happens:
When we assign authenticateHandler on iOS 26 and the user is not signed in to Game Center, the system shows a full-screen Game Center overlay asking the user to sign in.
If the user taps Cancel, nothing further happens — the closure is not invoked again, so we don’t receive an error or any callback. The app never learns whether the auth was cancelled or failed.
In previous iOS versions the closure was called (with viewController / error as appropriate) and the flow worked as expected.
What we tried:
Verified authenticateHandler is being set.
Checked GKLocalPlayer.local.isAuthenticated after the overlay dismisses — it’s unchanged.
Observed system logs: a com.apple.GameOverlayUI scene is created and later removed (so the auth overlay is shown by the system).
Confirmed the same code works on earlier iOS versions. :thinking:
Question:
Has anyone seen authenticateHandler not being invoked on iOS 26 when the Game Center auth overlay is presented? Could this be a behavioral change in iOS 26 (overlay runs in a separate system process), or a bug? Any suggested workarounds to reliably detect that the user cancelled the sign-in (for example: listening for willResignActive / didBecomeActive, watching for a system overlay, or saving/presenting the viewController manually)?
Thanks in advance for any advice — we’d appreciate pointers or suggested diagnostics ?
I'm submitting my first macOS app (an Electron app, signed with Developer ID Application certificate and hardened runtime) for notarization using xcrun notarytool submit with App Store Connect API key authentication.
All 6 of my submissions have been stuck at "In Progress" for over 24 hours now. The oldest submission is 27+ hours old. None have transitioned to Accepted or
Invalid.
Here's what I've verified:
Code signing is valid: codesign --verify --deep --strict passes
Hardened runtime is enabled
Uploads succeed: Each submission receives a valid submission ID and the file uploads successfully to Apple's servers
API key auth is working: Using App Store Connect API key (.p8 file), Key ID, and Issuer ID
Tried both locally and via GitHub Actions CI — same result
Polling Apple's status endpoint eventually times out with NSURLErrorDomain Code=-1001 "The request timed out" when checking
https://appstoreconnect.apple.com/notary/v2/submissions/<id>
Logs are not available (notarytool log returns "not yet available" for all submissions)
Apple Developer System Status shows "Developer ID Notary Service" as Available
Submission history:
createdDate: 2026-02-04T20:27:16Z — status: In Progress
createdDate: 2026-02-04T16:45:18Z — status: In Progress
createdDate: 2026-02-04T13:40:23Z — status: In Progress
createdDate: 2026-02-04T12:29:52Z — status: In Progress
createdDate: 2026-02-04T11:26:36Z — status: In Progress
createdDate: 2026-02-04T11:21:39Z — status: In Progress
Entitlements used:
com.apple.security.cs.allow-jit
com.apple.security.cs.allow-unsigned-executable-memory
com.apple.security.cs.disable-library-validation
com.apple.security.network.client
com.apple.security.files.user-selected.read-write
This is my first time notarizing any app on this developer account. I've seen other threads mentioning that first-time submissions can be "held for in-depth
analysis," but 24+ hours with no feedback at all seems excessive.
Is anyone else currently experiencing this? Is there anything I can do to unblock my account's notarization queue, or do I just need to wait? Any guidance from DTS
would be greatly appreciated.
I've also emailed Apple Developer Support but haven't received a response yet.
Hello, I've a question about performance when trying to render lots of items coming from SwiftData via a @Query on a SwiftUI List. Here's my setup:
// Item.swift:
@Model final class Item: Identifiable {
var timestamp: Date
var isOptionA: Bool
init() {
self.timestamp = Date()
self.isOptionA = Bool.random()
}
}
// Menu.swift
enum Menu: String, CaseIterable, Hashable, Identifiable {
var id: String { rawValue }
case optionA
case optionB
case all
var predicate: Predicate<Item> {
switch self {
case .optionA: return #Predicate { $0.isOptionA }
case .optionB: return #Predicate { !$0.isOptionA }
case .all: return #Predicate { _ in true }
}
}
}
// SlowData.swift
@main
struct SlowDataApp: App {
var sharedModelContainer: ModelContainer = {
let schema = Schema([Item.self])
let modelConfiguration = ModelConfiguration(schema: schema, isStoredInMemoryOnly: false)
return try! ModelContainer(for: schema, configurations: [modelConfiguration])
}()
var body: some Scene {
WindowGroup {
ContentView()
}
.modelContainer(sharedModelContainer)
}
}
// ContentView.swift
struct ContentView: View {
@Environment(\.modelContext) private var modelContext
@State var selection: Menu? = .optionA
var body: some View {
NavigationSplitView {
List(Menu.allCases, selection: $selection) { menu in
Text(menu.rawValue).tag(menu)
}
} detail: {
DemoListView(selectedMenu: $selection)
}.onAppear {
// Do this just once
// (0..<15_000).forEach { index in
// let item = Item()
// modelContext.insert(item)
// }
}
}
}
// DemoListView.swift
struct DemoListView: View {
@Binding var selectedMenu: Menu?
@Query private var items: [Item]
init(selectedMenu: Binding<Menu?>) {
self._selectedMenu = selectedMenu
self._items = Query(filter: selectedMenu.wrappedValue?.predicate,
sort: \.timestamp)
}
var body: some View {
// Option 1: touching `items` = slow!
List(items) { item in
Text(item.timestamp.description)
}
// Option 2: Not touching `items` = fast!
// List {
// Text("Not accessing `items` here")
// }
.navigationTitle(selectedMenu?.rawValue ?? "N/A")
}
}
When I use Option 1 on DemoListView, there's a noticeable delay on the navigation. If I use Option 2, there's none. This happens both on Debug builds and Release builds, just FYI because on Xcode 16 Debug builds seem to be slower than expected: https://indieweb.social/@curtclifton/113273571392595819
I've profiled it and the SwiftData fetches seem blazing fast, the Hang occurs when accessing the items property from the List. Is there anything I'm overlooking or it's just as fast as it can be right now?
I can't upload my macOS app to app store connect.
Each time i try to upload, i see this message:
Provisioning profile failed qualification
Profile doesn't support App Groups.
An empty app without an app group uploads fine, but if i add an app group to it, it does not upload.
Topic:
Code Signing
SubTopic:
Certificates, Identifiers & Profiles
Tags:
Entitlements
Notarization
Signing Certificates
Code Signing
I am trying to upgrade my app to use Xcode 26 and I cannot get my tests to launch.
I am trying to launch tests to the simulator, and I always get this error after 300 second timeout:
"encountered an error (The test runner hung before establishing connection.)"
There are no other errors getting logged.
I can run to the same simulator just fine, and in Xcode 16 the tests launch with no issues.
The tests also run fine on an actual iPhone.
Thanks in advance.
If I delete Safari and only have another browser installed on my device, UIApplication.shared.open does not work. I think this is a bug. Why would it not work?
If Safari is not the main browser, UIApplication would open the URL in my main browser.
Those are valid use cases.
I would expect this API to work with any browser...
iOS 26.2
iPhone 14 Pro
guard let url = URL(string: "https://www.apple.com") else {
return
}
if UIApplication.shared.canOpenURL(url) {
UIApplication.shared.open(url)
} else {
print("Could not open URL")
}
Topic:
UI Frameworks
SubTopic:
UIKit
Reference: FB21797091 / Related to thread 807695
Hello,
I have already submitted a report regarding this issue via Feedback Assistant (FB21797091), but I would like to share the technical details here to seek further insights or potential workarounds.
We are experiencing a technical regression where Universal Links and Shared Web Credentials fail to resolve for Internationalized Domain Names (IDN) specifically on iOS 16 and later. This issue appears to be identical to the one discussed in thread 807695 (https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/807695).
Technical Contrast: What works vs. What fails On the exact same app build and iOS 16+ devices, we observe a clear distinction:
Standard ASCII Domain (onelink.me): Works perfectly. (Proves App ID and Entitlements are correct)
Internal Development Domain (Standard ASCII): Works perfectly. (Proves our server-side AASA hosting and HTTPS configuration are correct)
Japanese IDN Domain (xn--[punycode].com): Fails completely. (Status: "unspecified")
Note: This IDN setup was last confirmed to work correctly on iOS 15 in April 2025. Currently, we are unable to install the app on iOS 15 devices for live comparison, but the regression starting from iOS 16 is consistent.
This "Triple Proof" clearly isolates the issue: the failure is strictly tied to the swcd daemon's handling of IDN/Punycode domains.
Validation & Diagnostics:
Validation: Our Punycode domain passes all technical checks on the http://Branch.io AASA Validator (Valid HTTPS, valid JSON structure, and Content-Type: application/json).
sysdiagnose: Running swcutil on affected iOS 16+ devices shows the status as "unspecified" for the IDN domain.
Symptoms: Universal Links consistently open in Safari instead of the app, the Smart App Banner is not displayed, and Shared Web Credentials for AutoFill do not function.
Request for Resolution:
We request a fix for this regression in the swcd daemon. If this behavior is a specification for security reasons, please provide developers with a supported method or workaround to ensure IDN domains function correctly.
We have sysdiagnose logs available for further investigation. Thank you.
Recently, I've noticed that background Bluetooth scanning stops when I move an app to the background on an iPhone 17 device with Bluetooth 6. I'm curious about a solution. Background Bluetooth scanning doesn't stop on devices older than iOS 26, or on devices that were updated from an iPhone 17 or earlier to iOS 26.
Hi, I have a completely new release of my app coming out with a new tech stack. I noticed that only 1% of my users were on iPad so the new app was not created to be 'compatible' with iPad including how it looks on iPad. Can I release this new version of the app only for iPhone? Or because it was previously available for iPad I have to release for iPad as well?
Really appreciate any support/guidance on this.
Thank you!
We are experiencing an issue with Safari in all versions from 18.0 to 18.5 that does not occur in version 17. It affects both iPhones and Macs. And does not happen in Chrome or Windows.
The problem is impacting our customers, and our monitoring tools show a dramatic increase in error volume as more users buy/upgrade to iOS 18.
The issue relates to network connectivity that is lost randomly. I can reliably reproduce the issue online in production, as well as on my local development environment.
For example our website backoffice has a ping, that has a frequency of X seconds, or when user is doing actions like add to a cart increasing the quantity that requires backend validation with some specific frequency the issue is noticable...
To test this I ran a JS code to simulate a ping with a timer that calls a local-dev API (a probe that waits 2s to simulate "work") and delay the next HTTP requests with a dynamic value to simulate network conditions:
Note: To even make the issue more clear, I'm using GET with application/json payload to make the request not simple, and require a Pre-flight request, which doubles the issue.
(async () =&gt; {
for (let i = 0; i &lt; 30; i++) {
try {
console.log(`Request start ${i} ${new Date().toLocaleString()}`);
const res = await fetch(`https://api.redated.com:8090/1/*****/probe?`, {
method: 'GET',
mode: "cors",
//headers: {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'},
headers: { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' },
});
console.log(`Request end ${i} ${new Date().toLocaleString()} status:`, res.status);
} catch (err) {
console.error(`Request ${i} ${new Date().toLocaleString()} error:`, err);
}
let delta = Math.floor(Math.random() * 10);
console.log("wait delta",delta);
await new Promise(r =&gt; setTimeout(r, 1000 - delta));
}
})();
For simplicity lets see a case where it fails 1 time only out of 10 requests.
(Adjusting the "delta" var on the time interval create more or less errors...)
This are the results:
The network connection was lost error, which is false, since this is on my localhost machine, but this happens many times and is very reproducible in local and production online.
The dev-tools and network tab shows empty for status error, ip, connection_id etc.. its like the request is being terminated very soon.
Later I did a detailed debugging with safari and wireshark to really nail down the network flow of the problem:
I will explain what this means:
Frame 10824 – 18:52:03.939197: new connection initiated (SYN, ACK, ECE).
Frame 10831 – 18:52:04.061531: Client sends payload (preflight request) to the server.
Frame 10959 – 18:52:09.207686: Server responds with data to (preflight response) to the client.
Frame 10960 – 18:52:09.207856: Client acknowledges (ACK) receipt of the preflight response.
Frame 10961 – 18:52:09.212188: Client sends the actual request payload after preflight OK and then server replies with ACK.
Frame 11092 – 18:52:14.332951: Server sends the final payload (main request response) to the client.
Frame 11093 – 18:52:14.333093: captures the client acknowledging the final server response, which marks the successful completion of the main request.
Frame 11146 – 18:52:15.348433: [IMPORTANT] the client attempts to send another new request just one second later, which is extremely close to the keep-alive timeout of 1 second. The last message from the server was at 18:52:14.332951, meaning the connection’s keep-alive timeout is predicted to end around 18:52:15.332951 but it does not. The new request is sent at 18:52:15.348433, just microseconds after the predicted timeout. The request leaves before the client browser knows the connection is closed, but by the time it arrives at the server, the connection is already dead.
Frame 11147 – 18:52:15.356910: Shows the server finally sending the FIN,ACK to indicate the connection is closed. This happens slightly later than the predicted time, at microsecond 356910 compared to the expected 332951. The FIN,ACK corresponds to sequence 1193 from the ACK of the last data packet in frame 11093.
Conclusions:
The root cause is related to network handling issues, when the server runs in a setting of keep-alive behavior and keep-alive timeout (in this case 1s) and network timming issue with Safari reusing a closed connection without retrying. In this situation the browser should retry the request, which is what other browsers do and what Safari did before version 18, since it did not suffer from this issue.
This behaviour must differ from previous Safari versions (however i read all the public change logs and could not related the regression change).
Also is more pronounced with HTTP/1.1 connections due to how the keep-alive is handled.
When the server is configured with a short keep-alive timeout of 1 second, and requests are sent at roughly one-second intervals, such as API pings at fixed intervals or user actions like incrementing a cart quantity that trigger backend calls where the probability of failure is high.
This effect is even more apparent when the request uses a preflight with POST because it doubles the chance, although GET requests are also affected.
This was a just a test case, but in real production our monitoring tools started to detect a big increment with this network error at scale, many requests per day... which is very disrupting, because user actions are randomly being dropped when the user actions and timming happens to be just near a previous connection, where keep alive timeout kicks-in, but because the browser is not yet notified it re-uses the same connection, but by the time it arrived the server is a dead connection. The safari just does nothing about it, does not even retry, be it a pre-flight or not, it just gives this error.
Other browsers don't have this issue.
Thanks!
Hello,
I'm working on a game that features online multiplayer. The game is developed using Unity and Apple Unity plugins.
The "isUnderAge" property restricts the online multiplayer feature. Everything works as expected on all platforms (Mac, iPhone, iPad, AppleTV, and visionPro) except on Macs equipped with an Intel chip.
Using the same iCloud and GameCenter, with no restrictions enabled, "isUnderAge" returns false, as expected, but on Mac equipped with an Intel chip, it returns true.
Is there any restriction or compatibility issue with those chips? Is there a workaround?
Thanks
Topic:
Graphics & Games
SubTopic:
GameKit
If the extension uses manifest v3 and a background script in the form of a service worker, then in Safari it is not possible to open the background script debugging window. If I expand the Developer menu in Safari, there is nothing under Web Extension Background Data (or disappear after click), which is an error. In other browsers (Edge, Chrome, Opera, Firefox) this works correctly.
If I switch the background script back to non-persistent script mode, everything works fine and from the Developer menu and the Web Extension Background Data submenu I am able to open the background script debugging window for the extension. Am I doing something wrong?
Hey everyone, I purchased an Apple Developer Program for 99 USD on January 1 2024, filled out my credit card that I use for iCloud+ storage plan, got my confirmation email that within 48h my developer account should be activated, but it never did. Plus after waiting more than 48h I wrote to support, describing everything, but never heard back from them.
One thing I noticed during the checkout was I was asked for everything (name, address, CC number, expiry date) but not the CVV number. Is this normal, and would Apple be able to process the payment without it?
I though about going through the enrolment process again, but am afraid of a double charge, in case my original enrolment gets accepted... Please advise and share your experiences when enrolling to the developer program. Thanks!
I've spent the last few days researching the upcoming laws in Texas and other US states, and how these laws will impact on developers around the world. I want to share what I've learned so far with the community and get feedback on my current understanding. This post is not so much focused on a single API, but more of the bigger picture.
Background
The law essentially mandates that: (1) app store platforms implement age categorization and verification mechanisms, and (2) developers implement logic to listen to age categorization signals provided by the platform and respond accordingly. You can read the law itself here: https://capitol.texas.gov/tlodocs/89R/billtext/html/SB02420S.HTM
Most people seem to be interpreting the law as follows: All developers who distribute apps in the USA are effectively required to implement the new APIs (required by Texas, not by Apple). The penalties are heavy, but it's unclear whether developers would actually be pursued and by whom (e.g. would someone seriously pursue an alarm clock app because it could be accessed by a minor?).
Putting aside the ethical, privacy, and legal issues (and the damaging precedents this law sets), most people seem to agree that, from a technical perspective, this is a very silly way to implement age blocking (app store collects the info and passes it to dev, dev is responsible for blocking access). It would make way more sense for the platform to block the app directly for affected users (with optional API support for developers who wish to use it). However, I believe the law has specifically mandated that this is how they expect the system to work, so Apple's hands have been tied.
Apple has basically complied with their obligations by providing the relevant APIs to developers.
Because the law is vague and open-ended, there are a lot of legal and technical uncertainties about what developers actually need to do to be compliant. Understandably, Apple seems reticent to provide any guidance to developers that could be interpreted as legal advice. Apple's docs simply describe what the APIs do with no guidance on what the overall flow is meant to look like or how and when the APIs should actually be used in practice.
Americans familiar with the political situation seem to think there's the possibility of an injunction before this law goes into effect, but that looks increasingly unlikely given that it's two weeks away.
Developer solutions
Many devs seem to be exploring two main workarounds, at least as temporary solutions: (1) Raise your app's rating to 18+. Putting aside the fact that Texas law would effectively be forcing developers to raise their global age rating (resulting in lost revenue that extends far beyond Texas), it remains unclear whether this solution is actually legally compliant, since the law specifically mandates that apps must implement logic to respond to signals from the platform. (2) Geo-block Texas. Again, it remains unclear if this is compliant because geo-blocking is not 100% accurate and it doesn't actually do what the law says you have to do. It also creates issues if you already have users in Texas, and it means performing additional privacy-hostile checks (i.e., detecting the user's location, even users who are not subject to the law).
The DeclaredAgeRange API is actually pretty straight-forward to use – although there is still a lack of documentation on certain edge cases and it's difficult to test. In addition, the new APIs are only available in iOS 26.2, so it's unclear what you need to do if you're still supporting < iOS 26.2. Some people are of the opinion that developers can only reasonably respond to the signals that are available, thus pushing responsibility back to the platforms in regards to earlier OS versions.
The API provides a bool (AgeRangeService.shared.isEligibleForAgeFeatures), which allows you to determine if the user is someone to whom age checks need to be applied. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/declaredagerange/agerangeservice/iseligibleforagefeatures I'm not 100% sure, but perhaps the simplest action you can take is to check this bool on launch and block access if it's true. In any case, it looks like this API will be very useful because it means we can avoid applying the checks in other jurisdictions and for grandfathered-in users without needing to implement custom geo-tracking code (albeit only in iOS 26.2+).
To implement the API, my current thinking is that, on every launch, I should first check the above bool and, if it's true, do the following: (1) get the App Store age rating with let appStoreAgeRating = await AppStore.ageRatingCode ?? 18, (2) request the user's age with let ageRangeResponse = try await AgeRangeService.shared.requestAgeRange(ageGates: appStoreAgeRating), (3) check that the user has agreed to share their age, (4) check that lowerBound >= appStoreAgeRating, and (5) check that the verification method is not one of the self-declared methods. If this procedure fails, I should block access to the app and provide a link to Apple's support page: https://support.apple.com/en-us/122770 I stress, however, that this is just my current idea and there are some edge cases I'm unsure about.
Other issues
It is possible to do some basic testing of the API, but only using a sandbox App Store account on a physical device. From the Developer section in iOS Settings, you can select from a few different scenarios, like "Texas user aged 14 without parental consent", etc.
There's also a whole separate aspect to this law relating to "significant updates". Everyone seems kinda confused about this, but it seems like the general idea is that, if your app's age classification changes in the future, the app should be responsive to that change. My current interpretation is that if I use the AppStore.ageRatingCode as the age gate (as described above) then that should allow me to comply, but I haven't really looked into this aspect of the law yet.
There's also another aspect to this law requiring developers to revoke access to the app when requested by the parent. I have not looked into this yet, but as noted above, it doesn't make sense to me why this is the developer's responsibility given that the platforms already provide solid parental controls. Do I need to something else in addition to what I've sketched out above?
It goes without saying, of course, that everything above is not legal advice, and I still have some gaps in my understanding.
I would really appreciate any feedback on the above, perhaps with recommendations about better ways to approach this.
Topic:
App Store Distribution & Marketing
SubTopic:
General
Tags:
Family Controls
Declared Age Range