I have noticed that when I select the app token of the youtube app to be blocked via a ManagedSettingsStore, the youtube website is blocked as well (which is a good and intended behavior IMO). But how do I know in the ShieldConfigurationDataSource’s override func configuration(shielding webDomain: WebDomain, in category: ActivityCategory) -> ShieldConfiguration to which ManagedSettingsStore the WebDomain’s token is related? We use different ManagedSettingsStores for different block purposes, which differentiate in their ShieldConfiguration. Thanks a lot and have a great day!

We’ve received a lot of user complains after the latest iOS 17.4 update. Our Safari extension does not work as reliably as it used to be (sometimes it’s just not loaded, or very slowly). Is this a known issue? Are any workarounds available? On iOS 17.5 the problem seems to be fixed, but I’m still wondering for a workaround because we dont know how long until 17.5 is released.

Hello, I am working on an app that schedules a device activity monitor from the screen time API. I noticed that sometimes scheduling an activity monitor won’t work and instead I see this log: Canceling request to […].DeviceActivityMonitorExtension because it exceeded its allowed time. What does this mean? What exactly is exceeding its allowed time? Would love to get some feedback on this so I can prevent this from happening. Thanks a lot for any help and have a nice day!

Hello HealthKit Experts & Enthusiasts! I am building an app called one sec which forces people to take a deep breath before they can use social media apps (it’s using Shortcuts Automations for that). One important feature of one sec is the Good Morning Countdown: For a specified time after waking up (e.g. 30mins) selected apps are blocked completely. This helps to start the day screen-free. They way it works is, the user grants access to read HKCategoryTypeIdentifier.sleepAnalysis data. I have implemented a HKObserverQuery and enableBackgroundDelivery in order to be informed whenever new HKCategoryTypeIdentifier.sleepAnalysis becomes available. I noticed that when I have my device connected to Xcode, this works as expected. However, when I quit the app and launch it from my Home Screen, my observer query is not informed about new sleep data (except when my app is running in foreground). Any ideas? Furthermore, I have noticed that sometimes sleep data is provided delayed to HealthKit, many minutes (sometimes even longer) after waking up, no sleep samples are to be found in the Health app. Of course, for my app it is crucial to get accurate + timely so apps can be blocked accordingly. Is this an issue that the Apple Watch first needs to send the samples to the phone? Thanks a lot for your help!

Hello fellow Screen Time developers! I have bee experimenting with the ActivityCategoryPolicy.all(except: allowList) API of the ManagedSettings framework in order to provide a digital detox feature to my app, where ALL apps would be blocked, except some important ones (phone, messages, maps). The apps to be exempted can be configured by the user via the FamilyActivitySelection(). However, I am experiencing a strange bug, where all apps are restricted / blocked, even the ones that are set to be exempted and are part of the allowList Set. Instead of not restricting allowed apps at all, these apps are restricted with a generic shield (screenshot below) – a concrete shield is not requested for them from my ShieldConfigurationDataSource. I have also filed a radar under this number, attached is a minimalistic sample project and video that shows how to reproduce this: FB15500605 (no response so far) I have also seen other people report on this issue, but couldn't find any useful information there: https://forums.developer.apple.com/forums/thread/750988 https://forums.developer.apple.com/forums/thread/762287 Thanks a lot for your help, and have a nice day!

Hello! I am experiencing some strange bugs around DeviceActivityEvents: When creating a DeviceActivityEvent we can assign a threshold and applicationTokens. The idea is, that after the user has spent said threshold on said apps, eventDidReachThreshold is called. includesPastActivity is set to false. On iOS 26 however, it happens (quite reliably after updating to a new beta seed) quite often that eventDidReachThreshold is called immediately (after a couple of seconds) instead of waiting for the threshold to be met. Is anyone else seeing similar issues on iOS 26? Only workaround I have found is to ask users to re-grant Screen Time permissions. This only holds for about two weeks though or at most until the next iOS 26 beta update is installed. Feedback filed under: FB18061981 FB18927456

Hello, my app is frequently loosing / forgetting the Screen Time Permission that had been granted previously on iOS 26. I have experienced it myself, sysdiagnose is in this radar: FB18997699 But also also my App Store users who have updated to iOS 26 already have reported this bug. It would be great if Apple could ensure that this bug is addressed before iOS 26 is released to the public.

Dear Screen Time Team! The Screen Time passcode can be brute-forced without rate limiting by repeatedly attempting guesses through the "Erase All Content and Settings" flow. This allows unlimited passcode attempts with no delay, lockout, or escalation, effectively defeating the purpose of the Screen Time passcode as a parental control mechanism. Impact: Children can bypass Screen Time protections by guessing the passcode No rate limiting enables trivial brute-force attacks (especially for 4-digit codes) Undermines trust in Screen Time as a parental control system Creates real-world safety risks for families relying on Screen Time restrictions Publicly shared methods (e.g. on TikTok) increase likelihood of widespread abuse Steps to Reproduce: Enable Screen Time and set a passcode Open Settings → General → Transfer or Reset iPhone → Erase All Content and Settings When prompted for the Screen Time passcode, enter an incorrect code Repeat the process with different guesses Expected Result: After a small number of incorrect attempts, the system should: enforce exponential backoff delays, or temporarily lock further attempts, or require Apple ID authentication Attempts should be rate-limited across system flows Actual Result: Unlimited passcode attempts are allowed No delay, lockout, or penalty is applied Enables rapid brute-force guessing of the Screen Time passcode Notes: This appears to bypass standard passcode protections that exist in other parts of iOS The issue is especially severe for 4-digit Screen Time passcodes (10,000 combinations) The attack surface is exposed through a system-level reset flow Suggested Fix: Introduce global rate limiting for Screen Time passcode attempts across all entry points Apply exponential backoff after failed attempts Require Apple ID authentication after multiple failures Consider enforcing 6-digit minimum passcodes for Screen Time Log and unify attempt counters across system components Severity: Critical (Security vulnerability enabling brute-force of parental control passcode) See TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@aldanaisthebest12170/video/7615053429500644621 Feedback request: FB22263276 – Frederik (one sec app)

Hello, I would like to make use of the new SwiftUI Text API for a Lockscreen Widget, but I wasn't able to figure out how I can achieve what I envision: I am looking for a way to display the days, hours, minutes since the time stamp. Of course, whenever day=0, they shouldn't be displayed. Whenever day>0, minutes can be dropped. So I assume I can set maxFieldCount: 2 for that. This is my current code: Text( .currentDate, format: .reference( to: entry.lastUseDate, allowedFields: [.day, .hour, .minute], maxFieldCount: 2, thresholdField: .day ) ) This is how it looks like; somehow the minutes are not displayed. What am I doing wrong?

Hello, I am new to be using on-demand resources in my project, it’s a wonderful idea and concept I have to say! Kudos to whoever invented this! I am facing one problem that I couldn't solve so far: whenever I switch between the TestFlight / App Store / local Xcode builds I receive this error message: Code=4099 "Connection invalidated to streaming unzip service." Does anyone know what this means and how I can resolve it? I saw this other thread where it was recommended to delete & reinstall the app, but that is not always feasible because then all user data from the app is lost as well: https://forums.developer.apple.com/forums/thread/707070 Thanks a lot for any hints!

Hello, I have enabled HealthKit background delivery for sleep analysis samples: private func setupSleepDataBackgroundDelivery() { if let sleepType = HKObjectType.categoryType(forIdentifier: HKCategoryTypeIdentifier.sleepAnalysis) { healthStore.enableBackgroundDelivery(for: sleepType, frequency: .immediate) { (success, error) in } } } In general, this function works. But I would love to know what the limitations / expected delivery delay for frequency: .immediate is. The documentation is only very vague about this and specifies that some sample types such as steps are only delivered once per hour. But how about sleep data? Is this expected to be delivered immediately once available on iPhone? Thanks a lot for your help!

Hello, I have noticed that the ShieldConfiguration is only requested when opening a target app, and never when the application token is moved to a different shield while the target app remains in foreground. This causes problems because many times the wrong ShieldConfiguration is displayed (recycled) instead of requesting a new ShieldConfiguration. This bug has been around since the introduction of the Screen Time API in 2020 and is has not been addressed. Bug reports: FB14237883 FB17902392 Please fix asap!! Not acceptable to have bugs not being addressed for more than 5 years. Most concerning: This is still reproducing on iOS 26 beta 7!! Thanks a lot for your help.

Hello, I am the developer of an app called one sec which helps users to spend less time on social media: https://one-sec.app Therefore, we make heavy use of the Screen Time API, and thus ManagedSettings and ShieldActionDelegate. One feature of one sec is the so-called “Doom Scroll Emergency Brake”. This blocks a target app after a certain usage threshold (e.g. 5 minutes) and requires going through an intervention (e.g. breathing exercise) to unlock more time. That added friction makes it very effective in reducing time spent on apps. One thing that is confusing for our users is the way they are prompted to unlock more time, if they want to. They have to: Have Push Notifications enabled for one sec Exempt one sec’s notifications from being delayed by AI prioritization (otherwise they are delayed by ca. 10s) Ensure that push notifications can be delivered during foci. Understand that they have to tap on the notification, which is not very straight-forward because it does not make sense from the user’s UX perspective. This is an artificial limitation of Apple’s screen time framework which has no reason (no security / privacy implications here…). Screenshots of the current flow attached. If would be much more reasonable if there was a new ShieldActionResponse.openParentApp value that can be returned from the completion handler of the ShieldActionDelegate.handle(…) callback. We have seen different apps use private API to achieve this, but we are afraid to do the same to avoid getting banned from the App Store. It would be fair if Apple would level the playground for all apps and offer such an API officially. – Frederik PS: Tracked under FB22347946, FB18846650, FB15500681, FB15079668, FB10393561 (all without responses so far…)

Hello, I think it is quite a common use-case to open the parent app that owns the ShieldActionDelegate when the user selects an action in the Shield. There are only three options available that we can do in response to an action: ShieldActionResponse.none ShieldActionResponse.close ShieldActionResponse.defer It would be great if this new one would be added as well: ShieldActionResponse.openParentApp While finding a workaround for now, the problem is that the ShieldActionDelegate is not a normal app extension. That means, normal tricks do not work to open the parent app from here. For example, UIApplication.shared.open(url) does not work because we can’t access UIApplication from the ShieldActionDelegate unfortunately. NSExtensionContext is also not available in the ShieldActionDelegate unfortunately, so that’s also not possible. There are apps however, that managed to find a workaround, in my research I stumbled across these two: https://apps.apple.com/de/app/applocker-passcode-lock-apps/id1132845904?l=en-GB https://apps.apple.com/us/app/app-lock/id6448239603 Please find a screen recording (gif) attached. Their workaround is 100% what I’m looking for, so there MUST be a way to do so that is compliant with the App Store guidelines (after all, the apps are available on the App Store!). I had documented my feature request more than 2 years ago in this radar as well: FB10393561

Hello! I am working on an app that requires to send a local push notification to the user from an app extension (from the ShieldActionDelegate to be precise). This is suggested by DTS as a workaround for this issue: https://forums.developer.apple.com/forums/thread/766644 But now, on the iOS 18.2 beta, local push notifications are delayed by up to 10 seconds, even though the push notification is classified as .timeSensitive, leading to a very bad user experience (where to user has to sit and wait for the notification to arrive without knowing how long it will take). This only happens when Apple Intelligence is turned on. This had happened previously on the iOS 18.1 beta but was fixed for the final release: https://forums.developer.apple.com/forums/thread/764848 But now the issue came back on the latest iOS 18.2 beta. I have documented the new behavior in FB15668616 Any help is appreciated!