Hello I work for a company which is not itself a carrier, however we develop applications on behalf of carriers (the relationship between us and several large household name US carriers has existed for many years). The applications that we develop typically need carrier and/or special entitlements, for example: com.apple.CommCenter.fine-grained/public-subscriber-info com.apple.developer.coretelephony.sim-inserted com.apple.developer.pushkit.unrestricted-voip com.apple.developer.usernotifications.filtering com.apple.developer.associated-domains Obtaining those entitlements for the carrier applications that are released to the App Store is itself not a problem as the customers apply for them and they are duly granted and applied to the applications. However, what is a problem is working around the strict Apple development and distribution requirements and limitations, and the consequences that has given that the apps don't belong to our Apple account but the customers. Typically, a customer would provide us a developer certificate and set of provisioning profiles, but they would keep the distribution certificate and do the TestFlight/App Store release themselves. There's two limitations that come into play here, the first is that we can't distribute the app to TestFlight and secondly, we can only install the customer's apps on hardware registered with their Apple account. Given how the limitation for that is 100 in total, and these are large companies, they just don't have slots available and hence we might have a single device on which their app can run. These are very severe limitations given the complex nature of the applications and the need to have several developers/testers involved, which isn't possible. To mitigate those limitations we have "mirror" versions of customers' apps, these are apps which are identical to the customer apps except they have bundle ids registered to our Apple account. This enables the apps to be developed by any number of developers and distributed via Testfight and hence to any number of testers. But the problem is, the functionality of the mirror apps is severely reduced due to the fact they don't have the entitlements of the customers' apps. To get to the point of the post - I would like to know if there any potential solutions to this? For example: could it be possible for our mirror applications to be granted required entitlements (given the relationships we have with the customers. I'm sure the customers could vouch for us as a company and the need for this) could the entitlements be granted if we switched the mirror apps over to an Enterprise account (as enterprise apps can't be released to the App Store)? any other technical options or suggestions? Thank you

I've got a few years old app which was created using an Xcode template type of app. I'd like to split the model part of the code (model as in model-view-controller) out into a framework. Removed the view/controller source files to leave the model code is quick and easy, however the model code is large and complex with a couple of hundred of source files. Rather than create a new Xcode template type of framework and move the source files into there, is it possible to simply just change the template type of the existing project from app to framework?

The documentation for a text filter extension states that receiverISOCountryCode is a field the extension receives https://developer.apple.com/documentation/sms_and_call_reporting/ilmessagefilterqueryrequest/3979257-receiverisocountrycode "The ISO Country Code of the receiving phone number" However, if the extension defers to its text server, then the payload sent to the server doesn't contain the iso country code: POST /server-endpoint HTTP/1.1 Accept: */* Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8 Content-Length: 148 { "_version": 1, "query": { "sender": "14085550001", "message": { "text": "This is a message" } }, "app": { "version": "1.1" } } from: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/sms_and_call_reporting/ilmessagefilterextensioncontext/2880240-deferqueryrequesttonetwork Why does the payload sent to the text server not contain the country code?

I'm getting literally hundreds and hundreds of these lines appearing in the Xcode console when running the app. What's the cause? Too much logging? (if so this didn't used to appear with earlier version of Xcode, I'm currently running Xcode 16.2) How to do this: "set IDELogRedirectionPolicy to oslogToStdio in the environment of the executable." And what does doing that do? <snip> 1 log/signpost messages lost due to high rates in live mode recording. To guarantee delivery of all logs, set IDELogRedirectionPolicy to oslogToStdio in the environment of the executable. 1 log/signpost messages lost due to high rates in live mode recording. To guarantee delivery of all logs, set IDELogRedirectionPolicy to oslogToStdio in the environment of the executable. <snip>

I've got some materials in an app's bundle (some info.plist values, and some images in .xcassets files etc.) If I access them from within an app extension (a notification service extension, notification content extension for example), then it appears to work. However while running the extensions in the debugger, there were some messages in the console saying the app bundle wasn't loaded. So despite it working, this message made me wonder if its not a safe practice and it working was luck and/or timing etc. and if the materials should instead be duplicated within the extension bundle and obtained from there instead of accessing them from the app bundle?

The BUNDLE_DISPLAY_NAME of my app changes (between Testing, Staging, Production) so that it's obvious to testers etc. which varian they are using. The name contains unicode space to ensure the OS doesn't apply kerning to the spacing within the app name. If this is put directly into the info.plist then on the iPhone desktop it's displayed as desired i.e. if the info.plist contains My Application Name Then on the iPhone desktop it displays as: My Application Name However if the name is defined in an .xcconfig file as BUNDLE_DISPLAY_NAME = Xfinity Call Guard And the info.plist contains $(BUNDLE_DISPLAY_NAME) Then the name is displayed on the iPhone desktop as My Application N.... Is there a way to specify the name with the unicode characters within an .xcconfig and get that to appear as spaces on the desktop?

The documentation for adding a Message Filter Extension states that the Associated Domains capability should be added to the Xcode project. But what does that mean, should it be added to the app extension, to the app, or to both the app extension and the app? The documentation doesn't say which exactly.

I'm trying to diagnose an issue with a Message Filtering Extension not working. The associated domain for the server is not currently publicly hosted, so the associated domains specified for the app are postpended with ?mode=developer On application installation I filtered OS logging by the swcd process and saw this logged: debug 08:40:01.125071-0800 swcd Skipping domain vz….qa….cl….ce….com?mode=developer because developer mode is disabled But developer mode IS enabled on the phone (Settings/Privacy &amp; Security/Developer Mode is set to On). Therefore why is swcd saying developer mode is disabled? Is the developer mode mentioned in the documentation not actually the Developer Mode in the iPhone's setting but something else? That wouldn't appear to be the case because the documentation explicitly states "Specifies that only devices in developer mode can access the domain." Full Documentation: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/BundleResources/Entitlements/com.apple.developer.associated-domains If you use a private web server, which is unreachable from the public internet, while developing your app, enable the alternate mode feature to bypass the CDN and connect directly to your server. To do this, add a query string to your associated domains entitlement, as shown in the following example: :?mode= developer Specifies that only devices in developer mode can access the domain. So I've: turned developer mode on for the device have added ?mode=developer to the domain am building/running using a developer certificate. But why does swcd log that developer mode is disabled?

I have a question regarding specifying URLs for a Message Filter App Extension. https://developer.apple.com/documentation/identitylookup/creating-a-message-filter-app-extension The documentation states “If you have servers that can help your app extension determine how to handle a message, you must add the Associated Domains capability to your Xcode project and specify those domains.” The term servers and domains is specified in the plural, and adding two occurrences of ILMessageFilterExtensionNetworkURL to the info.plist doesn’t cause a build error. So the first question is: 1.What is the behaviour of the OS when two instances of ILMessageFilterExtensionNetworkURL but specifying different urls is defined? Does the OS, for example always try one url first, and if that doesn’t respond after N seconds, it attempts the second one? Can the Message Filter Extension indicate which of multiple defined ILMessageFilterExtensionNetworkURL should be used at run time? 3.How does the OS behave if a URL specified for ILMessageFilterExtensionNetworkURL resolves to two VIPs? Will the OS retry if the first VIP is not accessible (similar to any typical browser or web application behavior). Thank you

Is it possible for an iOS app to programmatically detect if its built for TestFlight/App Store distribution versus built for development? The motivation for doing this is so that the app can detect if a push server should send pushes using the Apple production server or the sandbox server - when the app sends the push token to the server, I'd like it to additionally send an indicator to the server so the server knows which of the Apple servers to use. Is there a way to achieve this? TIA

I've got a large and complex app which has several dependencies upon 3rd party libraries (installed as pods). The app is structured according to Model-View-Controller design and there is a requirement to implement the Model part as an .xcframework so it can be included and used in the original app along with a few new apps. However, Apple documentation states that umbrella frameworks are not supported (Technical Note TN2435). The Model code has several dependencies which would be totally unfeasible to replace or remove, for example it uses RealmSwift for database storage. Obviously it would be impossible to write one's own database storage scheme in place of using Realm. However, if my framework uses Realm as a dependency, then its now become an umbrella framework. So therefore not supported according to Apple documentation. So what are options/solutions?

I've got an app where I want to split its Model code into a framework (.xcframework and .framework for debugging) so that it can be used by more than one app. The code has dependencies on 3rd party code, which are installed via pods. During the conversion process I keep running into the same issue which manifests with all the 3rd party code - which is that the majority of its api can be used (something like 80-90%) but for the remainder there is a linker error at runtime showing undefined symbols. I have this problem with CocoaLumberjack,RealmSwift, PhoneNumberKit and more. Its very quick and easy to reproduce the issue with a minimal framework and minimal app, below I'll describe how a minimal setup using CocoaLumberjack reproduces the issue: From scratch, I use Xcode to create a framework project, run pod init, then modify the pod file to be: platform :ios, '16.0' workspace 'TheFramework' project 'TheFramework' target 'TheFramework' do use_frameworks! pod 'CocoaLumberjack/Swift', '3.8.5' end post_install do |installer| installer.pods_project.targets.each do |target| target.build_configurations.each do |config| config.build_settings['IPHONEOS_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET'] = '16.0' config.build_settings['BUILD_LIBRARY_FOR_DISTRIBUTION'] = 'YES' end end end Then I add source code: import Foundation import CocoaLumberjack public class AClassInTheFramework { public class func aMethod() { let consoleLogger = DDOSLogger.sharedInstance DDLog.add(consoleLogger, with: .debug) DDLogDebug("Some logging") } } Within the Xcode project, Build Libraries for Distribution is set to Yes, I also add that line to the pod file in case CocoaLumberjack isn't set similarly. In the Framework's Xcode General section, Frameworks and Libraries contains Pods_TheFramework.framework set to Do Not Embed. In the Build Phases section, in the Link Binary with Libraries section, Pods_TheFramework.framework is set to required. Next I create an Xcode app template, run pod install, and edit the app pod file to be: platform :ios, '16.0' workspace 'AppUsingFramework' project 'AppUsingFramework' target 'AppUsingFramework' do use_frameworks! pod 'CocoaLumberjack/Swift', '3.8.5' end post_install do |installer| installer.pods_project.targets.each do |target| target.build_configurations.each do |config| config.build_settings['IPHONEOS_DEPLOYMENT_TARGET'] = '16.0' end end end I build the framework, and drag and drop it into the app. I add the following code to the app's delegate: import TheFramework ... AClassInTheFramework.aMethod() The App's target has the following linkage settings: When I build and run the app, there is the following error: If I change the source code in the framework to this: public class AClassInTheFramework { public class func aMethod() { let consoleLogger = DDOSLogger.sharedInstance DDLog.add(consoleLogger, with: .debug) // DDLogDebug("Some logging") } } Then there is no error and the code runs successfully. This illustrates the problem I've encountered with all the nested frameworks - in this particular case calls to DDLog.add() don't result in an error but calls to DDlogDebug() do, and that has been mirrored with other nested frameworks (for example with Realm, opening a database, adding, finding,retrieving an item all works without a problem, however attempting to use Realm's Results<> API results in a similar symbol not found error). Additionally note that the identical CocoaLumberjack code can run fine when used directly from within the app, i.e., if I add the following code to the app: import CocoaLumberjack func useCocoaLumberjackDirectlyFromWithinApp() { let consoleLogger = DDOSLogger.sharedInstance DDLog.add(consoleLogger, with: .debug) DDLogDebug("Some logging") } useCocoaLumberjackDirectlyFromWithinApp() Then it runs, i.e. DDLogDebug() can be successfully called from within the app, its only when its called via the framework that the error occurs. Why might I be encountering these issues? I'd have thought either I'd be able to use 100% of the nested framework's public api, or 0% of it (is something is not configured correct), not ~80% which is what I am encountering. Any ideas? TIA

I've noticed that NSLog() doesn't do anything on iOS 26 when an app is downloaded from TestFlight. I've got an app uploaded with a liberal sprinkling of NSLog lines in it for debugging purposes - if I download that onto an iOS 18 devices, and use Apple Configurator's console or the Mac's console app, then the logging output is verbose and as expected. But if I download that same app onto an iOS 26 handset, there's nothing. Logging is visible in the Xcode console, however sometimes there are situations where you need console logging with a TestFlight build. What happened? Was this an intentional change? Why. This is a major hindrance in diagnosing issues / bugs etc.

If an iOS application has a notification service extension which gets sent a push, but the user has not been prompted for notification authorization via requestAuthorization() then what is the expected behavior? Will the push get delivered to the NSE but the resulting notification not displayed? Or will the push not get delivered at all to the NSE?

One of the responses to a call to AgeRangeService.shared.requestAgeRange is AgeRangeService.Error.invalidRequest. This has no documentation. What on earth is an invalid request - I mean the app just calls the API, there's no parameters supplied or anything, how can the request ever be invalid? If the app calls AgeRangeService.shared.requestAgeRange and gets this as a response then what is the app supposed to do with that?