re: contents "If the layer object is tied to a view object, you should avoid setting the contents of this property directly. The interplay between views and layers usually results in the view replacing the contents of this property during a subsequent update" I've created a separate layer that is not the View's layer and it does not address this

Any sample code you could provide here :)? Very similar situation and my layer with IOSurface contents never updates never updates despite kCVPixelFormatType_32BGRA

The setNeedsDisplay docs claim it clears the contents. If you have anything updating over top of the view (I have an overlay that fades in and out) the underlying layer will update during the animation. Would be so amazing to figure out how to have IOSurface backed pixelbuffer update the screen. I have a use case where I want to use the pixelbuffer elsewhere but also display it to the screen @ 30fps. I can blit it or do a number of other methods to display it (wrap it in CIImage and UIImage) but this seems to be the whole point of the IOSurface - easily displayed shared memory. Why doesn't this work out of the box and why is there no documentation?

So much for universal... Seeing this as well. It's mind numbing to try to find a format that works for scenekit that includes lights + cameras + animations + blendshapes + rigged animations.