Starting in iOS 26, two notable changes have been made to CallKit, LiveCommunicationKit, and the PushToTalk framework: As a diagnostic aid, we're introducing new dialogs to warn apps of voip push related issue, for example when they fail to report a call or when when voip push delivery stops. The specific details of that behavior are still being determined and are likely to change over time, however, the critical point here is that these alerts are only intended to help developers debug and improve their app. Because of that, they're specifically tied to development and TestFlight signed builds, so the alert dialogs will not appear for customers running app store builds. The existing termination/crashes will still occur, but the new warning alerts will not appear. As PushToTalk developers have previously been warned, the last unrestricted PushKit entitlement ("com.apple.developer.pushkit.unrestricted-voip.ptt") has been disabled in the iOS 26 SDK. ALL apps that link against the iOS 26 SDK which receive a voip push through PushKit and which fail to report a call to CallKit will be now be terminated by the system, as the API contract has long specified. __ Kevin Elliott DTS Engineer, CoreOS/Hardware

Starting in iOS 26.4, PushKit has introduced a new "didReceiveIncomingVoIPPushWithPayload" delegate, making it explicit whether or not an app is required to report a call for any given push. The new delegate passes in a PKVoIPPushMetadata object which includes a "mustReport" property. We have not documented the exact criteria that will cause a mustReport to return false, but those criteria currently include: The app being in the foreground at the point the push is received. The app being on an active call at the point the push is received. The system determines that delivery delays have made the call old enough that it may no longer be viable. When mustReport is false, apps should call the PushKit completion handler (as they previously have) but are otherwise not required to take any other action. __ Kevin Elliott DTS Engineer, CoreOS/Hardware

Incoming calls reported via reportNewIncomingCall on a CXProvider are correctly presented on the iPhone via CallKit, but are never relayed to the paired Apple Watch. Native cellular calls relay to the Watch correctly on the same devices. What does a VoIP app's CXProvider need to satisfy for callservicesd to consider it eligible for phone continuity relay to paired Apple Watch?

We are seeing a reproducible scenario on iOS 26 where incoming VoIP push notifications are never delivered when the device has been idle and screen-locked for 30+ minutes. The same failure was observed simultaneously on WhatsApp, and Microsoft Teams and our app as well, on the same device during one incident, confirming this is a platform-level issue and not specific to our implementation. We have captured full system logs across three separate incidents. Below are the exact log sequences. Incident — All VoIP apps fail simultaneously (Our app, WhatsApp, Teams) Device: iPhone 17 Pro · iOS: 18.x · Network: 5G NSA (kNRNSA) The device had been idle with the screen locked for approximately 31 minutes. An LTE cell handover caused apsd to begin an APNs reconnection. powerd entered policy 3 before apsd reached channel-flow viable, defuncting the app. 17:45:59.562 symptomsd New RRC 0 when previous 1 from pdp_ip0 ↑ Radio drops to RRC_Idle. Device has been idle since 17:14:56 (31 min). 17:46:01.206 CommCenter #I Mapping the registration state to kRegisteredHome ↑ LTE cell handover triggers RRC reconnect. 17:46:01.330 apsd [C138 IPv4#b71cac13:5223 ready parent-flow (satisfied (Path is satisfied), interface: pdp_ip0[lte], scoped, ipv4, ipv6, dns, expensive, uses cell, LQM: good)] event: path:satisfied_change @594.391s ↑ APNs path re-satisfied. Reconnection begins. channel-flow viable NOT yet reached — TLS handshake still in progress. 17:48:08.057 apsd Powerd has requested assertion activity update ↑ Warning: powerd about to change policy. ── 2 minutes 40 seconds after APNs reconnect started ── 17:48:41.248 powerd Sending com.apple.powerd.assertionpolicy 3 17:48:41.250 apsd Update assertion policy 3 17:48:41.250 powerd Activity changes from 0x1 to 0x0. UseActiveState:0 17:48:41.250 powerd hidActive:0 displayOff:1 assertionActivityValid:0 ↑ Screen off, device locked. OS enters restricted idle. apsd restricted. APNs reconnection abandoned. 17:48:42.669 kernel necp_process_defunct_list: necp_update_client abort nexus error (2) for pid 1518 Comera ↑ Kernel terminates Comera's network stack via NECP. No API available to prevent this. WhatsApp and Teams remain suspended — no DEFUNCT, but apsd in policy 3 means no push delivery for them either. ── Dead zone: VoIP pushes for all 3 apps undeliverable ── 17:50:04.028 powerd Process CommCenter.104 Created SystemIsActive "com.apple.ipTelephony.sipIncoming.cell" ↑ Incoming cellular PSTN call forces system wake. 17:50:04.494 powerd Sending com.apple.powerd.assertionpolicy 0 17:50:04.598 apsd Update assertion policy 0 ↑ Full wake. Queued VoIP pushes from Comera, WhatsApp, and Teams are delivered simultaneously. Gap between channel-flow viable needed and actual delivery: 4 minutes 3 seconds. Recovery trigger: external cellular call from carrier — not any app action. Working case (same test, different conditions) Device: iPhone 17 Pro · iOS: 26.5.1 · Screen unlocked, no hotspot 19:2x:xx apsd policy state {downgradeWhenLocked: NO, isSystemLocked: NO, isConnectedOnUltraConstrainedInterface: NO} ↑ Device unlocked. No policy 3. Comera NOT defuncted. Push delivered. Call rings normally. Our implementation PKPushRegistry is held strongly and re-registered on every applicationWillEnterForeground reportNewIncomingCall(with:update:completion:) is called synchronously within pushRegistry(_:didReceiveIncomingPushWith:) VoIP background mode entitlement is present App has com.apple.developer.pushkit.voip entitlement Questions Is there any entitlement or API to prevent NECP from defuncting a process holding an active PKPushRegistry? The VoIP push entitlement exists for exactly this background delivery scenario. Is pushDisallowed being applied to apps with VoIP push entitlements when InternetSharingActive == 1 intentional? Should VoIP entitlements exempt an app from the Internet Sharing Policy gate in dasd? Is there a documented way to know when apsd has fully completed APNs reconnection (i.e. channel-flow viable) so a server can time push retries more accurately within a call validity window? What is the recommended apns-expiration value for VoIP pushes to survive brief APNs reconnection windows without exceeding a 60-second call validity period? Full log stream captures available for all incidents.

Hello! Our app includes a calling feature for some users, and we would like to promote to those users that they can set our app as their default calling app. If there is no way to check this state, then the risk is that we may repeatedly prompt users to enable something they have already enabled. There also doesn't appear to be a way to set the default calling app programmatically, and that the best we can do may be to direct the user to the default app section in Settings. For our app, the calling capability is only applicable to some users. For users who are not eligible to place calls, we would prefer that they not be able to set our app as the default calling app at all. Otherwise, iOS may route calling actions to our app. So my questions are: Is there any supported API or other mechanism to determine whether the user has set our app as their default calling app? Is there any supported way to enable, disable, or hide default calling app eligibility programmatically? My current understanding is that neither of these is possible, but I would appreciate confirmation or any recommended workaround. Thanks.

We have an VoiP application, our application can be configured to amplify the PCM samples before feeding it to the Player to achieve volume gain at the receiver. In order to support this, We follow as below. If User has configured this Gain Settings within application, Application applies the amplification for the samples to introduce the gain. Application will also set the AVAudioSessionCategory to AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback Provided the User has chosen the output to Speaker. This settings was working for us but we see there is a difference in behaviour w.r.t Volume Level System Settings between OS 26.3.1 and OS 26.4 When user has chosen earpiece as Output, then we will set the AVAudioSessionCategory to AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayAndRecord. User would have set the volume level to minimum. When user will change the output to Speaker, then we will set the AVAudioSessionCategory to AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback. The expectation is, the volume level should be of AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback what was set earlier instead we are seeing the volume level stays as minimum which was set to AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayAndRecord Could you please explain about this inconsistency w.r.t Volume level.

Environment: iOS 18.7.8, CallKit + PushKit VoIP. On VoIP push we call reportNewIncomingCall and show the system CallKit UI. Goal: When the user declines from the CallKit UI, send a single HTTPS POST to our backend in realtime, across all app states. Problem: Foreground and backgrounded states work. When the app is terminated (system-evicted or user-force-quit), the push launches the app, CallKit shows, and we receive CXEndCallAction — but the network request doesn't reliably leave the device. The process is suspended/terminated moments after the action returns. Tried: URLSession.shared dataTask inside CXEndCallAction — frozen with the app; resumes only on next foreground launch. beginBackgroundTask(withName:) around the request — insufficient when terminated. Background URLSession (.background, isDiscretionary = false, sessionSendsLaunchEvents = true, uploadTask(fromFile:), body staged in Caches, held briefly with a task assertion). Reliable when backgrounded; still unreliable/delayed when terminated, especially after force-quit. Questions: Is reliable, near-realtime client network delivery from a terminated, PushKit-launched app possible, or is this an inherent platform constraint? If it's a constraint, is the recommended pattern to treat the decline as best-effort and make the server authoritative (e.g., ring timeout)? Any official references? Does force-quit vs. system termination change background-execution / background-URLSession guarantees, and is there a supported approach for force-quit specifically? Any API we missed (e.g., a sanctioned way to extend runtime during CXEndCallAction, or background-URLSession scheduling guarantees for VoIP) that makes this realtime-reliable?

I just updated my testing device OS to iOS 26.5 and was trying to validate if our sdk is working fine or not and we found Call blocking is not at working for this update. I already seen some of the post regarding call blocking will not work if call to the expected block number is initiated from testing device. So just to clarify that is not the case in our findings.

We have an app that uses CallKit for outgoing Voip calls. One of our users started experiencing an issue, where he sometimes receives an UnknownCallProvider error from CallKit 10 seconds after the transaction request. This happens both after the app stays open for a while, and on fresh launches. A device restart didn't help as well. He is not on any other call during that time. It seems to happen only to him, and only sometimes. Any estimation what could be the cause? Or how to find out? What are the possible reasons that produce this error?

We have an app that uses PushKit and CallKit for video calling. These are often emergency calls, so very latency-sensitive. We keep track of when we sent out the APNs request and when the phone started ringing. The p95 latency is about 2 seconds (mean is ~800ms), which feels quite long.. Is this normal? I'd expect <500ms most of the time given that the devices and servers are all within the US. The users typically have a stable internet connection. Our requests look like this: POST https://api.push.apple.com/3/device/<DEVICE_TOKEN> apns-topic: com.vpt.physician.voip apns-push-type: voip apns-priority: 10 apns-expiration: 0 authorization: bearer <APNS_PROVIDER_TOKEN> content-type: application/json {  "aps": {    "content-available": 1  },  "title": "Example Text",  "type": "CallFromTablet",  "timeout_ms": 30000 } If there's any more info I can provide to help troubleshoot this, let me know. Thanks in advance.

Hi, am facing an issue related to voip push notifications getting delivered 1-2 hours after apns-expiration to 0 and apns-priority to 10. I had raised a similar post got a reply that it may be due to network delay. But network delay can cause the delivery of voip push to be delayed only by few seconds or minutes. But in our case voip push is getting delivered hours after the voip call was attempted. Steps to reproduce: Put our voip app in background and lock iPhone. As app is put in background, socket connections gets disconnected from server. Now if a caller makes call to this app, the call should be delivered through voip push. 2) Voip push should ideally be received even if app is in background and iPhone is locked. It is connected to a good wifi network. But it does not receive the voip push. 3) After 1-2 hours user unlocks iPhone and opens voip app. As soon as user opens app, the voip push is received and phone starts ringing.

Hi, I have some scenario in which I need to reportIncoming to CallKit with same UUID 2 times. So I just need to know that, it will cause an issue of CallKit or with application.

Hello! I’m building a VoIP app for iPhone and Apple Watch using PushKit and CallKit. I’m trying to understand the recommended watchOS architecture for this kind of setup. What we would like is for the watch to behave as an endpoint for incoming calls, so that when a call comes in the user can answer on either the iPhone or the watch. My understanding is that VoIP notifications are not supported on watchOS, so for incoming calls what we ended up having to do was send the watch a regular APNs alert notification and only start the actual call setup after the user interacts with it. This isn’t ideal, and the notification often appears a few seconds late. What we would like to be able to do is present the incoming call on the watch more like how FaceTime calls appear on Apple Watch. So I wanted to ask whether this is the intended pattern for a companion watchOS VoIP app. Is using a regular APNs alert notification the correct way to surface an incoming call on the watch, or is there a better supported approach? Thanks!

I’m developing an iOS app that integrates with CallKit. Starting from iOS 26, I’ve noticed that the system automatically presents a top banner / toast-style UI when a CallKit call becomes active (see attached screenshot). This UI appears to be fully managed by the system. On iOS versions prior to iOS 26, this UI did not appear under the same CallKit configuration. What I’ve observed The banner is displayed automatically by the system It appears at the top of the screen, similar to a toast or call status banner It is not a view created by my app I could not find any public API or CallKit configuration related to dismissing or controlling it My questions： Is this top banner an intended system behavior change in newer iOS versions? Is there any public API to dismiss, hide, or customize this UI? If not, is this UI considered non-dismissible by design? Any clarification on the expected behavior or recommended approach would be greatly appreciated.

By analysis the log, seems the following 3 calls has been ended by system callkit (Not mainly trigger the end call): @apple Do you have similar report that the iOS CallKit End the call withtour user action? Device info: iPhone18,1（iPhone 16 Pro） iOS 26.2 RCAppMobile/25.4.30.995 CTRadioAccessTechnologyNR（5G NR）

token：eb3b63ab94b136f6d25a86d48bb4b7ff20377e393f137cb4f43b17560112bf51 msgId：67d4c88d-61b1-4f51-df0b-2efa022fd672 机型：iPhone7 系统：iOS 15.8.3 问题描述：后端服务器调用苹果提供的pushKit推送API且已成功返回上述msgId，客户端App也已经实现对应的CallKit方法reportNewIncomingCall，但没有收到对应的推送，这是什么原因呢？

I try to update remoteHandle using CXCallUpdate for outgoing call, but this works only on iOS 15 but not on 17 or 18 (16 didn't test). This problem actual only for outgoing calls, but for incoming calls update works fine. func startOutgoingCall(with callID: UUID, userID: String) { let handle = CXHandle(type: .generic, value: userID) let action = CXStartCallAction(call: callID, handle: handle) callController.requestTransaction(with: action) { [weak self] error in // ... } } func updateOutgoingCall(with callID: UUID, groupID: String) { let update = CXCallUpdate() update.remoteHandle = CXHandle(type: .generic, value: groupID) provider.reportCall(with: callID, updated: update) } I also tried phoneNumber type but it seems initial handle that I set to CXStartCallAction not possible to change (value or even type). I use this handle value to implement recall by tap on call in Recents tab of system address book. But since my calls can transform from p2p to group call, I need to update handle value or find some another way to pass call identification info.

Hi everyone, We noticed a readability issue with the CallKit incoming call UI on the lock screen in iOS 26. In our case, the “slide to answer” text appears too faint and unclear, making it difficult to read. The arrow button is visible, but the text itself has very low contrast against the background, especially on certain wallpapers or under lower brightness conditions. From the screenshot, you can see that: the caller name is clear, the overall incoming call UI is shown correctly, but the “slide to answer” label is barely visible. This seems to be a system UI / CallKit presentation issue rather than something controlled by the app, since we are using the standard CallKit incoming call flow. We would like to know: Has anyone else seen this issue on iOS 26? Is this considered a known UI regression or contrast issue in the new system design? Is there any supported way to improve the visibility of this text, or is it fully managed by the system? Any confirmation or related reports would be very helpful. Thanks.

Hello everyone, I’m an iOS developer working on a real-time communication app that supports VoIP calls using CallKit. The app has been in production for more than 5 years. Over the years, some users have occasionally reported that they do not receive incoming call pushes. We have tried multiple optimizations on both the client and server side, but the improvement has been limited. From Apple documentation and discussions online, I understand that iOS may restrict VoIP pushes if the system detects violations of VoIP push usage rules (for example, not presenting a CallKit call after receiving a VoIP push). However, the exact rules and thresholds for these violations are not clearly documented, so I’d like to ask a few questions to better understand the expected behavior. Below is a simplified description of our current call flow. Call Flow Caller When the user initiates a call: We do not use CallKit The call is handled entirely using a custom in-app call UI Callee When the user receives a call: Device locked or app in background A VoIP push wakes the app The app presents the CallKit incoming call UI App in foreground The server still sends a VoIP push The app first reports the call to CallKit After a very short delay, the app programmatically ends the CallKit call Then a custom in-app call UI is presented via the app's long connection The reason we always send a VoIP push (even when the app is in the foreground) is that we want to maximize call delivery reliability.

Our watchOS app is exploring adding audio VOIP calling capability using our in-home platform. We are using LiveCommunicationKit for this and have that all hooked up nicely in a proof of concept implementation. Our use case is primarily based around supporting end-users through various tasks with assistance from a remotely based expert. We would like for our platform to be able to display visual content on the watch's screen during the call – in other words, we would like to be able to treat this as a video call. LiveCommunicationKit fully supports all video-related flags on watchOS and doesn't appear to have any different symbol availability versus its iOS version. This high-quality thread (https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/798090) from a DTS engineer suggests that our use case should be valid (i.e. whiteboarding apps) and that the system's response to an accepted income video call is to dismiss the LCK's incoming call screen and bring the target app to the foreground, allowing it to render its custom content. Unfortunately, on watchOS the system doesn't seem to treat a video call any differently from an audio call, and won't dismiss the system UI once it's answered. We fully realize that Apple Watch doesn't have a camera for outbound video, doesn't support VideoToolbox or other low-level video convenience libraries for simplified rendering and decoding, etc. That's not what we're worried about (yet). The documentation is at best unclear about whether LCK (or CallKit, for that matter) can hand off calls flagged as video-compatible according to how we think they should, which is passing foreground UI over to the app once the call has been accepted by the user. Can any Apple people shed some light on this? I recognize we are probably trying to do something not many people have before.