isUserVerifyingPlatformAuthenticatorAvailable returns false on iOS 26.2 Developer Beta

I’m currently developing an application using WKWebView. After updating to iOS 26.2 Developer Beta, the following Web API started returning false:

isUserVerifyingPlatformAuthenticatorAvailable MDN: https://developer.mozilla.org/ja/docs/Web/API/PublicKeyCredential/isUserVerifyingPlatformAuthenticatorAvailable_static

This issue did not occur on iOS 26.1 — it only happens on the beta version. Has anyone else encountered this problem or is aware of any related changes?

OS: iOS 26.2 beta 3 (23C5044b)

Answered by Systems Engineer in 868252022

There are two things at play here:

  1. In iOS 26.2 and macOS 26.2, we changed the behavior of isUserVerifyingPlatformAuthenticatorAvailable() to better match the intentions from the spec. Previously, it almost always returned true. Starting in these OSes and Safari 26.2, it now only returns true when the user has at least one passkey manager set up.

  2. In a previous beta version of 26.2, there was an issue where Safari would always return false. This should be fixed in the current beta to now respect the above behavior.

Accepted Answer

There are two things at play here:

  1. In iOS 26.2 and macOS 26.2, we changed the behavior of isUserVerifyingPlatformAuthenticatorAvailable() to better match the intentions from the spec. Previously, it almost always returned true. Starting in these OSes and Safari 26.2, it now only returns true when the user has at least one passkey manager set up.

  2. In a previous beta version of 26.2, there was an issue where Safari would always return false. This should be fixed in the current beta to now respect the above behavior.

Thank you very much for your support, @Systems Engineer .

I tested this issue with iOS 26.2 RC, released on December 4, 2025 (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/ios-ipados-release-notes/ios-ipados-26_2-release-notes).

In Safari, the behavior is now correct and isUserVerifyingPlatformAuthenticatorAvailable() returns true. However, in WKWebView, the behavior remains unchanged and it still returns false.

Is there any additional information you need from me to further investigate this issue? Thanks again for your assistance.

We have observed similar behavior with WKWebView on iOS 26.2 (currently in 2026). Multiple users have reported being unable to authenticate using Passkeys within our app's webview flows. Could you please provide guidance on the recommended next steps or any known workarounds to resolve this issue?

I tested this on the latest iOS 26.3 Developer Beta, and the same issue still occurs when using WKWebView.

It also seems to affect non-Safari browsers like Chrome, which presumably rely on WKWebView internally.

We are experiencing the same issue with WKWebView on iOS 26.2 and 26.3 Beta. Like the other comments mentioned above, our application users who go through our WKWebView and have updated to these iOS versions can no longer authenticate using their Passkeys, even though Passkeys work perfectly fine on our website when accessed through Safari.

If your project is affected by any of the issues described above, please consider filing a bug report. Duplicate bug reports are useful in the sense that it allows engineering to understand how many people's projects are affected by a problem. So, don't worry about filing duplicate bug reports.

If you file a bug report, please reference this thread in the bug report and post the Feedback number here once you do. I'll check the status next time I do a sweep of forums posts where I've suggested bug reports and post any information about changes I am able to share to this thread.

Bug Reporting: How and Why? has tips on creating your bug report.

Thank you for filing FB21555029. At this time it remains open and under investigation.

Please continue testing your software in new system software updates and beta releases as they become available. And please update the status of your bug whenever you do a new test. Please see https://developer.apple.com/download/ for the most recent beta releases.

isUserVerifyingPlatformAuthenticatorAvailable returns false on iOS 26.2 Developer Beta
 
 
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