A lot of apps use undocumented App-prefs URLs to help users get to the iOS Settings screen needed to set up the app. In iOS 18, it seems like these all stopped working. Here are the ones I currently use: App-prefs:MESSAGES - broken in iOS 18 Used for SMS Protection. App-prefs:Phone - broken in iOS 18 Used for Live Voicemail, Silence Unknown Callers, and SMS Reporting. Some but not most paths have specific documented replacements. E.g. for Call Blocking & Identification you can use CXCallDirectoryManager.sharedInstance.openSettings() and this still works in iOS 18. But I don't see any other direct replacements. Apple probably doesn't consider this a bug but I filed FB14378568 anyway. I consider this an accessibility issue because many older, inexperienced, or users with disabilities have trouble finding the right Settings screen based on a textual description alone.

Hi, I want to detect if there is a fullscreen window on each screen. _AXUIElementGetWindow and kAXFullscreenAttribute methods work, but I have to be in a non-sandbox environment to use them. Is there any other way that also works? I don't think it's enough to judge if it's fullscreen by comparing the window size to the screen size, since it doesn't work on MacBook with notch, or the menu bar is set to 'auto-hide'. Thanks.

I am getting this issue when trying to accept an invite to a new test version of our app. ****Unable to Accept invite This invitation cannot be accepted because your Apple Account, xxxxxxxx.me.com, has already been associated to this app.**** Can you help please?

I occasionally get this error in Xcode’s console: Potential Structural Swift Concurrency Issue: unsafeForcedSync called from Swift Concurrent context. What does this mean, and how can I resolve it? Googling it doesn’t turn up any results. This doesn't crash the app - it’s just an error diagnostic that I see in the Xcode console. The app keeps running before and after the issue. Is there a way I can set a breakpoint to catch this where it happens?

I'm developing a calculator app and working to ensure a great experience for both VoiceOver and Braille display users. For expressions like (2+3)×5, I need two different accessibility outputs: VoiceOver (spoken): A descriptive string like “left paren two plus three right paren times five,” provided via .accessibilityValue. I'm using a custom spellOut function since VoiceOver doesn't announce parentheses—which are kind of important when doing math! Braille (symbolic): The literal math string (2+3)×5, provided using .accessibilityCustomContent("", ...), with an empty label so it’s not spoken aloud. The issue: I don’t have access to a Braille display device and Xcode’s Accessibility Inspector doesn’t seem to show the custom content. Is there any way to confirm that custom Braille content is being set correctly in Simulator or with other tools? Or…is there a "math mode" in VoiceOver that forces it to announce parentheses? Any advice or workarounds would be much appreciated! Thanks, Uhl

Please note the error after the iOS 26 update I updated to the beta version of iOS 26, but the phone did not charge more than one percent and it reboots every couple of minutes when charging. In the settings, the maximum battery capacity says 0% the phone did not fall before the update, everything was fine, I updated it and this stuff started Even the recovery can't be done because it restarts in the middle of the process.

Every new build of macOS 26 further breaks some part of text-to-speech or voice control. I have filed multiple bug reports on this, yet the situation gets worse, not better, with each new build. I am begging you to fix this! I am disabled and rely on these features to work. Accessibility in macOS is more than 50% of my reasons for choosing Macs over Windows. Here's some of what is currently broken: Speak announcements only works if the Samantha voice is selected. If other voices are selected either the announcements don't speak, or they default to the Samantha voice. This became broken with 26.1. Announce the time only works with some voices. I would like to use Australian English Siri 2 but with that voice selected it defaults to Samantha. This became broken with 26.4. With voice control enabled there are two menu bar icons. The blue voice control icon and an orange microphone "an application is accessing the microphone" icon. This orange icon started appearing with 26.3. For four years of macOS releases, the orange warning didn't apply to system services. And note that with voice control enabled on iOS there is no orange icon. It wastes valuable menu bar space and defeats its purpose. With that orange icon always being there I have no indication if a nefarious app starts recording me. This became broken with 26.3. Overlay shows numbers even when it is set to none. This has been broken since at least 14.0. I don't remember if it was broken in prior versions but it has been broken in every version since 14.0. The voice control control center widget is defective. If voice control is not in the menu bar (for example if I've said "Siri turn off voice control") using the control center widget to turn it on brings about the orange icon, but not the blue icon actually used for controlling voice control. If you do have the blue voice control icon and use control center to turn off voice control the blue icon stays but voice control is not enabled. This became broken in 26.0, was fixed in 26.2, broke again in 26.4. When using voice control to edit text (aka dictation mode) saying "go to the end of the line" invariably goes to the beginning of the line. Once in a blue moon it will go to the end, but there is no rhyme or reason and it's rare that it does. Since this bug was added it has worked correctly exactly twice. This became broken in 26.3 (possibly 26.4). I know I am missing some issues. Voice control and text-to-speech have new bugs with each new build of macOS 26. My main Mac is being repaired and once I get it back I'll be installing macOS 15 Sequoia on it because of these issues. These issues stop me from buying a new Mac because any new Mac will only run the broken macOS 26. I file bug reports on each build when I discover another new issue, but these reports seemingly go unread. I would suggest Apple get a focus group of disabled people together and do research into how we use macOS. Find what's broken and what works. And if Apple does this I would be glad to be a part of that group. My place, or yours. Accessibility at one time was something Apple was proud of. It was some Apple showed off. But now, I'm not so sure. It's starting to look like Apple doesn't care. I hope I'm wrong, and that Apple does care, so... Please, Apple. I am begging you. Fix broken Text-To-Speech and Voice Control!

Hi Apple Developer Community, I'm experiencing persistent issues with the Apple Search Ads API since today morning (August 16, 2025). My application keeps getting "Service Unavailable" errors when trying to connect to the API endpoints. Error Details: Error Message: "Service Unavailable" HTTP Status: 503/500 API Endpoint: https://api.searchads.apple.com/api/v5/* Frequency: Consistent failures since August 16, 2025 What I've Tried: Verified API credentials and certificates are valid Tested multiple API endpoints Checked network connectivity The API was working fine until yesterday, and no changes were made to our implementation. Any insights or updates from the community would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance for your help!

We have a password entry field with a "show password" button. The button effectively turns the "secure text entry" textfield into a non-secure text entry field allowing the user to view what they typed in. When VoiceOver is enabled, I am not including that button in the UI; it doesn't seem to make sense to me for the following reasons. If you properly test with the screen curtain, the functionality is useless. You don't see anything. I've tried to explain this to my accessibility team. It's also quite ridiculous to offer to show a blind user their password, I'm sure they'd love to see it, but they just can't. This would almost seem insulting as well. If by toggling that button, and turning a secure text entry into a non-secure text entry, now the app is literally speaking their password aloud. This seems like a security vulnerability to me. What if someone else overhears the password spoken aloud. The accessibility team is insisting that I need to include the "show password" button when VoiceOver is enabled. This is the response I received. "functionality should be the same for VI users as for sighted users. It may happen that a VI user wants to check what is typed into password field in order to correct mistakes". Again, I don't agree with that because functionality should not be the same. Functionality should be changed and altered as necessary to make the user experience as accessible as possible. And in this scenario, to me the functionality doesn't make sense at all in a VoiceOver setting. Any thoughts on this? Am I incorrect here? Are there benefits of including a "show password" button to a user utilizing VoiceOver? What should then the functionality be? Speak the password aloud? Thanks.

I’ve noticed that the VoiceOver reads currency amounts correctly when they are below thousand. Then, for higher amounts, for example 12.225,34 € VoiceOver reads ‘twelve point two two five thirty four euros’ If the amount is formatted without the thousand separator (12225,34 €) this problem doesn’t exist. (VO reads twelve thousand two hundred and twenty five euros and thirty four cents) Why is the thousand separator a problem for VoiceOver if this formatting is coming from the currency and locale? This issue exists in English. I changed my device language to Italian and German and in both cases the number was read correctly even with the separator. Is there a way to make it work in English?

Our company enrolled in the Apple Developer Program as an organization in July 2024. Everything was fine for several months, but in early January 2025, our developer noticed that the certificates were missing. When we logged into our developer account, we were shocked to see a page prompting us to “Enroll Today”—as if we had never joined in the first place. Clicking the enrollment button led us to an error page stating we cannot enroll. We immediately reached out to Apple Developer Support via email, but despite multiple attempts, we received no response. Strangely, our apps remain live on the App Store, App Store Connect functions as usual, and we continue receiving payments every month. However, we are completely blocked from developing and releasing updates. Today, I managed to reach Apple by phone. After being transferred to a senior representative, I was told they couldn’t tell me why this was happening. They only confirmed that a request had been made and that I should “wait.” That’s it—no explanation, no timeline, nothing. While it’s somewhat reassuring that they acknowledge the issue, I’ve already seen other developers with the same problem go unanswered for months. My suspicion? This account might be linked to an individual developer account from way back in 2015 when Apple’s registration process was far less strict. Could that be the issue? No idea—because Apple won’t say a word. Meanwhile, both of our apps have been exposed to several bugs, and customers are waiting for updates. If there’s still no response from Apple, I have no choice but to register a new account—purely to continue supporting our users. CASE ID: 102508598957

Our application, https://apps.apple.com/us/app/gamecontroller-mapper/id6737088417 which maps game controller inputs to keyboard/mouse events system-wide, has stopped functioning properly after the macOS 15.4 update. Specifically, the app can no longer capture game controller inputs when running in the background, severely impacting its core functionality. Environment macOS version: 15.4 Previous working versions: All versions prior to 15.4 App type: Background utility with accessibility permissions Hardware: All game controller brands compatible with macOS Detailed Description Before macOS 15.4 Our application correctly captured game controller inputs from any brand connected to Mac and successfully translated them to keyboard/mouse events system-wide. Users could control any application (e.g., scrolling through documents in Preview using controller buttons) while our app ran in the background with the accessibility permissions granted. After macOS 15.4 The application only works when it has active focus (is in the foreground). When any other application gains focus, our app completely stops receiving or detecting any input events from the game controller while running in the background. For instance, pressing the 'down' button on the controller while another app is active results in no event being registered within our application. We've tried updating the app to work in accessory mode (in the menubar), but the issue persists. Steps to Reproduce Install our application on macOS 15.3 or earlier Grant accessibility permissions when prompted Connect a compatible game controller (e.g., Xbox or other controller) Open another application (e.g., Preview with a PDF document) Press buttons on the controller to navigate the document without touching the keyboard Expected result on 15.3: Controller inputs are translated to keyboard events, even when our app is in the background Upgrade to macOS 15.4 Repeat steps 2-5 Actual result on 15.4: Controller inputs are only translated to keyboard events when our application has focus Technical Implementation Our app uses: CGEvent.tapCreate() to create a global event tap CGEvent for simulating keyboard and mouse events GCController.extendedGamepad?.valueChangedHandler for detecting controller inputs Proper NSAccessibilityUsageDescription and appropriate entitlements GCController.shouldMonitorBackgroundEvents = true to ensure controller events continue when the app is inactive Possible Relation to Recent Changes We noticed in the macOS 15.4 Release Notes: Game Controller - Resolved Issues: Fixed: Game controllers might stop responding when accessibility features, such as Voice Over, are enabled. (141497799) We suspect this fix might have introduced a regression or intentional limitation affecting applications like ours that rely on background event simulation with game controller input. Impact This change severely impacts: Applications designed to use game controllers as assistive input devices for users who may have difficulty using traditional keyboard and mouse inputs Applications for media control, presentation navigation, and other similar use cases Users who rely on our application for accessibility purposes Questions Is this an intentional security change or an unintended side effect of the controller fix mentioned in the release notes? Are there any new APIs or alternative approaches we should implement to restore functionality? If this is a system bug, when can we expect a fix? We would greatly appreciate any guidance on how to restore our application's functionality. Thank you for your assistance.

Hi all, I’ve got a usability question about accessibility navigation. My app has a lot of carousels (horizontally scrolling lists of content with far more elements than can fit on the screen). Often, these are just images, but sometimes, they’re cards with multiple subelements. In our previous implementation, each card was a single accessibility element, and we exposed the subelements as accessibility custom actions. Despite this, users frequently mentioned navigating with VoiceOver as a pain point. It takes a long time to navigate through and navigate past these carousels. To solve this, I converted my carousels into a single adjustable element, so users can navigate through it with one swipe, and they can still access the elements by adjusting the values up and down. I got this advice from this 2018 WWDC talk. Is this still the recommended advice? Or is there a new, preferred way to do this? Additionally, I had to get a little creative with the second carousel, the one with multiple subelements. Some of these were interactive (imagine a card with a description, an upvote button, and a downvote button). Adjustable elements override the accessibility custom actions VoiceOver gesture, so I can’t expose the individual buttons as actions. Instead, I made each subelement in each card in the carousel one of the adjustable values. Swiping up would go from description 1 to upvote button 1 to downvote button 1 to description 2, etc. Double tapping with VoiceOver would perform whatever action the carousel is currently on. So if I adjust the value to the element at index 2 (say, downvote 1), double tapping would trigger the downvote button’s action. Does this make sense? Is there a better way to do this? This seemed to be the best compromise between screenreader navigation speed, exposing all actions, and the existing UI.

My team has a robust digital accessibility program and processes for WCAG conformance in our apps. Because of this, there are definitely accessibility defects that get caught and addressed in order of impact and business priority like any other bug. Obviously we want to aim for 100% accessibility for our users, but it's a continual work in progress as new enhancements or changes are released. I'm stuck on the appropriate measurement to indicate support. If we have 50 common tasks and the most central 10 tasks are solid but some supporting (but also common) tasks have a contrast fail or accessibleLabel missing, does that make the whole app not supporting the feature? If "completing the task" is the rubric there are a whole range of interpretations for that. In a complex app, I anticipate that a group like ours will have strong support for many of the Accessibility Nutrition Labels accessibility features across tasks and devices, but realistically never be 100% free of defects for a given Apple Accessibility feature, even among core tasks. As I consider the next steps for Nutrition Labels, I do not see anything in the documentation that gives a sort of baseline or measurement for inclusion. We plan to test all steps to complete a task, and log defects accordingly with an assigned timeline for fixing them (as would be true for functional defects).

There are several ways we are supposed to be able to control a11y (accessibility) focus in FKA (Full Keyboard Access) mode. We should be able to set up an @AccessibilityFocusState variable that contains an enum for the different views that we want to receive a11y focus. That works from VO (VoiceOver) but not from FKA mode. See this sample project on Github: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/79067665/how-to-manage-accessibilityfocusstate-for-swiftui-accessibility-keyboard Similarly, we are supposed to be able to use accessibilitySortPriority to control the order that views are selected when a user using FKA tabs between views. That also works from VO but not from FKA mode. In the sample code below, the `.accessibilitySortPriority() ViewModifiers cause VO to change to a non-standard order when you swipe between views, but it has no effect in FKA mode. Is there a way to either set the a11y focus or change the order in which the views are selected that actually works in SwiftUI when the user is in FKA mode? Code that should cause FKA to tab between text fields in a custom order: struct ContentView: View { @State private var val1: String = "val 1" @State private var val2: String = "val 2" @State private var val3: String = "val 3" @State private var val4: String = "val 4" var body: some View { VStack { TextField("Value 1", text: $val1) .accessibilitySortPriority(3) VStack { TextField("Value 2", text: $val2) .accessibilitySortPriority(1) } HStack { TextField("Value 3", text: $val3) .accessibilitySortPriority(2) TextField("Value 4", text: $val4) .accessibilitySortPriority(4) } } .padding() } }```

This was working a few days ago, but it has since stopped and I can't figure out why. I've tried resetting TCC, double-checking my entitlements, restarting, deleting and rebuilding, and nothing works. My app is a sandboxed macOS SwiftUI LSUIElement app that, when invoked, checks to see if the frontmost process is Terminal, then tries to get the frontmost window’s title. func getFrontmostWindowTitle() throws -> String? { let trusted = AXIsProcessTrusted() print("getFrontmostWindowTitle AX trusted: \(trusted)") guard let app = NSWorkspace.shared.frontmostApplication else { return nil } let appElement = AXUIElementCreateApplication(app.processIdentifier) var focusedWindow: AnyObject? let status = AXUIElementCopyAttributeValue(appElement, kAXFocusedWindowAttribute as CFString, &focusedWindow) guard status == .success, let window = focusedWindow else { if status == .cannotComplete { throw Errors.needAccessibilityPermission } return nil } var title: AnyObject? let titleStatus = AXUIElementCopyAttributeValue(window as! AXUIElement, kAXTitleAttribute as CFString, &title) guard titleStatus == .success else { return nil } return title as? String } I recently renamed the app, but the Bundle ID has not yet changed. I have com.apple.security.accessibility set to YES in the Entitlements file (although i had to add it manually), and a NSAccessibilityUsageDescription string set in Info.plist. The first time I ran this, macOS nicely prompted for permission. Now it won't do that, even when I use AXIsProcessTrustedWithOptions() to try to force it. If I use tccutil to reset accessibility and apple events, it still doesn't prompt. If I drag my app from the build products folder to System Settings, it gets added to the system TCC DB (not the user DB). It shows an auth value of 2 for my app: % sudo sqlite3 "/Library/Application Support/com.apple.TCC/TCC.db" "SELECT client,auth_value FROM access WHERE service='kTCCServiceAccessibility' OR service='kTCCServiceAppleEvents';" com.latencyzero.<redacted>|2 <redactd> I'm at a loss as to what went wrong. I proved out the concept earlier and it worked, and have since spent a lot of time enhancing and polishing the app, and now things aren't working and I'm starting to worry.

I’m seeing a layout issue in SwiftUI on iOS 26 that only reproduces with specific Accessibility Motion settings. Steps to reproduce 1. Open Settings → Accessibility → Motion. 2. Enable Reduce Motion and Prefer Cross-Fade Transitions. 3. Launch an app with a SwiftUI TextField. 4. Tap the field to show the keyboard. 5. Dismiss the keyboard (tap outside, swipe down, etc.). Expected: After the keyboard is dismissed, the view’s bottom safe area / layout should return to normal. Actual: The view continues to reserve space equal to the keyboard height — as if the keyboard were still visible. UI anchored to the safe area remains shifted upward until the view is reloaded.

We've identified a regression in iOS 26.0 and 26.1 Beta 4 where AVSpeechSynthesisVoice(language:) no longer respects user-selected voices from Accessibility settings. Issue: When users select a specific voice in Settings → Accessibility → Spoken Content → Voices, calling AVSpeechSynthesisVoice(language:) returns the system default voice instead of the user's selection. This worked correctly in iOS 18.6.2. Particularly affects: Third-party speech synthesis voices (CereProc, Grammatek, etc.) Apps relying on automatic voice selection based on user preferences Example: // User selected CereProc Heather for en-GB in Accessibility settings let voice = AVSpeechSynthesisVoice(language: "en-GB") print(voice?.name) // iOS 18.6.2: "HEATHER", iOS 26: "Daniel" (system default) Interesting observation: The new Accessibility Reader feature in iOS 26 correctly uses the user-selected voice, but Tap to Speak and the API both ignore the setting. Tested methods: AVSpeechSynthesisVoice(language:) AVSpeechUtterance auto-selection Reflection for new APIs All return the system default voice, not the user's preference. Filed: FB[20271264] Has anyone else encountered this? Any known workarounds to programmatically access the user's preferred voice selection?

accessibilityUserInputLabels is working fine with any view I tried this on. Meaning that the control can be toggled with the provided alternative names when using Voice Control. When setting this property on any UIBarButtonItem though, it seems Voice Control ignores the alternative names provided by setting accessibilityUserInputLabels. For comparison, accessibilityLabel works perfectly when set on UIBarButtonItem. Is anyone facing the same issue? Using Xcode 16.0 (16A242) on iOS 18

I want to understand which component types are intended to have an associated hint text, haptic feedback, or earcon associated with it for VoiceOver screen reader users. Is there a list somewhere or a HIG guideline for which transition types should have a sound? Some transitions in Apple apps generally include different beep sounds, such as opening a new screen screen dimming when a VoiceOver user swipes from the header / navbar to the body a scraping sound when swiping up or down a page. the beginning or end of the body section in Calculator when swiping from one row to the next. opening a pop up menu I would also appreciate any direction on what code strings are associated with these sounds and how custom components can capture these sounds or haptics or hints where it is expected? On the other hand, I don't want to get that info and then dictate that every component needs a specific beep type since these sounds appear to be used for specific purposes.