Explore best practices for creating inclusive apps for users of Apple accessibility features and users from diverse backgrounds.

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How to handle AX (Keyboard Access & VoiceOver) for AttributedString used in UILabel
I use AttributedString to create a string containing a link. And I set the AttributedString to UILabel. How should I set up the Accessibility feature to make sure that I can keyboard focus on the substring with link and use keyboard operation to open the link I can VoiceOver the whole string and VoiceOver the substring with link to open the link Thanks a lot.
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128
Mar ’25
Programmatically Modifying Per Application or System Wide Color Filters using Cocoa/Swift in MacOS?
I'm looking into how to programmatically control color filters in the Accessibility settings under "System Settings" -> "Accessibility" -> "Color Filters"--in particular the "Intensity" and "Filter type" settings. As far as I have gathered, changing this setting can only be accomplished using the CoreGraphics APIs or Accessibility APIs (I've poked around GitHub, Stack Overflow, and queried some LLMs), but there doesn't seem to be a clear cut example for doing this using public facing APIs, without ripping off source code from another project wholesale or using private APIs. My goal is to overlay a color filter at either a per-application or system level to help with accessibility. If there's a way to overlay this capability on an application-by-application basis as a third-party developer, that would be the most ideal scenario. For example, modifying the look and feel/UX for Launchpad, Photos, etc, as a third-party developer without accessing the source code of the application that I'm modifying the look/feel for (with appropriate user consent of course).
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374
Jul ’25
Clarification on Entitlements, Privacy Manifest, and Info.plist for System-Wide Mouse Click Monitoring and Typing Simulation in macOS App
I am currently developing a macOS application that listens for system-wide mouse clicks to simulate typing with user-provided text. The app requires Accessibility permissions to function properly, and I want to ensure compliance with Apple’s latest privacy and security guidelines. The app listens to global mouse clicks. It simulates keyboard input with user-provided text I would like detailed guidance on the following aspects: What specific entitlements are required to allow system-wide mouse click monitoring and simulating user input ? App Sandbox enable or disable? what keys required to explain global mouse click monitoring and keyboard input simulation in the info.plist What will be the configuration of Privacy Manifest
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449
Jan ’25
Need app blocking permission for Screen Time Limit app - CAN'T GET ANSWER FROM SUPPORT FOR 3 WEEKS. APP HAS 100K FOLLOWERS ON SOCIAL MEDIA ALREADY
Hey everyone! I am developing a screen time limit app to help people spend less time in distracting apps. It works this way: people choose unhealthy apps for them and opposite productivity apps. In the app you can exchange time spent on healthy habits to scroll or use other distracting apps. This idea was loved by social media, and the app already has 100k followers on social media without even being launched yet. So I am waiting just for one feature permission from Apple, and they have not given me any answer since I applied 3 weeks ago. There are a lot of similar apps on the market, and this feature exists in other screen time limit apps. Why is app blocking permission needed? Time Exchange Functionality: Users independently select which apps are productive and which are distracting for them. The system blocks the "negative" apps until the user accumulates enough time in the "positive" ones. This encourages healthy device usage. Full User Control: All apps to be blocked are manually selected by the user in the settings. The extension does not impose any restrictions without explicit permission. Transparency and Security: Blocking happens locally, with no data collected about app usage. We adhere to Apple’s privacy policy. Compliance with App Store Guidelines: We understand that app blocking is a sensitive feature, but in our case it: Is used for the benefit of the user (digital detox, productivity improvement). Does not interfere with system processes or other developers’ apps. Does not misuse access to APIs. My question to the forum is: Did you have similar problems, and how did you resolve them? Are there any ways to speed up the process or contact someone from the approval team directly? Should I give up and release it on Android? I am very disappointed and frustrated. Hope to get some useful tips. Thank you very much!
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145
May ’25
iOS: How to maintain good app icon contrast in grayscale mode?
I’m developing an iOS app, and I’ve noticed that when the user enables Accessibility → Display & Text Size → Color Filters → Grayscale, my app icon loses a lot of visual contrast. The original colored version looks fine, but in grayscale it appears “flat” and harder to distinguish, unlike a pure black-and-white design. What I want to achieve: Ensure the app icon remains visually clear and high-contrast even when iOS renders it in grayscale. Ideally, provide an alternate “high-contrast” app icon version when grayscale mode is enabled. What I’ve tried: Increased color contrast in the original icon design. Added outlines and stronger shapes. Tested with grayscale filters in design tools. Researched Asset Catalog and alternate icons, but found no documented API to detect or respond to grayscale mode. Questions: Is there any API in iOS that allows detecting when the system is in grayscale mode so that I can programmatically switch to an alternate app icon? If not, are there Apple-recommended best practices for designing app icons that still look clear in grayscale? Are there any accessibility guidelines specifically addressing icon design for grayscale or color-blind modes? Additional info: iOS version tested: iOS 17.5 Development in Swift + SwiftUI, using Asset Catalog for icons. I am aware that iOS supports alternate icons via setAlternateIconName, but I haven’t found a trigger for grayscale mode.
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418
Aug ’25
ApplePay Merchant Session - Could not create SSL/TLS secure channel issue
As part of apple pay implementation we are trying to create a merchant session by trying to connect to apple endpoint https://apple-pay-gateway-cert.apple.com/paymentservices/startSession. While trying to do so we are facing an error “An error occurred while sending the request. The request was aborted: Could not create SSL/TLS secure channel.” . I call the validation url by passing to a C# .Net Framework 4.8 Web API. The API setups an HttpClient with the Merchant Identity Validation Certificate found in my apple account and calls the validation url passing in the required Json Validation Object. When I call PostAsync() I get an exception with the above error message Code is working successfully on my local machine but facing this issue while deployed on Dev / Model environment for testing. We have used Azure app service for deployment and TLS version 1.2 already present here. We have used the Merchant Identity certificate that was issued and have also checked with networking and infrastructure team to make its not an issue from our side. Does anyone have any other idea what could be causing this error. Thank you, Supriya
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107
Jun ’25
Accessibility Personal Voice Issue with iOS & iPadOS Beta 1-6
Please refer to Feedback report: FB19701007 The Personal Voice file created in English changes to either Spanish or Chinese and no longer works properly. This has been happening since Beta 1 of iOS/iPadOS 26. I have been unable to pinpoint what causes this to occur. Possibly downloading foreign voices to a device or using different voices via AVSpeechSynthesizer. I run an app in Xcode on my device that prints to the console info about the installed voices. Initially after creation here is the output: Voice Identifier: com.apple.speech.personalvoice.16173F8D-DFB0-4024-98CC-69D965FD96A4 Language: en-US Then I hear a Spanish accent and find this: Voice Identifier: com.apple.speech.personalvoice.16173F8D-DFB0-4024-98CC-69D965FD96A4 Language: es-MX Currently it isn't working and here is the output: Voice Identifier: com.apple.speech.personalvoice.16173F8D-DFB0-4024-98CC-69D965FD96A4 Language: zh-CN Note that the voice file on all three above is the same. No matter what the user does, the created voice file should never be able to change languages. On my test devices I reset them all by erasing all content and settings and creating a new English Personal Voice and the issue persists. A side issue is the toggle share across devices doesn't remain off if turned off. I tried to not share to see if that could be the cause, but the toggle turns on automatically. It won’t remain off.
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858
Aug ’25
TabItems in swiftUI do not scale
I have a TabView with a sample tabItem as follows: .tabItem { Label ("Import", systemImage:"doc.on.doc") .accessibilityLabel("Import Text") } But accessibility settings for large display size on does not seem to work, nor do dynamic font sizes: .tabItem { Label ("Import", systemImage:"doc.on.doc") .font(.largeTitle) .accessibilityLabel("Import Text") } The tabItems appear as a fixed size. The tab contents scale well, so this does not look pleasant at all. Is this a known bug in SwiftUI?
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732
Jul ’25
Avoid trackpad gesture conflict between dragging and accessibility zooming when using three fingers
Double-tap three fingers and drag to change zoom” should suppress “Three Finger to Drag”. Currently these gestures are triggered simultaneously, for no real reasons. I saw different behaviors for different environments, but none is desired. Current and desired behavior: This seems an issue so I filed a feedback.
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733
Aug ’25
IOHIDCheckAccess(kIOHIDRequestTypeListenEvent) does not work
I have an app that needs Input Monitoring permissions to get keyboard access in the background. I've attempted to use both IOHIDCheckAccess(kIOHIDRequestTypeListenEvent) and IOHIDRequestAccess(kIOHIDRequestTypeListenEvent), but they always return denied, even though I have given the permission for Input Monitoring to the app in Settings. Is there something I need to put in my Info.plist to enable this permission to work?
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431
1w
How to lookup keybinding translation across input sources
I have an application that binds a menu item to trigger on ⌘]. When I set the US input source, I press ⌘] in order to trigger that item. However, when I switch the input source to QWERTZ (German), the trigger changes to ⌘Ä automatically by the OS. It seems to translate keystrokes for different input sources. The problem is that I also render the keybindings in a window in my application, and my application is not aware of this translation. Furthermore, I have other key shortcuts in my application which are not bound to menu items, and I want to make sure those get translated too. Does AppKit expose a way to lookup what a keystroke will be when MacOS translates it, i.e. lookup ⌘Ä from ⌘] when the current layout is QWERTZ? I can't find anything in Apple's docs. I tried converting a character to virtual key code based on the US layout and then mapping it back to a character based on the QWERTZ layout. That doesn't seem to be the same b/c that ends up converting ] to + instead which seems to be based on physical key location, different from how the keybindings are handled. Update: I notice similar behavior for VS Code's menu bar, e.g. in their "Terminal" menu. Switching to German changes some bindings. This does not occur at all in iTerm's menu bar, I suspect b/c their menu items are specified in a different way, xib files with hard-coded key equivalents
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432
Jan ’25