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

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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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161
May ’25
Problem with the note application
I have more than 1000 notes classified in parent/child folders up to 5 levels. From the 5th level of files I can no longer share the note. The note is not shared. It is that of the parent file that is shared. Thank you very much Good to you Christophe
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251
May ’25
Implementing App Clips with .NET MAUI
We have an iOS App built in .NET MAUI (Multi-platform App UI). This is a web view App. We wish to integrate APP Clips into this App. But we are unable to do it, due to less available resources online on such implementation. We do not wish to share code between .NET MAUI App and App clips. We understand it is not possible to add APP Clips without a parent swift/Xcode app. As an alternative solution we were thinking to Create a new APP in APP Store Connect using XCode/swift and integrate app clips to it. This parent app when downloaded by users will only redirect users to our MAIN .NET MAUI app to app store connect. We need to know if such apps will be approved by APPSTORE Connect? Please guide us on this. Also please do let us know if you have any other solution to integrate App clips to a .NET MAUI App
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133
Jun ’25
Imessage and Facetime error
Yesterday I installed iOS 26 on my iPhone as a beta tester. At first there was no problem, but during the afternoon I noticed that neither FaceTime nor IMessage worked... I tried to go through the settings as described by Apple Support, but my phone number would not activate. Sometimes I was even asked to activate iCloud. I always get a REG-RESP message. Does anyone have any ideas what the problem could be?
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162
Jun ’25
"Captions" in the Accessibility Nutrition Label for text-based apps
My game app is text-based interactive fiction, containing no audio/video content, making captions unnecessary. Our game is completely accessible to deaf users. Despite this, in the Accessibility Nutrition Label, I'm only able to leave the "Captions" box checked or unchecked. Leaving it unchecked would leave deaf players with the wrong impression that they can't enjoy our game. Leaving it checked would imply that we do have A/V content with captions included. In the WWDC video on this, https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2025/224/ the video says: After we completed common tasks, we realized our app doesn’t have any video or audio only content. In this case, we aren’t going to indicate that Landmarks supports Captions. That's okay. This accurately describes the features that people will expect to be available while using the app. Maybe that's "OK," but I wish the form allowed me to say "This app doesn't contain audio/video content."
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140
Jun ’25
Unable to set dialect of Chinese of AVSpeechSynthesisVoice in iOS 18
The AVSpeechSynthesizer on some iOS 18 device has a bug that it will read always read Chinese of: AVSpeechUtterance(string: "中文") // Any Chinese Content in the dialect specified by: Settings > Accessibility > Spoken Content > Voices > Chinese > Spoken Language instead of the dialect that I specified in AVSpeechUtterance.voice: AVSpeechSynthesisVoice(language: "zh-HK") // Cantonese AVSpeechSynthesisVoice(language: "zh-TW") // Mandarin However, setting Chinese dialect of AVSpeechSynthesisVoice by "zh-HK" or "zh-TW" has been working on iOS 17 and below. My app has a feature that requires reading sentences in Mandarin followed by Cantonese, i.e., both dialects is needed every time. Therefore, setting the dialect in Spoken Language of Settings is not a workaround to make my app to function correctly in iOS 18. Further to the above, I've also discovered that, if iOS 18 (in my case, 18.5 is tested) is freshly installed (not upgrading from iOS 17 or below, nor restoring backup after fresh installation of iOS 18), the bug above will not happen. However, if it was an upgrade from iOS 17 or below, or backup is restored (in my case, I freshly installed iOS 18.5 on a new iPhone and then restored a backup from another iPhone on iOS 16.2), the bug above happens. This bug puzzled me because I need both dialect of Chinese to be read aloud one by one, but as reported by many users, on most iOS 18 devices (since a fresh installation of latest iOS without upgrading or restoring is uncommon nowadays), my app will read Cantonese two times or Mandarin two times (depending on Spoken Language in Settings). It is the iOS 18 bug which made my app unable to perform the expected behavior. Would Apple developers look into this and advise if there are any possible workaround within the code of app to overcome this bug, or please fix this bug with an iOS 18 update. Thank you.
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Jun ’25
Feature Idea: Autonomous, Motion-Powered Clock Display on iPhone.
Hey everyone, I've been thinking about a truly innovative way to enhance iPhone battery life and user convenience, drawing inspiration from kinetic energy harvesting. What if we could have a clock display on the main iPhone screen that's powered purely by user motion, and activates only when you look at it, without touching your main battery? The Core Idea Imagine this: Kinetic Energy Harvesting: Your iPhone would have a tiny, integrated kinetic energy generator. This generator would capture the energy from your everyday movements – walking, picking up the phone, putting it in your pocket. Independent Power Source: This harvested energy would be stored in a small, dedicated capacitor or micro-battery, completely separate from your iPhone's main battery. Acelerometer-Activated Display: Instead of relying on power-hungry facial recognition, the phone's accelerometer (a very low-power sensor) would detect specific "raise to wake" or "tap to look" gestures. On-Demand, Ultra-Low Power Clock: Only when the accelerometer detects one of these specific gestures would the stored kinetic energy be used to illuminate just the necessary pixels on the main OLED/AMOLED screen to display the time. The rest of the screen stays completely black (consuming no power on OLED). Automatic Shut-Off: As soon as the gesture ends or the phone is put down, the clock display would turn off, conserving the limited harvested energy. Why This Matters This isn't just a cool gimmick; it offers significant benefits: True Battery Independence: Get the time at a glance, anytime, without touching your main battery or even the power button. This means more main battery life for apps, calls, and everything else. Ultimate Convenience: A "magical" interaction – just pick up your phone, and the time instantly appears. No taps, no button presses. Sustainable & Innovative: Showcases practical "energy harvesting" in a consumer device, pushing boundaries for self-sufficient tech. Extreme Energy Efficiency: By using a low-power accelerometer as the trigger and only lighting a few pixels on demand, the system is designed for minimal power draw, making kinetic power a viable source. This concept combines existing low-power sensing (accelerometer), efficient display technology (OLED/AMOLED's true blacks), and cutting-edge energy harvesting, creating a genuinely innovative user experience.
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130
Jun ’25
The brightness of the iPad Pro screen is gone after new ios26
After 26 IOS update, the colors on my new iPad Pro M4 have become extremely dull almost like those on a very old device. The screen brightness is significantly reduced, and it's now difficult to see UI elements clearly. This is very disappointing considering the device’s high display quality before the update. Please advise if this is a known issue or if there's a fix.
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110
Jun ’25
TV Remote Application does not open
Updated to iOS 26 beta and now the TV remote app in the control center won’t open. I’ve tried the following: Restart phone Remove shortcut and re-add Cant find any other troubleshooting methods for this issue online so I’m guessing it’s a new problem.
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112
Jun ’25
VoiceOver and currency - high amounts
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?
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Jun ’25
How to set accessibility-label to NSTextAttachment ?
I have the following method to insert @mentions to a text field: func insertMention(user: Token, at range: NSRange) -> Void { let tokenImage: UIImage = renderMentionToken(text: "@\(user.username)") let attachment: NSTextAttachment = NSTextAttachment() attachment.image = tokenImage attachment.bounds = CGRect(x: 0, y: -3, width: tokenImage.size.width, height: tokenImage.size.height) attachment.accessibilityLabel = user.username attachment.accessibilityHint = "Mention of \(user.username)" let attachmentString: NSMutableAttributedString = NSMutableAttributedString(attributedString: NSAttributedString(attachment: attachment)) attachmentString.addAttribute(.TokenID, value: user.id, range: NSRange(location: 0, length: 1)) attachmentString.addAttribute(.Tokenname, value: user.username, range: NSRange(location: 0, length: 1)) let mutableText: NSMutableAttributedString = NSMutableAttributedString(attributedString: textView.attributedText) mutableText.replaceCharacters(in: range, with: attachmentString) mutableText.append(NSAttributedString(string: " ")) textView.attributedText = mutableText textView.selectedRange = NSRange(location: range.location + 2, length: 0) mentionRange = nil tableView.isHidden = true } When I use XCode's accessibility inspector to inspect the text input, the inserted token is not read by the inspector - instead a whitespace is shown for the token. I want to set the accessibility-label to the string content of the NSTextAttachment. How?
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876
Jul ’25
Assistive Access + Firebase Authentication
I have an issue in my app when it is used together with the assistive access feature. For authentication, we are using the capacitor firebase authentication plugin (https://www.npmjs.com/package/@capacitor-firebase/authentication) which enables users to login via apple (FirebaseAuthentication.signInWithApple(...)), google (FirebaseAuthentication.signInWithGoogle(...)), or email. Works just fine. However, when the assistive access feature is enabled, the login fails for apple ("The operation couldn't be completed. com.apple.AuthenticationServices.AuthorizationError error 1000) and google ("The user canceled the sign-in flow). It seems like the popups for sign-in are blocked and therefore an error is returned immediately. The popups may be blocked by assistive access, causing the capacitor plugin to be unable to authenticate. I have tested this on my iPhone 12 Pro using iOS 17.7 I would appreciate any suggestions to handle this issue!
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750
Jul ’25
Fullscreen Detection
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.
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1.9k
Jul ’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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463
Aug ’25
Custom prediction panel not working in Google Docs
I’m working on a macOS Accessibility setup for a French-speaking user and I’ve hit a wall. (I'm not a developper and I'm trying to help my kid with dyslexia) I successfully built a custom word prediction panel using the Panel Editor (Keyboard) in macOS Accessibility > Keyboard > Accessibility Keyboard. Here’s what I have so far: • The prediction panel works system-wide: I can use it to type in Finder, Safari, Notes, TextEdit, and even browser search bars. • The panel appears above all applications and suggestions show up correctly. • However, it does not work inside Google Docs (tested in Chrome, Safari, and Firefox). Selecting a word from the panel does nothing in the Docs editor. I suspect this is because: • Google Docs does not use a standard macOS text input field. • Docs is a web app that relies on custom JavaScript editors, contentEditable elements, and canvas rendering, so macOS Accessibility APIs (AXTextField, AXInsertText, etc.) don’t register or inject text events. • Accessibility tools like the Accessibility Keyboard rely on native macOS text input methods, which don’t hook into Google Docs’ custom editor. Important: I’m not a programmer. I’d like to know if there is an easy fix or option in macOS, Google Chrome, or Google Docs that would make my custom prediction panel work, before going into custom development. Technical setup: • MacBook Air (M2, 2022) • RAM: 8 GB • macOS: Sequoia 15.3.1 • Language: French (system and keyboard) • Accessibility Keyboard: Enabled via Settings > Accessibility > Keyboard • Custom panel: Built using Panel Editor (Keyboard), named “Philemon Prédiction” • Browsers tested: Chrome, Safari, Firefox (same issue) • Behavior: Panel is visible, suggestions appear, but inserting text does nothing in Google Docs Has anyone worked around this limitation? Is there a simple setting, workaround, or accessibility option to bridge macOS Accessibility input with Google Docs’ editor? Thanks a lot!
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941
Aug ’25
Autocomplete Select not working with VoiceOver in iOS 18.6.2
Hey folksI, I would like to ask for help on this topic: I think this is exactly the same problem Combobox not working with VoiceOver after… - Apple Community. VoiceOver also breaks the combobox from the official ARIA W3C website https://www.w3.org/WAI/ARIA/apg/patterns/combobox/examples/combobox-autocomplete-list/. When VO is turned off, I can use the up/down arrow to go through the menu items from the dropdown, but when VO is turned on, the up/down arrows cannot access the dropdown menu items. Is there an official tutorial on how to control it using voice over? Kind regards, Jakub
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428
Sep ’25
HID Braille keyboard support on iPhone 6S
Hello, I am working on a Braille keyboard by using HID approach. Current the device works with iPhone 11 and SE3. However, when tested in iPhone 6s with iOS 15, although the device can be connected and recognized as Braille device in VoiceOver screen, the phone shows no response to key press report. Would there be any requirement at points such as HID descriptor for iPhone 6s support on Braille device? If iPhone 6s does not support such devices, what is the minimum system requirements? Thank you!
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1.6k
Sep ’25