It would be good if SensorKit was more available for non research related apps. For example I want to create an app that tracks light sensor values to create a mapping of bikelanes with poor lighting. This doesn’t fall under a research app, but seems like a reasonable use of this data. creating a way to opt the user into this (via clear warnings that the data Is being collected, and maybe a 24 or 1 hour time limit) might be a way to make this sensor data available. also clear warnings on the app store privacy page, or maybe even rules about running in the background or at app startup and an icon in the toolbar (similar to the mic) could make this more safe for users.

Xcode’s “App Thinning Size Report” reports a size under 15MB, but very close to it like 14.9MB, and if I publish the clip it becomes unavailable for costumers (They get "App Clip Unavailable" after scanning the QR code. On the other hand, if the size on the report is 14.7MB, it works fine for everyone. Can you advice a more accurate way to determine if the size is valid for distribution? On the same topic: Are there any plans to increase the size limit beyond the 15MB?

Hello, I am exploring an iPadOS product idea for Apple Pencil users and would like to understand the current public API boundary. The user need is a temporary, user-controlled Apple Pencil annotation layer while the user is working in another app or workspace. For example, a student may be reading in Books, Safari, a PDF app, or another educational app and want to write quick Pencil notes directly over the visible material without taking a screenshot or exporting the content first. I understand that PencilKit works inside an app's own UI, and I also understand that iPadOS sandboxing prevents third-party apps from inspecting or modifying other apps. I am not trying to bypass that model. What I am trying to determine is: Is there any current public API, extension point, or entitlement that allows a user-initiated Apple Pencil overlay session across the current iPadOS workspace? If not, is Feedback Assistant the right place to request a new PencilKit / iPadOS entitlement for this use case? Are there existing Apple-recommended patterns for this workflow beyond Quick Note, Screenshot Markup, Split View, Stage Manager, or importing content into the developer's own app? The privacy model I have in mind would be strict: The overlay is user initiated only. A visible system indicator is shown while active. The developer app receives Pencil stroke data only by default. The app cannot inspect the underlying app's view hierarchy, documents, text, or private data. Screen pixels are not captured unless the user grants separate explicit permission. The user can close or clear the overlay at any time. The closest mental model is a system-mediated Pencil annotation layer, not a background screen recorder or a way to control another app. If this is not possible today with public APIs, I would appreciate confirmation so I can file a clear enhancement request through Feedback Assistant. I also filed this as Feedback Assistant report FB23067750. Thank you.

WeatherService fails on every request with: WeatherDaemon.WDSJWTAuthenticatorServiceListener.Errors Code=2 "(null)" hourly forecast fetch failed: … Code=2 I've verified the entire setup and the error persists, which points to the App ID's WeatherKit token generation not being provisioned on Apple's backend: Team ID: 2LWCLD2636 Bundle ID: com.hoagiecorps.poppit WeatherKit capability and App Service both enabled on the App ID. com.apple.developer.weatherkit entitlement present in the signed binary and the embedded provisioning profile (verified via codesign -d --entitlements). A TestFlight build carrying the entitlement has been processed (VALID). Location authorized (When-In-Use); valid coordinates are obtained — the failure is purely the JWT auth step. Tried: device reboot, VPN off, iCloud Private Relay off, cycling the WeatherKit capability off/on plus regenerating the profile and clean rebuild, and waiting several days. Physical device, iOS 26. Could someone from the WeatherKit team please check the status for Team 2LWCLD2636, Bundle ID com.hoagiecorps.poppit, and enable WeatherKit token generation for this App ID? It looks like a backend entitlement sync is needed. Thanks!

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?

I built an advanced app clip experience, associated it to a location, and its MATCHED. The status is marked (green) RECEIVED. However, I am unable to see the invocation on Maps. I don't see the buttons such as SUPPORT/ORDER shown for that place. The docs does not explain why. What is the exact requirement for us to surface buttons for POI? We are authorized by the businesses to add these for them. I'd love to hear in detail the exact process to add buttons for POI - how Uber Eats and Door Dash does it for restaurants and how their app clips get shown. Thank you.

I'm building a cross-device parental-control app: separate child and parent devices in the same Family Sharing group. I want to show the child's per-app (and per-category) Screen Time usage on the parent device. After extensive testing I can only get the child's total minutes across, and I'd like to confirm the supported architecture before building further on a path the framework may intentionally forbid. Authorization / setup Child device: AuthorizationCenter.shared.requestAuthorization(for: .child) — approved. Confirmed authorized: my app appears under Settings → Screen Time on the child, and the child's own DeviceActivityReport(users: .all) renders full per-app data. Parent device: separate device in the same family. Targets: main app + DeviceActivityReport extension + DeviceActivityMonitor extension, all with com.apple.developer.family-controls and a shared App Group. Physical devices, iOS 26.4.1. Xcode ⟦version⟧. What works: only the child's total minutes reach the parent — and only via my own relay: a DeviceActivityMonitor extension on the child writes aggregate totals to the App Group, the host app syncs them through CloudKit. No Screen Time API itself delivers the child's app/category breakdown to the parent. ⸻ Finding 1 — the report extension computes correct per-app data but cannot export it. On the child, makeConfiguration(representing:) iterates the results and produces correct per-app durations: LumicoActivityReport makeConfiguration done — 1 activityData, 1 segments, 5 apps, 17 min total Writing those aggregates to the shared App Group from inside the extension is then denied by the sandbox: Couldn't write values for keys ("screen_time_per_app_json") in CFPrefsPlistSource (Domain: group.servusjon.Lumico.shared …): setting preferences outside an application's container requires user-preference-write or file-write-data sandbox access (UserDefaults.set doesn't throw — the write silently no-ops; only this CFPrefs log reveals the denial.) Q1: Is there any supported way to surface aggregated, non-identifying per-app usage (app name + minutes + category) computed inside the DeviceActivityReport extension to the host app, given that App Group writes from the extension are denied? Or is the DeviceActivityMonitor extension (threshold events) the only supported way to get any usage signal out of the Screen Time sandbox? Finding 2 — on the parent, users: .children shows the parent's OWN data. On the parent I embed DeviceActivityReport(_:filter:) with DeviceActivityFilter(users: .children, …). The report renders, but shows the parent's own apps/categories — no child data. FamilyActivityPicker on the parent behaves the same (lists the parent's own apps). The identical code on the child (users: .all) returns the child's full data — so the pipeline works; only the cross-device delivery to the parent fails. Q2: What is required for DeviceActivityReport(users: .children) to deliver a child's activity to a third-party app on the parent device? Must the parent app hold a specific FamilyControls authorization (which FamilyControlsMember)? What conditions make FamilyActivityPicker surface a child's apps (not just categories) from the family on the parent device — authorization type, Family Sharing roles, child managed status, sync timing? ⸻ Already ruled out: physical devices (not Simulator); Screen Time data present on the child; extension correctly embedded (ExtensionKit com.apple.deviceactivityui.report-extension) and running makeConfiguration normally; family-controls + App Group present on app and both extensions; iCloud container named conventionally iCloud.. Core question: What is the supported architecture for showing a child's per-app usage on a parent's device in a third-party app? I want to build on the sanctioned path rather than a workaround. Thanks!

We have six Advanced App Clip Experiences configured for our production app, each mapped to a different path under a single domain, each with its own title and image. When a user without the full app installed receives one of these links in Messages, iOS always presents the default App Clip card -- never the matching advanced experience card. The same URLs resolve the correct advanced card in Safari. What we've already verified (so this isn't a basic setup problem): Opening the exact same URL in Safari shows the correct advanced card, including the expected per-path title. A Local Experience (Settings → Developer → App Clips Testing) for the same path + bundle ID validates and launches the correct flow. Associated Domains validation is green in Settings. The AASA at app-site-association.cdn-apple.com contains the appclips component with our App Clip bundle ID, and the applinks components include all six paths. In App Store Connect, all six Advanced App Clip Experiences show "Received" with successful domain validation, and the app + App Clip are live in the App Store. Reproduced on multiple devices on iOS [version], none with the full app installed. Messages does show a card — it's just always the default card. Our questions: Is per-path Advanced App Clip Experience card selection supported in the Messages link bubble at all -- or is Messages documented to always present the default experience metadata regardless of which advanced-experience URL is shared? Apple's App Store Connect help states the default metadata is used "in the app clip link bubble in Messages," which suggests this may be by design -- can someone confirm? If advanced cards in Messages are supported, what conditions cause Messages (but not Safari) to fall back to the default card for the same URL? Does "Received" status indicate an advanced experience is fully live, or is there a later state that confirms Messages rollout? If Messages is expected to always show the default card, we'll plan around that -- we just want a definitive answer rather than continuing to chase a configuration cause. Thanks!

We noticed that in older OS versions the accessory picker would consistently display a peripheral's advertised friendly name on top of displaying information from the matching display item. While in newer OS versions we would mostly only see the name from the display item. Is there a way to configure this?

The documentation specifies that when Contacts framework returns unified contacts that each fetched unified contact object (CNContact) has its own unique identifier that’s different from any individual contact’s identifier in the set of linked contacts and that when refetching a unified contact, that this identifier should be used. There is also an analogous identifier within the list of contactRelations, but each of these don't seem to corespondent to the unified contacts. For example, is a new contact (Sheryl Zakroff) is created in the simulator Contacts and their spouse is set to Hank Zakroff. However, the GUID created for the contactRelations identifier does not correlate to the original Hank Zakroff GUID and cannot be searched. Is this a bug or what is the indent of the contactRelations identifier? Here's a debug output of walking the unifiedContacts: Name: Hank Zakroff 2E73EE73-C03F-4D5F-B1E8-44E85A70F170 - Other : (555) 766-4823 - Other : (707) 555-1854 Name: David Taylor E94CD15C-7964-4A9B-8AC4-10D7CFB791FD - Other : 555-610-6679 Name: Sheryl Zakroff DE783BC8-7917-4138-93F6-3AF0FD4CE083 - Other : (707) 555-1854 - Spouse: <CNContactRelation: 0x60000000dd60: name=Hank M. Zakroff> - 534B467D-CA00-46D3-897C-16EEA782C9CF - Looking for ["534B467D-CA00-46D3-897C-16EEA782C9CF"] []

Hi! Sms reporting is no longer available in iOS beta 26 builds. I can set my app as the SMS/Call Reporting Extensions but the report button is missing for sms messages in the messages app. Xcode 26 beta 7 build the app without errors. This is a breaking change. Same extension was previously broken for calls but has been fixed in beta 7 build, as reported here. It is however still missing for sms messages in the messages app (beta 9 build).

I have a question regarding parental control features within a region with age assurance regulations. The DeclaredAgeRange docs here suggests that age range can be "set" by the user or their parent or guardian: Check the ageRangeDeclaration to understand how the person or their parent or guardian set their age range. The declaration method indicates whether the age was self-declared, guardian-declared, or verified using a payment method, government ID, or another method. Based on this, I'm assuming the parent has the ability to override the user's real age (ex: 13 year old set to 18+?). Is that a correct assumption? Or do users that belong into a regulated region always return their true age for the purposes of Texas SB2420?

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.

I am currently experiencing a bug where everyday at 5:30pm I have to manually go into Settings and turn off Screen Time's Downtime because it automatically locks me out of almost all of my apps. I am not able to toggle the "Scheduled" option, preventing me from editing Downtime. Is there any improvements with iOS27 that will be able to fix this bug? The goal is to not use Downtime anymore (aka it is not scheduled).

When the Age Verification framework validates a user based on both regulated region and age range, which location signal will the framework use for users in regulated regions? a.          The user's current physical location b.          The location associated with the user's Apple account c.          The billing or credit card location If multiple signals are available and inconsistent, what is the expected precedence order?   2. Can you provide a list of regions where age range is specified by default and regions where it is not? My app currently requests consent to share age range information during sign-in or sign-up, and the user's session remains active until sign-out. If a user was under 18 when the app was first installed and selected “decline to share,” but later turns 18 while remaining an active user, what is the recommended in-app approach for requesting age range information at that stage? Additionally, if parental consent is used to allow access for users under 18, how should the app determine when the user turns 18 and becomes eligible for direct age range collection? What are the exact requirements and limitations for receiving real (live) responses from the Declared Age Range API? Will these Age Verification rules/checks applied only to the new Apple Accounts or for existing users too?

My app's crash numbers in App Store Connect's analytics are higher than I'd like, but I'm having trouble figuring out where they're coming from. In Xcode's Organizer, I see very low numbers of foreground crashes, and 95% of my background terminations are "System Pressure." So I have some questions about what's included in App Store Connect's numbers and correlating them with other signals: Do they include background terminations, or only foreground terminations? If they do include background terminations, do they include "File Lock" terminations (which I think largely means 0xdead10cc)? If they do include background terminations, do they include System Pressure terminations? Are all the crashes included in App Store Connect's numbers also delivered to MetricKit as crash diagnostics? Is there documentation on what "System Pressure" terminations are? My understanding is that it's when the system kills my app to free up resources.

Dear Screen Time Team! The current 6 MB memory limit for the DeviceActivityMonitor extension no longer reflects the reality of modern iOS devices or the complexity of apps built on top of the Screen Time framework. When Screen Time APIs were introduced with iOS 15, hardware constraints were very different. Since then, iPhone performance and available RAM have increased significantly…but the extension memory limit has remained unchanged. My name is Frederik Riedel, and I’m the developer of the screen time app “one sec.” Our app relies heavily on FamilyControls, ManagedSettings, and DeviceActivity to provide real-time interventions that help users reduce social media usage. In practice, the 6 MB limit has become a critical bottleneck: The DeviceActivityMonitor extension frequently crashes due to memory pressure, often unpredictably. Even highly optimized implementations struggle to stay within this constraint when using Swift and multiple ManagedSettings stores. The limit makes it disproportionately difficult to build stable, maintainable, and scalable architectures on top of these frameworks. This is not just an edge case…it directly impacts reliability in production apps that depend on Screen Time APIs for core functionality. Modern system integrations like Screen Time are incredibly powerful, but they also require a reasonable amount of memory headroom to function reliably. The current limit forces developers into fragile workarounds and undermines the robustness of apps that aim to improve users’ digital wellbeing. We would greatly appreciate if you could revisit and update this restriction to better align with today’s device capabilities and developer needs. Thank you for your continued work on Screen Time and for supporting developers building meaningful experiences on top of it. Feedback: FB22279215 Best regards, Frederik Riedel (one sec app)

I guess this is in parts a multiplatform / SwiftData / WidgetKit and SwiftUI question. my usual problem is I start an app and then quickly find myself wanting to add widgets / controls / AppIntents and expand across multiple targets. for example I start with an iOS only target and expand to watchOS, iPadOS and visionOS. But since this targets and the apps I want to build are very distinct, I don’t find myself using the multiplatform target but instead a target per platform. This (at least from my understanding) then also comes with the benefit that I can add a WidgetKit extension and all targets use it. now this is the base idea, but here come the many questions I have had issues finding a clear answer and guidance on over the last years. When sharing SwiftUI views and business logic for DRY, whats the actual best way to do that? A „core“ swift package, or a library? what are the implications of choosing one over the other? I understand that widgets are separately scoped and sandboxed from my main app, but since I use SwiftData in the main app I‘ll have to use app groups so that both can have the same data store. Now; using query in widgets is no problem and is intuitive enough, but the ModelContext has to come from somewhere and be initialized somewhere Where? + additionally, talking about appintents for example when having a control or interactive widget, they also need to share the same context to have an immediate response and update all accordingly (so app, widgets and intents all need to have the same) but how do I actually do that when everything is sandboxed? I recently discovered the @Dependecy macro in I think it was an app intents talk, but it’s usage was skipped over and I couldn’t find documentation explaining what I need to do here to get this actually working. i think the two above are my main questions and I hope I could give enough context to see where I fall short of understanding the architects involved. so for big multiplatform apps where I want to adopt as many system features as possible what’s the best „separation“ or project structure here? see, for example the default Apple Notes app would really interest me how they handle it, or Journal for that matter, since it targets so many platforms and has native features, how is the project structured at the top level? (Obv just an example of what scope I am looking for here) sample code often falls short of what I need, or maybe then again I haven’t found the right one yet. thanks for reading to this point and I am grateful every input, perspective and suggestion I can get here, since it will apply to all my projects

With the recent introduction of the unified asset pipeline and Icon Composer, managing cross-platform icon designs has become incredibly efficient. However, there is still a significant platform disparity when it comes to maintaining visual consistency and brand uniformity across paired devices. On iOS, we can dynamically change the app icon at runtime using the setAlternateIconName API. Currently, watchOS completely lacks an equivalent mechanism. If a user selects an alternative icon inside an iOS companion app, the paired Apple Watch app icon remains locked to the default primary asset. This creates a disjointed experience and directly impacts user recognition. The watchOS home screen relies entirely on instant visual cues. If a user changes their iPhone icon to a custom colorway, they instinctively look for that same colorway on their wrist. Leaving the watch icon unchanged makes it harder to quickly locate the app. I have submitted an enhancement request via Feedback Assistant to bring alternate app icon support to watchOS, ideally through an automatic system-level sync within the unified .icon pipeline, or via a native watchOS runtime API. If your app utilizes alternate icons and you would like to see this cross-device continuity brought to watchOS, please consider filing your own duplicate request to help bring visibility to this gap. Filed Feedback: FB23080617

Is there any news on Help Bundle issues from macOS 26? FB17996362 FB19414854 FB17996178 FB17460960