We are currently planning the development of an iOS healthcare application that will require the use of Critical Alerts. I understand that these notifications bypass Do Not Disturb and Silent mode, and therefore require special entitlement from Apple. We understand that Critical Alerts require a special entitlement from Apple. Could you please clarify: Do we need to request and obtain Apple’s approval for Critical Alerts before we begin development of the app? Or can we apply for this entitlement after we have a working build or prototype ready? We want to ensure compliance and streamline our development process, so any guidance on the appropriate timing for the entitlement request would be greatly appreciated.

Does iOS provide a callback when a notification is manually removed from the notification tray ?

We are so interested in AlarmKit which is presented at WWDC25. While we planning our app using AlarmKit, We had a few questions come to mind and were hoping you could provide some clarity. Please excuse the rather long list of questions, as we don't currently have a device available to test these features ourselves. System Actions Related Is there a limit to the number of alarms that can be scheduled using AlarmKit? Are alarms scheduled with AlarmKit persistent across device reboots? When an alarm is dismissed (either by swiping or pressing the power button), can our app detect this action and execute code in response? Can we control the behavior of the physical Lock Screen buttons when an AlarmKit alarm is active, for instance, to trigger a snooze action? Does AlarmKit function correctly during Do Not Disturb or Low Power Mode? What is the expected behavior when an alarm from our app (using AlarmKit) overlaps with an alarm from another app that also uses AlarmKit? Which one is going to get its priority? Thank you for your help. Sincerely

When sending a single push notification to iOS 18 devices users receive the same notification multiple times. This issue appears specific to iOS 18 and was not observed in previous iOS versions Our server logs confirm each notification is sent only once. Notification payloads include proper apns-id values for identification and no network issues detected on our side

Could anyone play a sound from the Library/Sounds directory using alarmkit? Same file can play in app bundle, but not available in Library/Sounds directory. Is this by design?

I've added a Notification Service Extension as a target to my React Native iOS app following Apple's official documentation. After completing all the setup steps as outlined in the documentation, the notification titles remain unchanged - notifications are arriving without any modifications, suggesting the extension isn't functioning properly.Testing Details: Sending notifications via Apple Push Notification Console Tested on iPhone 16 Pro Max (physical device) Tested on iPhone 15 Pro simulator Both show the same issue - no title modifications The extension appears to not be executing at all. Has anyone encountered similar issues with Notification Service Extensions in React Native projects, or can suggest troubleshooting steps to verify the extension is properly configured and running?

Hello Apple Developer Team, Based on the mandate to update the APNs certificate by February 24, 2025 for certificate-based authentication, a question from the team has been brought up that maybe Apple or the community can help answer. Since our implementation uses token-based authentication, I’m seeking clarification on a couple of points: 1. Does the certificate update affect token-based connections at all? 2. What is the rationale behind updating certificates for certificate-based authentication, and are there any implications or benefits for developers using token-based authentication? Understanding these details will help us ensure our system remains compliant and optimally configured. Any guidance or further clarification you can provide would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Hi there, Thank you for the framework 🙏 if I use Alarm.Schedule.Relative with Alarm.Schedule.Relative.Time(hour: hour, minute: minute) and Alarm.Schedule.Relative.Recurrence.never it seems like there is some (odd?) limit where alarm will get scheduled to next day if too close? For example, lets say the current time is 12:00 PM, if I schedule alarm for 12:02 PM, it will schedule it for next day, while if I do 12:05 PM it will work as expected. Is that expected? If yes, what's the behavior and is that documented anywhere? I would expect any alarm thats scheduled in the future to fire for the current day (maybe if it's only 1 minute it gets tricky). One problem is also that even if the framework says an alarm is scheduled, I don't have access to the "next alarm date"? I wish I did as otherwise I have to compute it (by "guessing" the AlarmKit calculation) if I want to do anything with that date. Honestly, sometimes I think I am just going crazy when the alarm doesn't fire, but there SEEMS to be some odd behavior around this? (of course, feel free to correct me on anything - I could be missing documentation or not understanding something)

I have a database in CloudKit, where the host share (using CKShare) a record to participants. The record is in her private database, but for the participants is in their shared database. How do I send push notifications to everyone when a new child record is created?

I am sending push notifications on iOS, and I can receive and display them correctly. I want to be able to dismiss notifications that have been read server-side (e.g. on a different device) so I am trying to send a custom notification payload alongside a badge counter update, that specifies what notification IDs to remove. I then use removeDeliveredNotifications on the IDs I get. However, it doesn't seem to be working. I am setting the identifier using the apns-collapse-id header and I do see that reflected on the device side. Any ideas what I might be doing wrong? This is how I'm handling push notifications: func userNotificationCenter( _ center: UNUserNotificationCenter, willPresent notification: UNNotification, withCompletionHandler completionHandler: @escaping (UNNotificationPresentationOptions) -> Void ) { let customPayload = notification.request.content.userInfo if let dismissedNotifications = customPayload["dismissed_notifications"] as? [String] { center.removeDeliveredNotifications(withIdentifiers: dismissedNotifications) } completionHandler([.banner, .sound, .badge]) } I also tried doing the same thing inside func userNotificationCenter( _ center: UNUserNotificationCenter, didReceive response: UNNotificationResponse, withCompletionHandler completionHandler: @escaping () -> Void ) Thank you!

Only iOS devices stop receiving notifications after a few days of the app being installed. To resolve this, you need to reinstall the app again. I'm using Firebase to send messages.

Hello, I am writing this because the behavior of the App Store Server Notification that our server receives is problematic in the Sandbox environment. I have two questions in total. When purchasing a Free Trial subscription, after receiving the SUBSCRIBED / INITAL_BUY Notification, DID_RENEW should be sent when it expires, but DID_FAIL_TO_RENEW/GRACE_PERIOD is sent. The EXPIRE Notification is sent after the subscription expires or DID_CHANGE_RENEWAL_STATUS/AUTO_RENEW_DISABLED is sent, but it does not arrive. The first problem is that I recently heard that automatic payments after a free trial require the user's consent via email. Is this the reason? If so, I am curious about how I can test it in the Sandbox environment. Is the second problem a bug?

Hi, I'm experiencing an issue with my app. I use Firebase as my server, and it is great. Still, there is one issue: when I send push notifications from my app to users, the users will get the notification if the app is open, but not when it is closed. I have tried many solutions to fix it, even asking AI, but the issue is still there. I would be happy to give you access to Firebase and the Xcode workspace, as I have no clue how to fix it.

Approx Dec 13th 2025 til now (Dec 29th) I noticed my APNS dropped off to nothing daily. When I try to send APNS alerts on the developer site tool it always returns "discarded as device was offline" for multiple devices which I know are online. When I try pushing through my VPS (as I always have without any code changes for months) I get status codes of 400 and 403 mostly and a few 200's without it delivering also. I created a new sandbox certificate just in case it was that but still no luck, I get the same results. Ive checked for any firewall issues and I see the following on my VPS: nslookup gateway.push.apple.com Server: 1.1.1.1 Address: 1.1.1.1#53 ** server can't find gateway.push.apple.com: NXDOMAIN This seems like a second issue but not the primary issue that the portal is reporting. Any ideas what to check? Im at a loss as to why its not working at all through apples test notification portal on my developer account. It seems thats the initial issue I need to solve. Thank you for any ideas/help

I have been fighting this problem for two months and would love any help, advice or tips. Should I file a DTS ticket? Summary We attach a JPEG image to a local notification using UNNotificationAttachment. iOS reports the delivered notification as having attachments=1, but intermittently no image preview appears in Notification Center. In correlated cases, the attachment’s UNNotificationAttachment.url (which points into iOS’s attachment store) becomes unreadable (Data(contentsOf:) fails) even though the delivered notification still reports attachments=1. This document describes the investigation, evidence, and mitigations attempted. Product / Component UserNotifications framework UNNotificationAttachment rendering in Notification UI (Notification Center / banner / expanded preview) Environment App: OnThisDay (SwiftUI, Swift 6) Notifications: local notifications scheduled with UNCalendarNotificationTrigger(repeats: false) Attachment: JPEG generated from PhotoKit (PHImageManager.requestImage) and written to app temp directory, then passed into UNNotificationAttachment. Test contexts: Debug builds (direct Xcode install) TestFlight builds (production signing) iOS devices: multiple, reproducible with long runs and user clearing delivered notifications Expected Result Delivered notifications with UNNotificationAttachment should consistently show the image preview in Notification Center (thumbnail and expanded preview), as long as the notification reports attachments=1. If the OS reports attachments=1, the attachment’s store URL should remain valid/readable for the lifetime of the delivered notification still present in Notification Center. Actual Result Intermittently: Notification Center shows no image preview even though the app scheduled the notification with an attachment and iOS reports the delivered notification as having attachments=1. When we inspect delivered notifications via UNUserNotificationCenter.getDeliveredNotifications, the delivered notification’s request.content.attachments.first?.url exists but is unreadable (attempting Data(contentsOf:) returns nil / throws), i.e. the backing attachment-store file appears missing or inaccessible. In some scenarios the attachment-store file is readable for hours while the notification is pending, and then becomes unreadable after the notification is delivered. Reproduction Scenarios (Observed) Next-day reminders show attachment-store unreadable after delivery 1. Schedule a one-shot daily reminder for next day (07:00 local time) with UNCalendarNotificationTrigger(repeats: false) and a JPEG attachment. 2. During the prior day, periodic background refresh tasks verify the pending notification’s attachment-store URL is readable (pendingReadable=true). 3. After the reminder is delivered the next morning, the delivered snapshot shows the delivered notification’s attachment-store URL is unreadable (readable=false) and Notification Center shows no preview. Interpretation: the attachment-store blob appears to become inaccessible around/after delivery, despite being readable while pending. Evidence and Instrumentation We added non-crashing diagnostic logging (Debug builds) around: Scheduling time Logged that we successfully created a UNNotificationAttachment from a unique temp file. Logged that UNUserNotificationCenter.add(request) succeeded. Queried pendingNotificationRequests() and logged the scheduled request’s attachment url.lastPathComponent (iOS attachment-store filename). Delivered time (when app becomes active) Called UNUserNotificationCenter.getDeliveredNotifications and logged: delivered count, attachment count attachment url.lastPathComponent whether Data(contentsOf: attachment.url) succeeds (readable=true/false) Content fingerprinting Fingerprinted the exact JPEG bytes we wrote (SHA-256 prefix + byte count). Logged the iOS attachment-store filename (url.lastPathComponent) returned post-scheduling. Decode validation probe (later addition) When Data(contentsOf:) succeeds, we validate it decodes as an image using CGImageSourceCreateWithData and log: UTI (e.g. public.jpeg) pixel width/height magic header bytes What we tried / Mitigations Proactive “self-heal” for pending notifications Change: during background refresh/foreground refresh, verify the pending daily reminder’s attachment-store URL readability. If it’s unreadable, reschedule with a new attachment (same trigger). Rationale: if iOS drops the store file before delivery, recreating could repair it. Result: We observed cases where pending remained readable but delivered became unreadable after delivery, so this doesn’t address all observed failures. It is still valuable hardening. Increase scheduling frequency / reschedule closer to fire time (proposed/considered) We discussed adding a debug mode to always recreate the daily reminder during background refresh tasks (or only within N hours of fire time) to reduce the time window between attachment creation and delivery. Status: experimental; not yet confirmed to resolve the “pendingReadable=true → delivered unreadable after delivery” failure. Impact The primary UX value of the daily reminder is the preview photo; missing previews degrade core functionality. Failures are intermittent and appear dependent on OS attachment-store behavior and Notification Center actions (clearing notifications), making them difficult to mitigate fully app-side. Notes / Questions for Apple 1. Is iOS allowed to coalesce/deduplicate UNNotificationAttachment storage across notifications? If so, what is the retention model when delivered notifications are removed? 2. If a delivered notification still reports attachments=1, should its attachment-store URL remain valid/readable while the notification is still present in Notification Center? 3. In “next-day” one-shot scheduling scenarios, can the attachment-store blob be purged between scheduling and delivery (or immediately after delivery) even if the notification remains visible? 4. Is there a recommended pattern to ensure attachment previews remain stable for long-lived scheduled notifications (hours to a day), especially when using UNCalendarNotificationTrigger(repeats: false)? Minimal Code Pattern (simplified) 1. Generate JPEG (PhotoKit → UIImage → JPEG Data). 2. Write to a unique temp URL. 3. Create attachment: UNNotificationAttachment(identifier: <uuid>, url: <tempURL>, options: [UNNotificationAttachmentOptionsTypeHintKey: "public.jpeg"]) 4. Schedule notification with a calendar trigger for the next morning.

We are observing an weird behaviour where a user uninstalled the app back in February (more than a month ago) but APNs is still accepting push notifications are returning success responses. We know that using APNs response codes for uninstall tracking is not reliable and that Apple will use fuzzy schedule to invalidate tokens. However, showing successful responses for month+ old tokens seems a bit misleading and results in wasted token processing for both us and Apple. Could you please confirm that invalidation (or fuzzy schedule) could take more than months to invalidate tokens on the APNs side? Is that expected or is this a bug somewhere?

I'm sending local push notifications and want to show specific content based on the id of any notification the user opens. I'm able to do this with no issues when the app is already running in the background using the code below. final class AppDelegate: NSObject, UIApplicationDelegate, UNUserNotificationCenterDelegate { let container = AppContainer() func application(_ application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey: Any]? = nil) -> Bool { let center = UNUserNotificationCenter.current() center.delegate = self return true } func userNotificationCenter(_ center: UNUserNotificationCenter, didReceive response: UNNotificationResponse, withCompletionHandler completionHandler: () -> Void) { container.notifications.handleResponse(response) completionHandler() } } However, the delegate never fires if the app was terminated before the user taps the notification. I'm looking for a way to fix this without switching my app lifecycle to UIKit. This is a SwiftUI lifecycle app using UIApplicationDelegateAdaptor. @main struct MyApp: App { @UIApplicationDelegateAdaptor(AppDelegate.self) var appDelegate var body: some Scene { WindowGroup { ContentView() } } } I’m aware notification responses may be delivered via launchOptions on cold start, but I’m unsure how to bridge that cleanly into a SwiftUI lifecycle app without reverting to UIKit.

I have multiple app ids that are registered with Push Notification, however they do not hsow up in the Push Notification Console for testing.

Currently, I have implemented local cache update with server data when app is killed using Push Notification and Notification Service Extension. So it works even the app is killed by the user, but I wanted to know whether this is app review safe work around or not as I am not finding any documentation for this.

According to the Apple notification alert received in October 2024, the APNS server certificate update for production is scheduled for February 24, 2025. Has this change been implemented, or is there a platform or method to verify whether this update has been applied in production? If so, where can we check this?"