For important background information, read Extra-ordinary Networking before reading this. Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com" On Host Names I commonly see questions like How do I get the device’s host name? This question doesn’t make sense without more context. Apple systems have a variety of things that you might consider to be the host name: The user-assigned device name — This is a user-visible value, for example, Guy Smiley. People set this in Settings > General > About > Name. The local host name — This is a DNS name used by Bonjour, for example, guy-smiley.local. By default this is algorithmically derived from the user-assigned device name. On macOS, people can override this in Settings > General > Sharing > Local hostname. The reverse DNS name associated with the various IP addresses assigned to the device’s various network interfaces That last one is pretty much useless. You can’t get a single host name because there isn’t a single IP address. For more on that, see Don’t Try to Get the Device’s IP Address. The other two have well-defined answers, although those answers vary by platform. I’ll talk more about that below. Before getting to that, however, let’s look at the big picture. Big Picture The use cases for the user-assigned device name are pretty clear. I rarely see folks confused about that. Another use case for this stuff is that you’ve started a server and you want to tell the user how to connect to it. I discuss this in detail in Showing Connection Information in an iOS Server. However, most folks who run into problems like this do so because they’re suffering from one of the following misconceptions: The device has a DNS name. Its DNS name is unique. Its DNS name doesn’t change. Its DNS name is in some way useful for networking. Some of these may be true in some specific circumstances, but none of them are true in all circumstances. These issues are not unique to Apple platforms — if you look at the Posix spec for gethostname, it says nothing about DNS! — but folks tend to notice these problems more on Apple platforms because Apple devices are often deployed to highly dynamic network environments. So, before you start using the APIs discussed in this post, think carefully about your assumptions. And if you actually do want to work with DNS, there are two cases to consider: If you’re looking for the local host name, use the APIs discussed above. In other cases, it’s likely that the APIs in this post will not be helpful and you’d be better off focusing on DNS APIs [1]. [1] The API I recommend for this is DNS-SD. See the DNS section in TN3151 Choosing the right networking API. macOS To get the user-assigned device name, call the SCDynamicStoreCopyComputerName(_:_:) function. For example: let userAssignedDeviceName = SCDynamicStoreCopyComputerName(nil, nil) as String? To get the local host name, call the SCDynamicStoreCopyLocalHostName(_:) function. For example: let localHostName = SCDynamicStoreCopyLocalHostName(nil) as String? IMPORTANT This returns just the name label. To form a local host name, append .local.. Both routines return an optional result; code defensively! If you’re displaying these values to the user, use the System Configuration framework dynamic store notification mechanism to keep your UI up to date. iOS and Friends On iOS, iPadOS, tvOS, and visionOS, get the user-assigned device name from the name property on UIDevice. IMPORTANT Access to this is now restricted. For more on that, see the documentation for the com.apple.developer.device-information.user-assigned-device-name entitlement. There is no direct mechanism to get the local host name. Other APIs There are a wide variety of other APIs that purport to return the host name. These include: gethostname The name property on NSHost [1] The hostName property on NSProcessInfo (ProcessInfo in Swift) These are problematic for a number of reasons: They have a complex implementation that makes it hard to predict what value you’ll get back. They might end up trying to infer the host name from the network environment. The existing behaviour is hard to change due to compatibility concerns. Some of them are marked as to-be-deprecated. IMPORTANT The second issue is particularly problematic, because it involves synchronous DNS requests [2]. That’s slow in general. Worse yet, if the network environment is restricted in some way, these calls can be very slow, taking about 30 seconds to time out. Given these problems, it’s generally best to avoid calling these routines at all. [1] It also has a names property, which is a little closer to reality but still not particularly useful. [2] Actually, that’s not true for gethostname. Rather, that call just returns whatever was last set by sethostname. This is always fast. The System Configuration framework infrastructure calls sethostname to update the host name as the system state changes.

The built-in Books and iMessages on the latest macOS can not handle Shortcuts properly. If Books (no matter the Home scheme or the reading scheme) or iMessages is the current focused application, Shortcuts doesn't work. Once I move out and focus app turns to Finder or any other app, Shortcuts works properly. An exception is that when I pin the shortcut in the Menu Bar, the Menu Bar one works, while the one in the application's menu doesn't work. I have no idea why this would happen. Could it be part of privilege control or something?

Howdy, I'm trying to figure out how to replicate the following behavior for our app: The system is able to ascertain that the Mac equivalent of some iOS app is installed locally, and it prevents notifications from being mirrored. However, I am unable to determine how this association is inferred. When I check our iOS app under this prefpane, the switch remains enabled and toggleable—we'd like to act like Slack here. My initial assumption is that an app group containing both the Mac and iOS apps can be used to create the association; however, I would like to confirm that this is indeed the case before doing so. I'm not terribly confident about this. Details: The bundle identifiers of both apps do not match. This also applies to Slack; its iOS app is com.tinyspeck.chatlyio while its Mac app is com.tinyspeck.slackmacgap. In our case, the iOS app's identifier is like com.company.app while the Mac app's identifier is com.company.app.desktop. Both apps are signed with certificates that have matching team identifiers. The com.apple.developer.team-identifier entitlement is present on the Mac app. The Mac app shares a keychain access group with the iOS app. The Mac app is not sandboxed. The Mac app is an Electron app. The Mac app does not use APNs. It sends notifications "locally". I currently only have the iOS app installed on my iPhone via TestFlight, if that matters. Notification mirroring does work, but we'd like to forcibly disable this by associating the apps together. To my knowledge, the iOS app makes use of both a UNNotificationServiceExtension and a UNNotificationContentExtension. The iOS app currently doesn't have an assigned category (at least in Xcode). The Mac app is currently miscategorized as a developer tool (LSApplicationCategoryType = "public.app-category.developer-tools";), but that should be fixed. (Redacted) bundle information for the Mac app: CFBundleDisplayName = App; CFBundleExecutable = "App Desktop"; CFBundleName = App; Note that our CFBundleExecutable differs from the bundle's display name/name because we're currently migrating our users to a new version of the app that they'd likely want to live alongside the new one. The filename of the bundle itself is, similarly, App Desktop.app. For the iOS app, to my knowledge, the CFBundleName and CFBundleDisplayName are App.

Hi everyone, We’ve encountered an issue in some of our games where IAP purchases made using UPI are going into a pending state. Since these purchases are for consumable items, the rewards are not granted at the time of purchase. Even after the transactions are eventually confirmed, the rewards still aren't received. We tested this with two separate UPI transactions, and both resulted in the same pending state issue. Interestingly, when we tried making a purchase using Apple Wallet afterward, the transaction completed successfully on the first attempt, without any pending state. This issue seems specific to UPI transactions. Could anyone help us understand why this is happening or if there’s a recommended way to handle such cases? Thanks in advance!

We're experiencing an issue with in-app purchases in our React Native iOS app where RNIap.getProducts() is consistently returning an empty array, preventing users from making purchases. Technical Details: Using react-native-iap library Product ID: '[REDACTED]' Platform: iOS Product Type: Consumable (one-time payment, NOT subscription) Error in logs: "No products returned from App Store. Check App Store Connect." Debugging shows: Products Fetched: [] Steps to Reproduce: Open app and navigate to the quiz feature Attempt to purchase additional quiz attempts Modal opens but fails to load product information What We've Confirmed: IAP Connection initializes successfully No error is thrown during product fetch, just an empty array returned App is configured with correct Bundle ID Using Apple Sandbox test account We are implementing consumable purchases (one-time payments) Potential Issues to Investigate: Product configuration in App Store Connect Ensure product is set as "Consumable" type in App Store Connect Sandbox tester account permissions/activation Bundle ID matching between app and App Store Connect Product ID case sensitivity or typos

Hi everyone, We operate an online game where all in-app assets are stored server-side and require a logged-in account (no device binding). I’d like guidance on four areas: Do we really need deviceVerification / deviceVerificationNonce? – Because every purchase is tied to an account and we enforce a global transactionId UNIQUE constraint, replay or cross-account reuse appears infeasible. Under these conditions, is omitting device verification acceptable, or are there situations where Apple still recommends it? Permanent rate-limit increase for the App Store Server API – During anniversary events we saw bursts of ~18 000 requests per hour, breaching the current hourly cap on the App Store Server API (verifyTransaction, getNotificationHistory, etc.). Is there a formal process to request a long-term rate-limit expansion (or an alternative tier) from Apple? When is an App Store Server API call required for a StoreKit 2 jwsRepresentation? Docs say “call the API if you’re unsure,” but there’s no clear cut-off. Because we fully validate the JWS signature plus the entire certificate chain (including CRL/OCSP checks) on our server, local cryptographic validation seems sufficient for consumables. For subscriptions we still plan to hit the API to fetch the latest status. Does this separation match Apple’s best practice? If Apple does recommend hitting the API for consumables as well, we’d like a concrete rule of thumb—e.g. “if the item price is USD 50 or higher, always use the API.” Is establishing such thresholds consistent with Apple’s intent? Refund-risk reduction from Send Consumption Info – Adapty reports a 40–60 % refund-rate drop for subscriptions when using Send Consumption Info (blog reference). Can we expect similar reduction for consumable IAP in social/online games? Any real-world results would be helpful. Thanks in advance for any guidance!

Team, We are currently checking out on Apple Pay using ALL and MRU as currencies. We have authorized the payment via Touch ID; however, we are not receiving the onPaymentAuthorized event. Could you please confirm if Apple Pay supports ALL and MRU currencies? We have confirmed that it works with other currencies. Thank you!

Hi everyone, I'm working on an app for parents and kids where parents can define screen time goals or restrict usage of certain app categories (like social media or games). If the kid follows those rules—for example, by using their device less or avoiding restricted categories—they would earn points or rewards in the app. I’ve been exploring if the Apple Screen Time API allows developers to access this kind of data (like total screen time, app usage by category, etc.) so that I can track the kid’s behavior and reward them accordingly. Is it possible to programmatically access this data and implement such a reward system within my app? If so, what’s the best way to get started or which APIs should I look into? Thanks in advance for your help!

Hi Guys, I am having an issue verifying a card when it is pending verification in the Apple Watch Wallet App and the iPhone Wallet. When the user verifies the card in the wallets, they are redirected to verification in my APP. However, the problem is that I don't know which application is calling, whether it is the Apple Watch or the iPhone, because the URL sends me the same serialNumber from the PKPASS. It is impossible to know if the user wants to verify and activate the card on the watch or the iPhone. Because I only receive the following information in the URL: myapp://app-url? passTypeldentifier=paymentpass.com.apple&action =verify&serialNumber=***** The serialNumber is the same from the iPhone Wallet and the Watch Wallet. func application(_ app: UIApplication, open url: URL, options: [UIApplication.OpenURLOptionsKey : Any] = [:]) -> Bool { let source = options[.sourceApplication] I try to retrieve the source, but it comes back null. It would be the only way to know the originating App. Can someone help me solve this problem?

I have a document based SwiftData app in which I would like to implement a persistent cache. For obvious reasons, I would not like to store the contents of the cache in the documents themselves, but in my app's data directory. Is a use case, in which a document based SwiftData app uses not only the ModelContainers from the currently open files, but also a ModelContainer writing a database file in the app's documents directory (for cache, settings, etc.) supported? If yes, how can you inject two different ModelContexts, one tied to the currently open file and one tied to the local database, into a SwiftUI view?

I'd like to set the recordingYear in my Spotlight File Importer extension but the property is missing from CSSearchableItemAttributeSet e.g. in the resulting in mdls I'd like to see: kMDItemRecordingYear = 2008; This would allow me to search in Finder by the recording year criteria. There is a recordingDate property and I tried setting it to Date that only has a year but it didn't work. It just resulted in this: kMDItemRecordingDate = "2008-01-01 00:00:00 +0000";

I'm trying to understand the IAP development process. I created my first Product on App Store Connect and am trying to build my app to use it. However it keeps failing with "Invalid product ID.". From what I've read, this is because the product has not yet gone through review. But what I don't understand is, of course it hasn't gone through review yet, because trying to use it in any capacity fails, even though I'm using a real physical device and using a Sandbox User. Is this the correct workflow? It seems very backwards that I have to submit the product for review, even before I know how it's going to be used. I'm still building the screen for the product page, and haven't even started touching any backend APIs, yet it's asking for screenshots. Am I misunderstanding something here?

We've been using the WeatherKit API for a few years now. Everything has been pretty stable. We'll periodically get 404 errors, but they usually disappear within a couple days. Starting March 5th we've again been getting 404 errors that slowly ramped up to March 20th and continued. We have had no code changes on our end, so something seems to have changed / broken on the server side of things. Here are some example API calls that are giving us a 404 error now https://weatherkit.apple.com/api/v1/weather/en/35.9981205/-78.8920444?dataSets=forecastDaily&dailyStart=2025-03-21T05:00:00Z&timezone=America/New_York&countryCode=US https://weatherkit.apple.com/api/v1/weather/en/41.4789363/-81.7404134?dataSets=forecastDaily&dailyStart=2025-03-21T04:56:00Z&timezone=America/New_York&countryCode=US Does anyone have any insights or information on this? Also if Apple is listening, an error more meaningful than 404 would be much much appreciated.

Hi there, I am using Core NFC and I established the connection with the card, but after sending the command 'tag.sendCommand()' I receive this message: -[NFCTagReaderSession _connectTag:error:]:748 Error Domain=NFCError Code=2 "Missing required entitlement" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Missing required entitlement}. The version of XCode I am using is 16.3, and the iPhone version is iOS 18.4 Here is my entitlements file: com.apple.developer.nfc.readersession.formats NDEF TAG And my info.plist: NFCReaderUsageDescription NFC com.apple.developer.nfc.readersession.iso7816.select-identifiers A000112233445566 Signing & Capabilities‌ has added Near Field Communication Tag Reading‌.

Hi, We’re developing a BLE peripheral device and encountered a connection issue when connecting two devices (Device A and Device B) simultaneously to an iOS device. Problem: On iOS 18, we are experiencing occasional BLE timeouts and disconnections when both devices are connected at the same time. On iOS 16, we did not encounter this issue under the same conditions. What we’ve tried: Adjusted the connection interval from 30ms to 15ms. This seems to have improved stability somewhat. However, we still observe intermittent timeout/disconnection issues. Questions: Are there any known changes in BLE connection handling or timing constraints in iOS 18? Are there recommended connection parameter settings (interval, latency, timeout, etc.) for multi-device BLE connections in iOS? Is there a way to debug or log more details about the disconnection reasons on the iOS side? Any guidance or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

reposting this in case it got missed the first time around here https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/775900 We had a question that came up when we comparing data from WeatherKit to other sources - WeatherKit visibility was well beyond the boundaries we had historically, even from Darksky. That raises two questions: is visibility actually in meters like the docs say? is this visibility at ground level, 500ft, or some other height? We were seeing visibility numbers of up to 40 miles (after converting the number the API sent to miles), where all of our other sources are usually within 10 miles

As of iOS 18.3 SDK, Core Bluetooth is still mostly an Objective-C framework: key objects like CBPeripheral inherit from NSObjectProtocol and does not conform to Sendable. CBCentralManager has a convenience initializer that allows the caller to provide a dispatch_queue for delegate callbacks. I want my Swift package that implements Core Bluetooth to conform to Swift 6 strict concurrency checking. It is unsafe to dispatch the delegate events onto my own actor, as the passed in objects are presumably not thread-safe. What is the recommended concurrency safe way to implement Core Bluetooth in Swift 6 with strict concurrency checking enabled?

I want to create a brush similar to a fountain pen, with a three-dimensional feel to the strokes and a distinct tip. Alternatively, is it possible to achieve this by modifying the configuration parameters of a fountain pen brush?

I try to access the AppDistributor.current (using try await) and the property never seem to return nor throw. The code I'm using looks like this: do { print("accessing current") let current = try await AppDistributor.current print("current obtained") switch(current) { case .appStore: return "AppStore" default: return "Unknown" } } catch { return "Exception: \(error)" } But the log only shows the accessing current and never the current obtained. Trying to step in the property starts with some assembly, but at some point, the debugger just never returned. I join a full Swift file of a sample test I'm using: SwiftMarketplaceTests.swift

While testing an inapp purchase, if you purchase the same product twice from an account that does not have testflight permissions for the project and only has sandbox permissions, the second payment will receive the same transactionId as the first. Why is that so? I know transactionID is unique.