Project Background： I am developing a third-party custom keyboard for iOS whose primary feature is real-time voice input. In my current design, responsibilities are split as follows: 1. The container (main) app is responsible for: Audio recording Speech recognition (ASR) 2. The keyboard extension is responsible for: Providing the keyboard UI Initiating the voice input workflow Receiving transcription results via an App Group Inserting recognized text into the active text field using textDocumentProxy.insertText(_:) Intended User Flow The intended workflow is: The user is typing in a third-party app (for example, WeChat) using my custom keyboard. The user taps a “Voice Input” button in the keyboard extension. The keyboard extension activates the container app so that audio recording and ASR can begin. After recording has started, control returns to the original app where the user was typing. The container app continues running in the background, maintaining active audio recording and ASR. Recognized text is continuously streamed back to the keyboard extension and inserted into the current cursor position in real time. Observed Industry Behavior Some popular third-party keyboards on iOS, such as WeChat Keyboard and Doubao Keyboard, appear to provide a similar user experience in which: Voice input can be initiated directly from the keyboard while typing in another app. The user remains (or returns) in the original typing context after voice input starts. Speech recognition continues and text is streamed into the active text field without interrupting the typing experience. I would like to better understand how this type of workflow aligns with iOS platform capabilities and supported APIs. My Questions Is it supported by iOS public APIs for a custom keyboard extension to activate its container app to start audio recording and ASR, then return to the original host app while the container app continues recording and performing ASR in the background? If this workflow is not supported, are there any Apple-recommended or supported alternative architectures for achieving a similar user experience, especially when audio recording and ASR logic are currently implemented in the container app rather than in the keyboard extension? Goal My goal is to design a solution that is fully compliant with iOS public APIs and platform constraints, while providing a real-time voice input experience comparable to existing third-party keyboards on the platform. Any guidance on supported APIs, recommended architectures, or relevant documentation would be greatly appreciated.

Hello, How do apps like App Lock implement app-opening from a shield? Is this supported for 3rd-party apps or limited to partners? https://apps.apple.com/us/app/app-lock/id6448239603

Hello, Recently we got a question about the keyboard sensor data collection in our research project: "For the typing statistics, was any typing included or only messaging and notes? E.g., typing in the browser, phone search, calendar, etc?" While I believe it should be any typing included, I was not able to find a document explicitly stating that. Could you help to confirm it or guide me to any documentation explaining it? Thanks!

Our VoIP app receives PushKit notifications successfully (callservicesd Delivering 1 VoIP payload appears in logs). However, the app is consistently terminated by the system when running in the background or killed state. The crash is caused by iOS expecting a reportNewIncomingCall to CallKit, but the system reports: *** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInternalInconsistencyException', reason: 'Killing app because it never posted an incoming call to the system after receiving a PushKit VoIP push.' *** Assertion failure in -[PKPushRegistry _terminateAppIfThereAreUnhandledVoIPPushes], PKPushRegistry.m:349 Key Observations: VoIP pushes arrive and are delivered to the app. In foreground, some methods work and CallKit UI sometimes appears. In background/killed state, app is always terminated before CallKit UI shows. Logs confirm the system requires CallKit to be reported immediately inside pushRegistry(_:didReceiveIncomingPushWith:for:completion:). Steps to Reproduce: Run the app with VoIP + CallKit integration. Put app in background (or kill it). Send a VoIP push. Observe system logs and crash: callservicesd: Delivering 1 VoIP payload(s) to application UrgiDoctor: Apps receiving VoIP pushes must post an incoming call via CallKit... error: Killing VoIP app because it failed to post an incoming call in time. Expected Behavior: On receiving a VoIP push, CallKit UI (Accept / Decline screen) should always appear. App should not be killed if reportNewIncomingCall is called in time. Actual Behavior: CallKit UI never appears in background/killed state. App is force-terminated by iOS before user can accept/decline the call. Request: Guidance on the correct sequence for calling reportNewIncomingCall and completionHandler() in pushRegistry. Clarification if any changes in iOS 17/18 affect PushKit + CallKit behavior. Best practices for ensuring CallKit UI always appears reliably after a VoIP push. Environment: iOS 18.5 Simulator + Device Xcode 16.4 Using PushKit + CallKit with VoIP entitlement

Hi Apple Developer Community, I'm implementing MetricKit launch performance tracking in our iOS app and need clarification on two properties: histogrammedTimeToFirstDraw histogrammedOptimizedTimeToFirstDraw The Documentation Problem: The official MetricKit documentation provides minimal explanation of these properties beyond their names. Based on naming conventions, I initially assumed: histogrammedTimeToFirstDraw = cold launches histogrammedOptimizedTimeToFirstDraw = warm/optimized launches Based on our measurements: The “optimized” metric appears only in a small fraction of launches The "optimized" metric is actually slower The naming suggests the opposite behavior Questions: What specific launch conditions does each metric measure? Why would "optimized" launches be slower and less frequent? Is histogrammedOptimizedTimeToFirstDraw related to iOS app pre-warming or prediction features? If these metrics don’t correspond to cold vs. warm launch times, is there an alternative way to measure them accurately? Any clarification from Apple or insights from developers who've tracked these metrics would be greatly appreciated.

I'm seeking help troubleshooting a persistent com.apple.IdentityLookup.error.messagefilter Code=3 error when my Message Filter Extension tries to defer to network. I’ve exhausted Apple documentation and forum posts, and Apple Support has asked me to escalate this via the forums to reach engineering. ✅ My Setup: Xcode: 16.2 macOS: Sequoia 15.3.1 (Apple Silicon Mac mini) Device: iPhone 14 Pro iOS: 18.3.2 (Developer Mode enabled) Tested via: TestFlight install on real device 📦 App Structure: Main App Target (minimal "hello world" logic) Message Filter Extension Target Messages Extension Target Message Reporting Extension Target Notifications Extension Target ✅ Capabilities & Configurations Main App Capabilities: App Groups: group.com.example.shared Network Extensions: Content Filter Associated Domains: messagefilter:my-api.example.com applinks:my-api.example.com Message Filter Capabilities: App Groups: same as main app Network Extensions: Content Filter Associated Domains: same as above 📄 Info.plist Config Main App Info.plist: NSAppTransportSecurity with: NSAllowsArbitraryLoads = YES Exception domain my-api.example.com with: NSIncludesSubdomains = YES NSTemporaryExceptionAllowsInsecureHTTPLoads = YES NSTemporaryExceptionMinimumTLSVersion = TLSv1.2 MessageFilter Info.plist: Same ATS settings as above NSExtension block: <key>NSExtension</key> <dict> <key>NSExtensionAttributes</key> <dict> <key>ILMessageFilterExtensionNetworkURL</key> <string>https://my-api.example.com/api/sms-filter</string> <key>ILClassificationExtensionSMSReportDestination</key> <string>+10000000000</string> </dict> <key>NSExtensionPointIdentifier</key> <string>com.apple.identitylookup.message-filter</string> <key>NSExtensionPrincipalClass</key> <string>$(PRODUCT_MODULE_NAME).MessageFilterExtension</string> </dict> 📜 Entitlements Main App Entitlements <key>com.apple.developer.associated-domains</key> <array> <string>messagefilter:my-api.example.com</string> <string>applinks:my-api.example.com</string> </array> <key>com.apple.developer.networking.networkextension</key> <array> <string>content-filter-provider</string> </array> <key>com.apple.security.application-groups</key> <array> <string>group.com.example.shared</string> </array> Message Filter Extension Entitlements Identical to main app’s, scoped to the extension. 📄 AASA File (Hosted on https://my-api.example.com/.well-known/apple-app-site-association) Serves as application/json, returns 200 OK, and is reachable on device via Safari. Logs confirm AASA is downloaded and installed successfully during TestFlight install. { "applinks": { "apps": [], "details": [ { "appID": "TEAMID.com.example.app", "paths": ["*"] }, { "appID": "TEAMID.com.example.app.MessageFilter", "paths": ["*"] } ] }, "messagefilter": { "apps": [], "details": [ { "appID": "TEAMID.com.example.app", "filterType": "URL", "domains": ["my-api.example.com"] }, { "appID": "TEAMID.com.example.app.MessageFilter", "filterType": "URL", "domains": ["my-api.example.com"] } ] }, "classificationreport": { "apps": [], "details": [ { "appID": "TEAMID.com.example.app", "domains": ["my-api.example.com"] }, { "appID": "TEAMID.com.example.MessageReporting", "domains": ["my-api.example.com"] } ] } } ❌ The Problem When the extension launches and receives an SMS to classify, logs show: deferQueryRequestToNetwork failed: The operation couldn’t be completed. (com.apple.IdentityLookup.error.messagefilter error 3.) The extension loads, network URL is available, the AASA is installed, and yet the extension is not allowed to defer to network. This occurs every time. 🧪 Other Notes Tried rebuilding everything from scratch Archiving to TestFlight, not running via Xcode Clean entitlements verified using codesign -d --entitlements :- Console logs show no issues with AASA download or validation Any help or insights from Apple engineering or others in the community who have successfully deployed a working Message Filter Extension would be hugely appreciated. Thanks in advance 🙏

I'm facing the same problem as addressed in this discussion: After switching from legacy QLGenerators to Preview extensions on macOS I cannot debug the extensions' code in Xcode, anymore: I launch the app with the embedded appex from Xcode in debug mode. When trying to attach to the appex process the following error is reported: Code: 6 Failure Reason: Ensure “AppName Preview” is not already running, and matthias has permission to debug it. User Info: {... } System Information macOS Version 15.4.1 (Build 24E263) Xcode 16.3 (23785) (Build 16E140) Timestamp: 2025-05-12T14:07:14+02:00 I'm using a standard user account (no admin) and might miss some obvious steps. Can someone detail the steps to debug a Preview (or Thumbnail) extension with Xcode 16? For legacy Quick Look plugins I was using "qlmanage", but that's not working on extensions. All the best, Matthias P.S.: Pardon me re-posting my reply as a separate thread, to increase visibility, but I'm quite desperate and couldn't find any solution on the web...

In Core Spotlight, one can only index content by using title or displayName, and it requires four consecutive characters for indexing. These situations occurred in iOS 17 and 18. In iOS 16, I could not only index content by title or displayName, but also by keyword. Moreover, there was no restriction of requiring four consecutive characters. I could index my app content by simply inputting one character. Here is my code.https://github.com/kritto1/corespotlight-bug-test/tree/main @available(iOS 14, *) func addItemToIndex(_ item: QSpotlightItem) { let attributeSet = CSSearchableItemAttributeSet(contentType: .item) attributeSet.title = item.title attributeSet.displayName = item.title attributeSet.contentDescription = item.contentDescription attributeSet.keywords = item.keywords attributeSet.thumbnailData = item.thumbnailImage attributeSet.contactKeywords = item.keywords attributeSet.supportsNavigation = true let searchableItem = CSSearchableItem(uniqueIdentifier: item.id, domainIdentifier: "com.qunar.iphone.spotlight", attributeSet: attributeSet) searchableItem.expirationDate = .distantFuture CSSearchableIndex.default().indexSearchableItems([searchableItem]) { error in if let error = error { } else { } } } @available(iOS 14, *) func addToSpotlightIndex() { let spotlightHotel = QSpotlightItem( id: "corespotlight_1", title: "查询酒店住宿", contentDescription: "", thumbnailImage: UIImage(named: "img2")?.pngData(), keywords: ["酒店", "住宿"] ) addItemToIndex(spotlightHotel) let spotlightFlight = QSpotlightItem( id: "corespotlight_2", title: "查询和预订机票", contentDescription: "", thumbnailImage: UIImage(named: "img2")?.pngData(), keywords: ["查询", "预订", "机票"] ) addItemToIndex(spotlightFlight) let spotlightSight = QSpotlightItem( id: "corespotlight_3", title: "查询预订门票", contentDescription: "", thumbnailImage: UIImage(named: "img2")?.pngData(), keywords: ["查询", "预订", "门票"] ) addItemToIndex(spotlightSight) }

When a user enables an SMS filtering extension via iOS Settings → Messages → Text Message Filtering and selects an app, the following prompt appears: "The developer of [App Name] will receive the text, attachments and sender information in text messages from senders not in your Contacts. Messages may include personal or sensitive information like bank verification codes." This message cannot be modified by developers, and we're receiving complaints and negative reviews from users who are alarmed by it, despite our app not collecting any data. iOS should allow developers to customize this message or reword this message to not make false claims about data collection. We've opened a feedback assistant report here: FB21445903

My app AirCompare has been in the app store and successfully using WeatherKit to fetch weather since it became available. Now some (not all) users are encountering the following errors: Failed to generate jwt token for: com.apple.weatherkit.authservice with error: Error Domain=WeatherDaemon.WDSJWTAuthenticatorServiceListener.Errors Code=2 "(null)" Encountered an error when fetching weather data subset; location=<+42.40865786,-88.96911526> +/- 0.00m (speed -1.00 mps / course -1.00) @ 6/23/25, 2:56:47 PM Central Daylight Time, error=WeatherDaemon.WDSJWTAuthenticatorServiceListener.Errors 2 Error Domain=WeatherDaemon.WDSJWTAuthenticatorServiceListener.Errors Code=2 "(null)" Others are reporting this same problem here in the forums. We need a solution!

I have applied for CarPlay support here Apply here to get your app approved for CarPlay use: https://aninterestingwebsite.com/contact/carplay/ but have not received any acceptance or answers. Does anyone know what to do?

I'm building a voice-to-text keyboard extension that needs to open the main app briefly for audio recording (since keyboard extensions can't record audio), then return the user to their original app. The flow I'm trying to achieve: User is in WhatsApp (or Messages, Slack, etc.) User taps "Voice" button in my keyboard My main app opens via deep link (myapp://keyboard/dictation) App starts recording App automatically returns user to WhatsApp I cannot find a way to detect which app the keyboard is running inside, or which app opened my main app via the deep link. UIInputViewController.textDocumentProxy - No host app information available UIApplication.OpenURLOptionsKey.sourceApplication in application(_:open:options:) - When opened from a keyboard extension, does this return the host app bundle ID or the keyboard extension bundle ID? Private APIs (for research only, not production): _hostBundleID on UIInputViewController - blocked/returns nil on iOS 18 KVC approaches - all blocked Hardcoded app support - Works but requires maintaining a list of popular apps and showing multiple buttons instead of a single "Voice" button My questions: When a keyboard extension triggers a URL open (via SwiftUI Link or UIApplication.shared.open), what does sourceApplication contain? The host app or the keyboard extension? Is there any supported way for a main app to know which app it was launched from, specifically when that launch originated from a keyboard extension? How do apps like "Wispr Flow" achieve seamless return-to-app with a single voice button? They seem to auto-return to whatever app the user was in. Environment: iOS 18.0+ Xcode 16 SwiftUI keyboard using KeyboardKit Any guidance on the recommended approach would be greatly appreciated. I understand there may be privacy reasons for limiting host app detection, but the UX of requiring users to manually swipe back (or tap app-specific buttons) is significantly worse than automatic return.

I am trying to port my sandboxed macOS app completely over to iOS using a Catalyst target. In my macOS app, I use 'SwiftySandboxFileAccess' package to add a symlink to '~/Library/PDF Services' so that the 'share to my app' menuItem shows up in the macOS Print Panel (in the PDF menu). It is critical for the function of my app to have this work on macOS. In the Catalyst target, I am having problems gaining access to '~/Library'. I have tried having the user select the folder, but the picker always returns 'canceled'. I have a test app that illustrates this. The test app tries to coax the user into selecting the library folder and then it is supposed to bookmark the location, but I am unable to get this far. As an aside, macOS should probably automatically add an entry to the Print Panel when the app includes PDF as a document type in XCode; it would save a lot of hassle and avoid having to go outside of the sandbox. However, I cannot wait for that. Hopefully someone can help. Download Test App from iCloud (If you have problems downloading the file, it might be because of some iCloud share setting that I am not aware of. Just tell me and I'll figure something out.)

Hello, I have an app that emulates an NFC card using NFC HCE. Since yesterday I saw an increasing number of crashes on iOS 26 only, which wasn't there before. From what I can see, it seems the app crashes when the NFC presentment intent is shown and 60 seconds passed and user does nothing. The app just crashes after 60 seconds. On previous iOS versions, I know that CardSession.Error.maxSessionDurationReached was thrown after 60 seconds. Is something changed in iOS 26?

I have four apps currently deployed on the App Store. One of these apps crashes on launch when running on iOS 26, but functions as expected on iOS 18 and earlier versions. I am seeking to understand what changes in iOS 26 might be causing this issue. When running the app in debug mode on devices with iOS 26 using Xcode 16.1, the app crashes. The crash log references libobjc-trampolines.dylib, suggesting a potential issue with the Objective-C runtime. Has anyone else encountered a similar issue? AGX: AGX: agxa_device_template.hpp:1467:setupCompiler: *** FATAL: driver shader binary file not found in (null) for extension g15p!!! D [yHZ]: added warning: [MEDIUM]: SW04: A debugger is attached to the App. D [ProbeCallbacks]: [IXGUARD] debugger detected objc[1461]: couldn't dlopen libobjc-trampolines.dylib: dlopen(/usr/lib/libobjc-trampolines.dylib, 0x0106): tried: '/usr/lib/system/introspection/libobjc-trampolines.dylib' (no such file, not in dyld cache), '/usr/lib/libobjc-trampolines.dylib' (no such file), '/private/preboot/Cryptexes/OS/usr/lib/libobjc-trampolines.dylib' (open() failed with errno=24), '/usr/lib/libobjc-trampolines.dylib' (no such file, not in dyld cache) What steps can I take to resolve this crash? Thank you for your assistance.

After reading the news below, we are currently working on updating our app in preparation for the enforcement of Texas SB 2420. https://aninterestingwebsite.com/news/?id=2ezb6jhj Based on the information in the announcement, we understand that parents will be able to revoke their consent for apps. However, we are unsure how an app is supposed to obtain or verify the parent’s consent status in the first place. We reviewed the Declared Age Range API and PermissionKit’s Significant Change API, but could not find any functionality related to this. If anyone with expertise on this topic has insight, we would greatly appreciate your guidance. Thank you in advance.

I have an iOS app that includes a local Swift package. This Swift package contains some .plist files added as resources. The package also depends on an XCFramework. I want to read these .plist files from within the XCFramework. What I’d like to know is: Is this a common or recommended approach—having resources in a Swift package and accessing them from an XCFramework? Previously, I had the .plist files added directly to the main app target, and accessing them from the XCFramework felt straightforward. With the new setup, I’m trying to determine whether this method (placing resources in a Swift package and accessing them from an XCFramework) is considered good practice. For context: I am currently able to read the .plist files from the XCFramework by passing Bundle.module through one of the APIs exposed by the XCFramework.

IMPORTANT Rather than use the code below, I recommend that you adopt Swift’s shiny-new Subprocess package. That’s what I’m doing! (-: Running a child process using Process (or NSTask in Objective-C) is easy, but piping data to and from the child’s stdin and stdout is surprisingly tricky. I regularly see folks confused by this. Moreover, it’s easy to come up with a solution that works most of the time, but suffers from weird problems that only show up in the field [1]. I recently had a couple of DTS incidents from folks struggling with this, so I sat down and worked through the details. Pasted below is the results of that effort, namely, a single function that will start a child process, pass it some data on stdin, read the data from the child’s stdout, and call a completion handler when everything is done. There are some things to note here, some obvious, some not so much: I’ve included Swift and Objective-C versions of the code. Both versions work the same way. The Swift version has all the comments. If you decide to base your code on the Objective-C version, copy the comments from there. I didn’t bother collecting stderr. That’s not necessary in many cases and, if you need it, it’s not hard to extend the code to handle that case. I use Dispatch I/O rather than FileHandle to manage the I/O channels. Dispatch I/O is well suited to this task. In contrast, FileHandle has numerous problems working with pipes. For the details, see Whither FileHandle?. This single function is way longer than I’d normally tolerate. This is partly due to the extensive comments and party due to my desire to maintain focus. When wrapping Process it’s very easy to run afoul of architecture astronaut-ism. Indeed, I have a much more full-featured Process wrapper sitting on my hard disk, but that’s going to stay there in favour of this approach (-: Handling a child process correctly involves some gnarly race conditions. The code has extensive comments explaining how I deal with those. If you have any questions or comments about this, put them in a new thread. Make sure to tag that thread with Foundation and Inter-process communication so that I see it. Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com" [1] Indeed, this post shows that I’ve made this sort of mistake myself )-:

I have published the app on the App Store along with its corresponding app clip, my app clip is configured with some advanced experiences for each one of my clients, but whenever some users try to scan an NFC or QR Code they see the card rendering correctly with their configured banner image, but with the message "App Clip Unavailable". The weird thing is that both iMessage and the website to which the associated domain is set and the apple-app-site-association is stored, renders the banner or card correctly, and when the users tap the banner or card they open the advanced app clip experience correctly without any issue. I have attempted to troubleshoot the issue by checking the following: if the app clip is below 15MB if we are using a second level domain in my associated domain both for my app clip and app (excluding the www subdomain). checking if the AASA is correctly stored inside .well-known directory checking the configuration for the advanced experience I opened a case: 102233443873, and added a bunch of videos and screenshot showcasing the issue, but I have not yet received a reply

After I upgraded to MacOS 26（beta）, my program caused the system to pop up a window as shown in the following picture. My application is a process with only a tray icon. I found that my tray icon is not displayed in the current version, even though I clicked the "Always Allow" button. Here are my questions: 1.Will this related feature remain consistent in the official release? 2.How can I create a cmd process that only displays a system tray icon (no main window) like Alfred?