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A Summary of the WWDC25 Group Lab - watchOS (Part 2)
At WWDC25 we launched a new type of Lab event for the developer community - Group Labs. A Group Lab is a panel Q&A designed for a large audience of developers. Group Labs are a unique opportunity for the community to submit questions directly to a panel of Apple engineers and designers. Here are the highlights from the WWDC25 Group Lab for watchOS (part 2). 7. For widget (complication) update budgets, is there an overall budget or are scheduled update separate from APNS updates? For context I have a complication that is updated on a fixed schedule (every 20 min), but there can be times of the day that are more "interesting" where pushes make sense. Like timeline updates, the system budgets WidgetKit push notifications and delivers them opportunistically. You can use WidgetKit push notification updates as an addition to timeline updates. For more information, see Updating widgets with WidgetKit push notifications. 8. It seems like the new Control Center widgets can be sourced from either the iPhone or directly on the Watch. Can we control whether a control appears in the watch list, or will it always be a combination of all controls from both sources? iPhone controls will be automatically available on the companion Apple Watch, even if they don’t have an associated watchOS app. When an iPhone control is tapped on the Apple Watch, the action is performed on the iPhone. Controls whose actions foreground the iOS app will not appear on Apple Watch. If a watchOS app has controls, no controls will appear on Apple Watch from the companion iOS app. 9. From UI/UX perspective, what are the current practices for Designing watchOS apps that feels native. The WWDC23 session Design and build apps for WatchOS 10 covers the details of watchOS design principles and how to apply them in your app using SwiftUI. A lot of SwiftUI APIs, such as NavigationSplitView, vertical tab view, list view, and etc, already implement the look and feel native to watchOS. 10. When adopting the new design system on watchOS, it seems like the main place we will use the glass effect is for our buttons in toolbar? Standard buttons in system apps seem to continue to use a flat appearance and full width. We leave the choice to you – You can use the new GlassButtonStyle API or .buttonStyle(.glass) to apply the liquid glass material to buttons. Learn when to use the Liquid Glass styles in Get to know the new design system. 11. Is there any way to gracefully migrate extensions when their bundleIDs have to change? e.g., converting a multi-target watch app to single-target, which drops the .watchkitextension from both the app and WidgetKit ext bundleIDs Updating a watchOS app to single-target is covered in TechNote TN3157: Updating your watchOS project for SwiftUI and WidgetKit. Xcode provides a tool that can do the update automatically, and the technote describes the details about how to use it and how to clean up the project after the automatic update. If there's something that technote doesn't address, please reach out to us on the Developer Forums. 12. What is the status of WatchConnectivity? Is that still the preferred way for iOS + watchOS communications? The Watch Connectivity framework is still supported, and is appropriate for the communication between an watchOS app and its companion iOS app. The systems also provide other APIs for the apps to exchange data. For example, watchOS supports Apple Push Notification service (APNs). If data for your widget changes on your server, your widget can receive a WidgetKit push notification, and update accordingly. That’s the preferred mechanism for widget updates.
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115
Jul ’25
Delays When Creating Advanced App Clip Experiences for Other Businesses
Hey there, I have an app where I create custom Advanced App Clip Experiences for other businesses which seems to be a valid thing. I do create them via API. Upon creation everything looks fine: when I go to App Store Connect -> App -> Advanced App Clip Experiences, I do see the new App Clip Experience I've just created. Their status is Received (as any other active experiences) and have a custom URL. The issue is weird timing when the Advanced App Clip Experience actually becomes available on the iPhone (can be triggered via App Clip Code, etc). Some experiences become available literally immediately but others take days (some take 1-2 days, some take ~5 days). I'm not sure why there's a bid difference for an Advanced App Clip to be actually active. Does anyone have any kind of experience with that? I don't change domain settings, app's settings, etc. I'm just creating a new experience (both via API or manually at App Store Connect) and I do have different "activation" times for different App Clips. Same when I delete an Advanced App Clip Experience, it will still be available for next couple days. I get there might be caching stuff, etc. But the difference is quite huge and makes no sense since as I've mentioned some clips become available immediately but some takes days to be available. Thank you!
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87
Jun ’25
How to get the real app language code + variation?
Hello, I have the app localised to many languages and its variants, like English from Australia or Dutch from Belgium. My phone language is en_UK and the region is configured to ES. I cannot find a way to get the regional language code (ex: en_au, nl_be), it always gets simplified to the language (ex: en, nl), or adds my device region (ex: en-ES, nl-ES). Here I attach some examples while I have the app on en_au Locale.preferredLanguages ▿ 3 elements - 0 : "en-ES" - 1 : "ca-ES" - 2 : "es-ES" Bundle.main.preferredLocalizations ▿ 1 element - 0 : "en" NSLocale.current.languageCode ▿ Optional<String> - some : "en" Locale.current ▿ en_001@rg=eszzzz (fixed en_001@rg=eszzzz) - identifier : "en_001@rg=eszzzz" - locale : "fixed en_001@rg=eszzzz" Locale.autoupdatingCurrent.languageCode ▿ Optional<String> - some : "en" Locale.current.languageCode ▿ Optional<String> - some : "en" Locale.preferredLanguages[0] "en-ES"
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1k
Jan ’25
How to get a phone into a state where it's possible to test text filtering?
I'm currently finding it impossible to get a text filtering extension to be invoked when there's an incoming text message. There isn't a problem with the app/extension because this is the same app and code that is already developed, tested, and unchanged since I last observed it working. I know if there's any history of the incoming number being "known" then the extension won't get invoked, and I used to find this no hindrance to testing previously provided that: the incoming number isn't in contacts there's no outgoing messages to that number there's no outgoing phone calls to the number. This always used to work in the past, but not anymore. However, I've ensured the incoming text's number isn't in contacts, in fact I've deleted all the contacts. I've deleted the entire phone history, incoming and outgoing, and I've also searched in messages and made sure there's no interactions with that number. There's logging in the extension so I can see its being invoked when turned on from the settings app, but its not getting invoked when there's a message. The one difference between now and when I used to have no problem with this - the phone now has iOS 18.5 on it. Its as if in iOS 18.5 there ever was any past association with a text number, its not impossible to remove that association. Has there been some known change in 18.5 that would affect this call filtering behavior and not being able to rid of the incoming message caller as being "known" to the phone? Update I completely reset the phone and then I was able to see the the message filter extension being invoked. That's not an ideal situation though. What else needs to be done beyond what I mentioned above in order to get a phone to forget about a message's number and thus get an message filtering extension to be invoked when there's a message from that number?
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184
Jul ’25
Deployment Target for iOS app running on a Mac with Apple Silicon
Currently, I am working on an iOS app with a Deployment Target set to iOS 15.0, and macOS 12.0. The app is allowed to run on Macs with Apple Silicon. A customer with a Mac running macOS Monterey (12) is complaining that in the TestFlight app, they cannot install the app since it shows "Requires OS Update", even though the deployment target is smaller than the installed version of macOS 12. Are there any specifications available on which macOS version is required in order to use iOS apps on Silicon Macs?
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434
Jan ’25
How do I persist the Family Activity Picker?
I am currently building a screen time app and I am trying to figure out how to persist the family activity picker so that when my app closes and re-opens, the app selections in it are saved. I've successfully implemented core data and figured out how to store names of the selected apps in a list like this - Core Data addApp Function - func addApp(name: String, context: NSManagedObjectContext){ let newApp = AppToken(context: context) newApp.bundleIdentifier = name saveData(context: context) } Adding app selections to Core Data (after the family activity picker has updated the selection) - .onChange(of: model.selectionToDiscourage) { for i in model.selectionToDiscourage.applications { print(i) dataController.addApp(name:i.localizedDisplayName ?? "Temp", context: moc) } Printing saved selections in a list (bundleIdentifier is my attribute for my appToken entity, but I am just pulling the names here. For whatever reason all of them end up being Temp" as shown above anyway. In other words name:i.localizedDisplayName is not working and Temp is shown in the list for every app chosen) - if dataController.savedSelection.isEmpty { Text("No Apps Selected") .foregroundColor(.gray) } else { List(dataController.savedSelection, id: \.self) { app in Text(app.bundleIdentifier ?? "Unknown App") } .scrollContentBackground(.hidden) } So, when my app closes and reopens, the list of app names persists. Now, my issue is figuring out how to write back to selectionToDiscourage and loading the family activity picker with those saved apps. I have no idea if I should be doing this a different way and if using Core Data is overkill, but I cannot figure out how it's syntactically possible to write back to this family activity picker when the app reopens - .familyActivityPicker(isPresented: $isPresented, selection:$model.selectionToDiscourage) Thank you to whoever takes a look at this!!
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1.3k
Jan ’25
AlarmKit can we automatically acknowledge the alarm or set a time period the alarm should alert for
My use case is a Repeat Timer app. The user can configure a repeating timer, say: 8 minutes with 3 sets So I would like to configure either 3 alarms (8mins, 16mins, 24mins) or a repeating alarm (8mins every 3 mins) BUT... I would like the first and second alarms to break through but only for 5 seconds for example, and then stop (so the user doesn't need to tap the screen to silence the alarm). I don't think this is possible after reading the API docs, but am asking the question anyway. Thanks for any advice or guidance here, and happy WWDC!
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108
Jun ’25
Intermittent White Screen Issue on iOS 18.1.1 for a Hybrid Shopping App
Hello everyone, I’m running an Objective-C–based hybrid (native + web) shopping application and encountering a recurring issue on devices running iOS 18.1.1: When the app launches, it only shows a white screen with the native frame visible—no web content loads. Restarting or reinstalling the app doesn’t help. In one instance, toggling Airplane Mode on and off brought the app back to normal, but this workaround isn’t consistent. There are no crash logs, so we can’t determine if it’s caused by a network error, cache conflict, or an OS-level bug. So far, we have only seen this issue on iOS 18.1.1 devices. Because our app is a shopping platform, this significantly impacts users. Questions: Could this be related to a known bug or limitation in iOS 18.1.1? Are there recommended diagnostic steps or workarounds for a hybrid app that shows a white screen without generating crash logs? Which additional details (e.g., system logs, network traces, device configurations) might help isolate the cause? Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you in advance!
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133
Feb ’25
Doesn't work WidgetCenter.shared.reloadAllTimelines() with WKRefreshBackgroundTask
After updating to watchOS 11.1, updates using WidgetCenter.shared.reloadAllTimelines() in WKRefreshBackgroundTask stopped working. When the background task is triggered, it gets data from the phone and updates the WidgetKit complications. But now the refresh call WidgetCenter.shared.reloadAllTimelines() does not update the complications.
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609
Jan ’25
Finder Quick Action icon rendering when using custom SF Symbol
Hey folks! I'm working on a macOS app which has a Finder Quick Action extension. It's all working fine, but I'm hitting a weird struggle with getting the icon rendering how I would like, and the docs haven't been able to help me. I want to re-use a custom SF Symbol from my app, so I've copied that from the main app's xcassets bundle to the one in the extension, and configured it for Template rendering. The icon renders in the right click menu in Finder, the Finder preview pane and the Extensions section of System Settings, but all of them render with the wrong colour in dark mode. In light mode they look fine, but in dark mode I would expect a templated icon to be rendered in white, not black. I've attached a variety of screenshots of the icons in the UI and how things are set up in Xcode (both for the symbol in the xcassets bundle, and the Info.plist) I tried reading the docs, searching Google, searching GitHub and even asking the dreaded AI, but it seems like there's not really very much information available about doing icons for Finder extensions, especially ones using a custom SF Symbol, so I would love to know if anyone here has been able to solve this in the past! Finder preview pane in light mode: Finder preview pane in dark mode: Finder quick action context menu: System Settings extension preferences: The custom symbol in my .xcassets bundle: The finder extension's Info.plist:
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138
Jun ’25
When user opened my application, it crashed immediately. [Firebase crash report CFNetwork]
When user opened my application, it crashed immediately. This is crash log message from firebase. com.apple.CFNetwork.Connection EXC_BAD_ACCESS KERN_INVALID_ADDRESS After restarting iPhone, user can use my application without crash. I cannot reproduce this crash from other device. Here are .ips crash log that I changed to .txt. crashLog-2024-12-26-182447.txt crashLog-2024-12-26-182449.000.txt crashLog-2024-12-26-182535.000.txt crashLog-2024-12-26-182535.txt Do you have any idea to fix this?
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632
Jan ’25
Request Array with AppIntent
Hi everyone, i'm trying to request in a AppIntent an array of strings. But I want to give the user the chance to add more than one String. Yet, I do it so: import AppIntent struct AddHomework: AppIntent { // some Parameters @Parameter(title: "Tasks") var tasks: [String]? @Parameter(title: "New Task") //Only for the special request var input: String? private func collectTasks() async throws -> [String] { var collectedTasks: [String] = tasks ?? [] while true { if !collectedTasks.isEmpty { let addMore = try await $input.requestConfirmation(for: "Möchtest du noch eine Aufgabe hinzufügen?") if !addMore { break } } let newTask = try await $input.requestValue("Please enter your task:") collectedTasks.append(newTask) } return collectedTasks } @MainActor func perform() async throws -> some IntentResult { let finalTasks = try await collectTasks() // some more code return .result() } } But this is not working. The Shortcut is ending without requesting anything. But it is not crashing. I would thankfully for some help.
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329
Feb ’25
How to provide a driving destination to CarPlay, like Calendar
If I have, say a doctor appointment in the Calendar app, and I'm leaving to go to it, the address will appear in Apple Maps on CarPlay. Forgive if I'm getting the details wrong, but I believe if I bring up the Map, it will be available to tap on, so I can quickly go there. I think it may also show up on one on the car-play screens that shows a few different panels. The point is, I really like this feature, and want to do it in my app. In my iOS app, the user can order food from a restaurant, and pick it up. I'm not ready to make this app a "quick service" app, but I want to give the user an easy to get to her location. Since I just ordered food, this means that I'll need to leave fairly quickly to go to the location. The Calendar app is able to offer a location because of scheduling, I'd like to do the same.
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123
Jun ’25
Universal link not working
I’m seeking guidance on an issue with my iOS app’s universal link for email verification. The link successfully opens my app, but the verification logic never runs. Here is my setup and the problem details: Associated Domains & AASA I have Associated Domains set to applinks:talkio.me in Xcode. The AASA file is located at https://talkio.me/.well-known/apple-app-site-association with the following contents: { "applinks": { "apps": [], "details": [ { "appID": "VMCWZ2A2KQ.com.elbaba.Flake2", "paths": [ "/verify*" ] } ] } } The direct link we send in the email looks like: https://talkio.me/verify?mode=verifyEmail&oobCode=XYZ&apiKey=ABC When tapped, the app launches, but the universal link handler code below never logs the URL nor triggers the verifyEmailUsing logic. SceneDelegate Logic In my SceneDelegate.swift, I handle universal links in both scene(:willConnectTo:options:) and scene(:continue:userActivity:restorationHandler:): func scene(_ scene: UIScene, willConnectTo session: UISceneSession, options connectionOptions: UIScene.ConnectionOptions) { // ... if let urlContext = connectionOptions.urlContexts.first { let url = urlContext.url print("SceneDelegate: App launched with URL: (url.absoluteString)") handleUniversalLink(url: url) } } func scene(_ scene: UIScene, continue userActivity: NSUserActivity, restorationHandler: @escaping ([UIUserActivityRestoring]?) -> Void) -> Bool { print("⚠️ scene(_:continue:) got called!") guard let url = userActivity.webpageURL else { print("No webpageURL in userActivity.") return false } print("SceneDelegate: Universal Link => (url.absoluteString)") handleUniversalLink(url: url) return true } private func handleUniversalLink(url: URL) { let urlString = url.absoluteString if let oobCode = getQueryParam(urlString, named: "oobCode") { verifyEmailUsing(oobCode) } else { print("No oobCode found => not a verify link.") } } // ... Expected Log: SceneDelegate: App launched with URL: https://talkio.me/verify?mode=verifyEmail&oobCode=XYZ&apiKey=ABC However, I only see: SceneDelegate: sceneDidBecomeActive called No mention of the universal link is printed. Result: The app opens on tapping the link but does not call handleUniversalLink(...). Consequently, Auth.auth().checkActionCode(oobCode) and Auth.auth().applyActionCode(oobCode) are never triggered. What I Tried: Verified the AASA file is served over HTTPS, with content type application/json. Reinstalled the app to refresh iOS’s associated domain cache. Confirmed my Team ID (VMCWZ2A2KQ) and Bundle ID (com.elbaba.Flake2) match in the app’s entitlements. Confirmed the link path "/verify*" matches the link structure in emails. Despite these checks, the universal link logic is not invoked. Could you help me identify why the link is not recognized as a universal link and how to ensure iOS calls my SceneDelegate methods with the correct URL? Any guidance on diagnosing or resolving this universal link issue would be greatly appreciated.
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1k
Feb ’25
Screen Time API: How to map bundleIdentifier to ApplicationToken for DeviceActivityMonitor when FamilyActivitySelection.Application.bundleIdentifier is nil?
I'm using FamilyActivityPicker to get consent for app/category management, which returns a FamilyActivitySelection object. I serialize this FamilyActivitySelection object (just applicationTokens and categoryTokens) and pass it to my DeviceActivityMonitor extension via App Group UserDefaults. I am using the JSON encoder/decoder over PropertyList (though both seem to exhibit the same behavior). After inspecting the FamilyActivitySelection object immediately after it's returned by FamilyActivityPicker in the main app, the application.bundleIdentifier property is consistently nil for every Application object within selection.applications. Similarly, category.localizedDisplayName is nil for ActivityCategory objects. This happens whether "Select All Apps" is used or if apps/categories are selected individually. I understand that this is the intended behavior due to Apple's user privacy policies. I read on another post that my app can be provided with bundle identifiers and app names within Shield Configuration extensions and Device Activity Report extensions - I'm not sure which ones or how exactly to do this. I am aware that I can use Label(applicationToken) SwiftUI view to display the app name/icon, but this doesn't give programmatic access to the bundleIdentifier string. My app will not log or export these bundleIdentifiers outside of its sandbox. My goal is to create mappings to the FamilyActivitySelection with the publicly accessible bundleIdentifiers. Any guidance, examples, or clarification on the intended workflow for this scenario would be greatly appreciated!
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173
May ’25
UE 5.4 Game Instantly Crash on iOS devices on Testflight
Hi, I'm working on a game for the past few years using first Unreal Engine 4, and now Unreal Engine 5.4.4. I'm experiencingan unusual crash on startup on some devices . The crash is so fast that I'm barely able to see the launching screen sometimes because the app closes itself before that. I got a EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT) so I know that it's a null pointer reference, but I can't quite wrap my head about the cause, I think that's something messed up in the packaging of the app, but here is where I'm blocked, I'm not that accustomed with apple devices. If someone has some advise to give, please, any help will be very valuable. Many thanks. Log : Crash Log on Ipad
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531
Feb ’25