Hi everyone, I’m developing a screen-time and focus app that uses Apple’s Family Controls framework to block distracting apps and reward users through a gamified experience. Apple approved Family Controls (Distribution) for the main app identifier, but they did not approve the required extension target (which implements DeviceActivityMonitor, required for the framework to function). Because of this, I can’t archive or upload the app to TestFlight — and I’ve been stuck in limbo for over 2 months. This is severely delaying my launch. The app works perfectly, but I can’t release it because the extension wasn’t included in the entitlement approval. Has anyone else run into this with Family Controls? Is there any known way to escalate or fast-track approval for additional app IDs or targets? Would really appreciate any help, advice, or hacks. 🙏 Thanks, Enzer

In my project, I need to decrypt the encrypted xlsx file and then parse it into xml. Is there any recommended method in iOS

where can we find documentation on the following fields included in payloads? They're not listed alongside the other fields in the documentation linked below: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/weatherkitrestapi/hourweatherconditions precipitationIntensity snowfallAmount Or if we can get the data type, unit used, and description here that would be great

I have shortcuts up and running and I have my custom response added to my completion handler since day1. Recently I upgraded to iOS18, and found out the app I develop can not display the custom response. I test the app on iOS17.6, the display of custom response is no problem. The situation is exactly like the problem posted on 2018: https://forums.developer.apple.com/forums/thread/109324 Can anyone help me or have the same bugs? Thank you so much! Happy 2025

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!

Is CallKit still not available in certain countries? like China? If it is, is there a way to get a list of countries?

Hello, I am unable to figure out how I tell the FamilyActivityPicker whether it should show apps installed on my personal device (to be used with AuthorizationCenter.shared.requestAuthorization(for: .individual)) or apps installed on my child’s device (authenticated their phone via AuthorizationCenter.shared.requestAuthorization(for: .child)). Is there any parameter or SwiftUI modifier I need to apply? Otherwise, how does the user or the app know which token belongs to them and which token belongs to their child’s device? Radar: FB17020977 Thanks a lot for your help!

We're running into an issue with our pkg bundle where the main .app file disappears after installation and wanted to see if anyone has an idea about what would cause it. We have a pkg bundle with three separate apps, one primary app and two supporting apps. We distribute this pkg bundle directly to our users, who will manually install it on their devices (rather than through the app store). The installation itself will usually complete without any issues, and we aren't seeing anything in the install or system logs indicating that it was removed afterward (our postinstall script checks that all of the files exist and are in the correct locations), but after the installation the main app disappears while the rest of the files (including the supporting apps) we lay down are still present. Sometimes it will fail with an error similar to this: 2024-10-02 09:43:07-04 MBA-L-8114 installer[9894]: Error getting application status info for file:///Applications/.hiddenfolder/app1.app: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=260 "The file "app1.app" couldn't be opened because there is no such file." UserInfo={NSURL=file:///Applications/.hiddenfolder/app1.app, NSFilePath=/Applications/.hiddenfolder/app1.app, NSUnderlyingError=0x6000026a0d50 {Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=2 "No such file or directory"}} This only happens on certain computers, but on those computers it will happen consistently. We have noticed that it seems to happen more often with computers that are MDM configured. So far we’ve investigated permissions issues with the build process, installation script issues, and signing/notarizing, but have not found anything that might cause this issue. We did verify that we’re setting BundleIsRelocatable NO in the plist file for our package, so in theory it shouldn’t be trying to move the app after installation (we don't see the main app anywhere on the device so macOS doesn't seem to be moving it). We have another post going into more technical detail here: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/769443

We developing a app called Parentgeenee. It's a Parental control app having any limitations on app block from child mobile. Trying to block more than 500 apps but not blocking if any particular method to block a bulk apps.

Hi all, From what I’ve seen on forums and other sources, it appears that nothing can be done to set the contact poster programmatically. Setting the imageData property affects only the thumbnail image. Does anyone know if this is explicitly documented somewhere? I need this information for a POC document. I watched the iOS 17 keynote (where it was introduced), the Platform State of Union, and other WWDC videos, but I couldn’t find any mention of it. The Contacts framework documentation only explains what can be retrieved from this property and doesn’t mention any way to set the contact poster. If anyone has any information on this, please help! Thanks in advance!

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";

We are looking to setup domain-bound codes for our app and need to add the associated domain file to our website. We currently do not use Universal Links or Password AutoFill. We have looked at the documentation but are not sure of what the contents of the association file should be to enable domain-bound codes if you are not using Universal Links or Password AutoFill. Can any assistance be provided?

If I run an app with a message filter extension, it's triggered for all the prepaid unknown numbers and its not triggered for all the unknown postpaid numbers. Any idea, how to trigger for postpaid unknown numbers?.

Widgets on the widget is not responding to the touch properly. This issue is also affecting within the home screen widget in a way that the widget switches to light mode by itself even though I am in dark mode. Additionally, lock screen does not to respond once the lock screen widget has been edited. Is anyone else having this issue?

Hello, I'm currently working with Smart App Banners and trying to test how they appear and behave on iOS. However, I need to test the Smart Banner in a debug or non-production environment to ensure everything works as expected. According to the documentation for Smart App Banners (https://developer.apple.com/documentation/webkit/promoting-apps-with-smart-app-banners?language=objc), it appears that the banner only shows in production builds or live apps. Is there any way to trigger or test the Smart Banner in a debug mode or non-production environment? Any advice or workaround for testing this feature would be greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance!

I just noticed something really odd with WeatherKit. If the temperate at midnight of the FOLLOWING day is colder than all temps in the day you want weather for then WeatherKit will report that as the low temperature for the day even though it's a different day. Here it's reporting the lowest temp for Feb 6 is 22F. But that's a temp from Feb 7. I'm displaying lowTemperature and lowTemperatureTime from DayWeather as well as the HourWeather in these examples. I wasn't sure if this was working as designed or a bug. I can provide raw data from this example. ----daily formatted start weather for Feb 6 High 41° high at Feb 6 at 2 PM Low 22° low at Feb 7 at 12 AM ----daily formatted end Feb 6 at 12 AM 34° Feb 6 at 1 AM 35° Feb 6 at 2 AM 36° Feb 6 at 3 AM 36° Feb 6 at 4 AM 36° Feb 6 at 5 AM 34° Feb 6 at 6 AM 33° Feb 6 at 7 AM 33° Feb 6 at 8 AM 33° Feb 6 at 9 AM 33° Feb 6 at 10 AM 35° Feb 6 at 11 AM 36° Feb 6 at 12 PM 38° Feb 6 at 1 PM 40° Feb 6 at 2 PM 41° Feb 6 at 3 PM 40° Feb 6 at 4 PM 39° Feb 6 at 5 PM 37° Feb 6 at 6 PM 36° Feb 6 at 7 PM 33° Feb 6 at 8 PM 31° Feb 6 at 9 PM 29° Feb 6 at 10 PM 27° Feb 6 at 11 PM 24° Feb 7 at 12 AM 22°

I've been reading this question: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/701945 and watching the videos on background tasks But can't arrive to a concrete solution. Q1: Are there any tips (or sample app) on how to handle a launch in background in a streamlined way? How to have a shared code that is ran for both 'launch in background' & 'launch in foreground'? Specifically the case I'm talking about is: You set up some observance of some OS callback at a Foo screen of your app. Example app should request and then send push-to-start live activity tokens to server. Or setup location tracking. App is then suspended and then later terminated but is eligible for relaunch App is then launched in background because it has requested a push-to-start live activity token or an update for location tracking. User DOES NOT go back to screen Foo. So at this point app is no longer tracking / listening to updates for token update or location changes. How should I architecture my code for this? I'm trying to see if there's a an approach where I can avoid having multiple places in code where I do the same thing. Currently what I'm doing is as such: Q2: Is it then correct to say that anytime you've launched your app, whether it's in foreground or background then you must immediately match 'all observations done by the previous app launch'? Like store items in UserDefaults and upon launch retrieve them and do: handleGeneralAppLaunchFlow() // ALSO if defaults.contains("didLastLaunchSetupLiveActivtiyTokenObservance") { for await ptsToken in Activity<EmojiRangers> .pushToStartTokenUpdates { ... } } if defaults.contains("didLastLaunchSetupLocationTracking") { locationManager = CLLocationManager() locationManager?.delegate = itsDelegate locationManager?.allowsBackgroundLocationUpdates = true locationManager?.showsBackgroundLocationIndicator = true locationManager?.startUpdatingLocation() } // Other checks for prior observance setup Q3: Actually I think even if app is launched in foreground then because you may not end up at screen Foo again, then you must setup things regardless of app state and just based on prior observations set. Right? Q4: And then later if the user ever made it again to screen Foo, then we just skip the re-do of the observance, or maybe to just keep things simple, we'd just redo without over-engineering things? I tried to mark my questions with Q1- Q4.

Hello. I have a MacOS application to be distributed in a .pkg that is signed and notarized. For the application to work, it needs some settings defined by us (non-secret strings that differ per client). My thought has been to use a .mobileconfig to send these settings using the com.apple.ManagedClient.preferences PayloadType. I can see these settings land correctly into the /Library/Managed Preferences directory (in the correct domain) when distributed using Apple Business Essentials as the MDM. However, I cannot read the settings using NSUserDefaults OR CFPreferences in objective-c (i've tried with my app unsigned and signed, but not signed ant notarized so far). I've seen some posts here and there about managed preferences being deprecated, so I'm not sure if this is my issue or if i'm simply reading the preferences incorrectly. I'll admit the conflict of some of these posts has me a bit confused about how the preferences subsystem works / whether it should be used at all. I'm on MacOS 15.3. Two questions: Does anything stand out as to why I wouldn't be able to read these properties? Is there a better method I should be using to allow sending config via MDM to set application settings? Thanks in advance!

Hi Apple Developers, I am currently working on a message filtering application and facing issues specifically with filtering RCS (Rich Communication Services) messages. To debug this, I created a sample app that consistently categorizes all incoming messages as "junk." However, the filtering behaviour is inconsistent and not functioning as expected. Here are the key issues observed during testing on iOS versions 18.2.1 and 18.3: Inconsistent Filtering Behavior: When a message is received from an unknown number, it sometimes gets moved to the Junk folder momentarily but is then immediately moved back to the main Messages inbox. In some cases, the message does not get moved to the Junk folder at all, despite the app returning the verdict as "junk." Duplicate Contact Tiles: The Messages app displays two separate conversation tiles for the same mobile number, which is unexpected behavior. I have attached both a sample app and a screen recording that clearly demonstrates the issue. The recording shows that the app categorizes messages as junk, yet they still end up in the main Messages inbox. For reference, my carrier partner is T-Mobile. Please let me know if you need any additional information to investigate this issue further. Looking forward to your insights and guidance. Best regards, Rijul Singhal

I've been stuck for days trying to figure out how to extract the full text of a Siri prompt that launches my app. We need to be able to get the text of the full command, such as "Hey siri, buy dogfood...." so I can get "dogfood" or anything else following 'buy' . The examples I am finding are a) out of date or b) incomplelete. Right now we're using AppIntents with Shortcuts, but have to use dedicated shortcuts for each specific purchase, which are obviously very limiting.