Delve into the world of built-in app and system services available to developers. Discuss leveraging these services to enhance your app's functionality and user experience.

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TransferRepresentation, AppEntities and AppIntents
Hi, I am trying to understand how this mechanism integrates with shortcuts (and i guess siri + apple intelligence in near future) and other apps. Basic setup is an AppEntity that implements 'transferable' and is returning a DataRepresentation of 'text'. got an AppIntent returns a one of the 'entitities' and I'm simply trying to pass the result to initially email or another app using shortcuts. even with canned 'hello world' string being marshalled into DataRepresentation(.text) I am not seeing anything in usual system targets like email, messages, notes. It opens the app ok, but no text is present. (note: if I use an incorrect DataRepresentation type with email it'll flat out fail saying 'not correct 'text' type) What exactly do I need to do here and is there any example code I can look at? thanks
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Feb ’25
App Clip works in TestFlight but not elsewhere
My app is available in TestFlight but has been rejected in App Review with the review feedback that the app clip "just shows a blank screen". However, in the TestFlight app, the App Clip works as expected and brings up the clip. It also works correctly from Xcode testing. Any ideas on what the problem could be? It is using the default App Clip link (appclip.apple.com)
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327
Jan ’25
CXCallUpdate not working for outgoing calls
I try to update remoteHandle using CXCallUpdate for outgoing call, but this works only on iOS 15 but not on 17 or 18 (16 didn't test). This problem actual only for outgoing calls, but for incoming calls update works fine. func startOutgoingCall(with callID: UUID, userID: String) { let handle = CXHandle(type: .generic, value: userID) let action = CXStartCallAction(call: callID, handle: handle) callController.requestTransaction(with: action) { [weak self] error in // ... } } func updateOutgoingCall(with callID: UUID, groupID: String) { let update = CXCallUpdate() update.remoteHandle = CXHandle(type: .generic, value: groupID) provider.reportCall(with: callID, updated: update) } I also tried phoneNumber type but it seems initial handle that I set to CXStartCallAction not possible to change (value or even type). I use this handle value to implement recall by tap on call in Recents tab of system address book. But since my calls can transform from p2p to group call, I need to update handle value or find some another way to pass call identification info.
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266
Mar ’25
A Summary of the WWDC25 Group Lab - watchOS (Part 1)
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 1). 1. I'm really excited about the new design system on all platforms. Liquid Glass is super cool. What do developers need to keep in mind when building for watchOS 26? To adopt the new design system, start with updating your app for watchOS 10 – If you have done so, your app will be mostly ready for watchOS 26. For more information, see Design and build apps for WatchOS 10. You can then look into Liquid Glass specific APIs to fine tune your app. This topic is covered in Adopting Liquid Glass. If you have SwiftUI views using any custom style, make sure they are still legible and fit with the new design system. 2. Something that really stood out to me were updates to the Smart Stack, with the system prioritizing Widgets when they're most relevant. Tell me more about these new opportunities for apps. Workout apps that record workouts using HealthKit may be automatically suggested on the watch face and appear in the Smart Stack without adding a widget. Relevant widgets are a great way to present information related to a date, location, point-of-interest type, sleep schedule, or fitness condition in the Smart Stack when it is relevant. Relevant widgets don't need to display a empty state view when they are not relevant. They are only shown in the Smart Stack when relevant. The watchOS 26 Design ToolKit in the Apple Design Resources includes a set of templates that you can use to layout your widgets. 3. Is the Wrist Flick gesture available to developers in the same way as Double Tap is? The system uses Wrist Flick to dismiss notifications and incoming calls, silence timers and alarms, or return to the watch face. There is no separate API for the Wrist Flick gesture. Apps that are using XCUIAutomation to make sure their user interface behaves as intended can use the XCUIDeviceHandGesture.flick to automate tests that verify that their app responds appropriately to the Wrist Flick gesture. For apps using automated testing, the XCUIDeviceHandGesture.doubleTap can be also be used to automate testing of the app with the Double Tap gesture. See XCUIDevice.perform(handGesture:) 4. Can HRV measurements be triggered on demand via API in watchOS? Guidelines or processes for enabling energy-intensive biometric sampling on development devices for IRB-approved research? You don’t have direct control on the sampling rate in watchOS. You can use HealthKit (HKQuantityTypeIdentifierHeartRateVariabilitySDNN, to be specific) to query the HRV data, once the system has sampled and persisted the data to HealthKit. If that doesn’t help, we suggest that you file a feedback report with your concrete use case for us to investigate. Specific to IRB-approved research using Apple Watch or its companion iPhone, you might want to look at this FAQ and SensorKit to see if they can be of any help. 5. What is the best advice for someone who is new to making a watchOS app that’s been on iOS and iPadOS? You can start with exploring the system experience features on watchOS, such as notifications, controls, and widgets, and getting familiar with the system spaces, like Smart Stack, watch face, and control center. Knowing the watchOS app design principles and practices is important as well. Design and build apps for WatchOS 10 is a great resource for this topic. SwiftUI is an amazing across-platform framework, and you will use it to create your watchOS app. If you're already using it, great! Keep in mind some watch-only constraints. Comparing to iPhone or iPad, Apple Watch has a limited battery and smaller screen size, which significantly impacts how people use your app and how your app works. 6. Was there any extension this year to the 7 day limit on querying Apple Health data on the watch? There is no change on the limit this year. You can get this official limit at runtime using earliestPermittedSampleDate. There are some exceptions, and so don't be surprised if you see some data types are retained longer. The companion iPhone holds the full set of the health data. If you need to access the health data that has been purged from the Apple Watch, consider doing it with your iOS app, and then passing the result to your watchOS app.
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122
Jul ’25
Spotlight results | AppShortcut with AppEntity parameter vs CSSearchableItem.associateAppEntity
I've been exploring the Trails Sample App from this session at WWDC24. The app has a TrailEntity of type AppEntity which is leveraged in multiple places throughout the app, including: The GetTrailInfo App Intent with a trail parameter of type TrailEntity. A parameterized App Shortcut which calls the GetTrailInfo intent. The TrailDataManager's init calls updateSpotlightIndex(), which creates a CSSearchableItem for each Trail in the app, along with an associateAppEntity call linking the corresponding TrailEntity to each item that gets added to the CSSearchableIndex. If you build the app and search "trails" in Spotlight, the Trails Sample App section includes instances of TrailEntity as search results. But if you comment out the App Shortcut that takes a TrailEntity as a parameter and rebuild, there are no instances of TrailEntity in the search results. In both cases, the console prints [Spotlight] Trails indexed by Spotlight. Is this expected behavior? Why are the TrailEntity instances only appearing in Spotlight via the App Shortcut? Shouldn't the CSSearchableItem instances show up in Spotlight on their own regardless? If not, then what is the purpose of adopting Core Spotlight with App Entities? Does this add the app entities to the semantic index for "new Siri", even though they're not user facing in the Spotlight UI?
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Jan ’25
Social Login Firebase
I'm using react native with expo, firebase for auth, and I have google, facebook and Apple Sign In enabled. On my IOS simulator I can sign in using all 3 with no problems, but when I build and submit to test flight and test on a real device only google sign in works It crashes when I try to sign in with facebook and I get an error saying The operation couldn't be completed. (com.apple.AuthenticationServices.AuthorizationError error 1000.)
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Feb ’25
PDFKit - beginFindString
I am creating an iOS app that needs to parse the text from a PDF document. I can read the entire PDF document's text using the string property, but if it's a large PDF document, this could cause delays for users. From the documentation, I came across the beginFindString function, which seems to asynchronously, with no return? https://developer.apple.com/documentation/pdfkit/pdfdocument/beginfindstring(_:withoptions:)) Unfortunately I cannot find examples on how to use this function or its intended purpose/functionality, so any guidance would be appreciated. My goal is to read the PDF document one line at a time, searching for newlines ('\n'), then parsing that line as needed. I'm hoping the beginFindString function will be useful.
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334
Jan ’25
MAUI Application Crash in 14.5 version when click on Apple Logo
I have my application named "TestDataPro" in apple store. When I open the application and click on apple icon, my application crash. It is working fine in MACOS version 14.2.1. But it is causing crash in MACOS version 14.5 and 14.6 with having Apple M1 or M2 chip. While for the same MACOS version with having intel chip it is working fine. I have attached crash log. Can you please help me to find the root cause for this? TDPCrashReport.txt
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Feb ’25
iOS magnetometer data processing
Hello, I’m developing an app to detect movement past a strong magnet, targeting both Android and iOS. On Android, I’m using the Sensor API, which provides calibrated readings with temperature compensation, factory (or online) soft-iron calibration, and online hard-iron calibration. The equivalent on iOS appears to be the CMCalibratedMagneticField data from the CoreMotion framework. However, I’m encountering an issue with the iOS implementation. The magnetometer data on iOS behaves erratically compared to Android. While Android produces perfectly symmetric peaks, iOS shows visual peaks that report double the magnetic field strength. Additionally, there’s a "pendulum" effect: the field strength rises, drops rapidly, rises again to form a "double peak" structure, and takes a while to return to the local Earth magnetic field average. The peaks on iOS are also asymmetric. I’m wondering if this could be due to sensor fusion algorithms applied by iOS, which might affect the CMCalibratedMagneticField data. Are there other potential reasons for this behavior? Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!
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Jun ’25
Open UIViewController when QR Code is scanned
Hi developers, I have a question if it is possible to open in my application not main window but a specific ViewController, when application is installed but not running. When the application is running in background and I scan QR code, then specific ViewController is opened over SceneDelegate and method 'userActivity'. But this does not work when the application is only installed, but not running. The Appstore link is here: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/don%C3%A1tor/id6473955033
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Feb ’25
CallKit Keeps Terminating
Hello, I am currently developing a call service using CallKit and VoIP push. Recently, I have encountered a very challenging issue. During testing, when a VoIP push is received, the incomingCall gets triggered continuously, but then it automatically terminates after about 1-2 seconds. I am checking this issue under the debug scheme, and even when switching to different commits, the same problem persists. I suspect it might be an issue with the device, but I would like to confirm the cause and find a solution. Below are some characteristics I have noticed: On this device, when a VoIP push is received, CallKit automatically terminates, but this does not occur when debugging. The issue always occurs when not debugging. Looking at the device console logs related to callservicesd, there are many logs with 'invalidate' appended. For example: Invalidating process assertion for bundle ID from timeout All calls ended. Clearing system uplink muted cache Invalidate callDurationUpdateTimer InCallService has changed process state to 2 InCallService has been suspended; invalidating its XPC client connections. [0x565544180] invalidated because the current process cancelled the connection by calling xpc_connection_cancel() XPC connection invalidated from client These logs appear although our server did not receive any incoming call request, so we did not terminate it on our end. I also checked if there was a crash, but there were no reports left on the device. Could you please share any insights into the cause or solutions for this situation? Thank you.
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372
Jan ’25
FamilyControls Framework Not Working for TestFlight Testers
Hello everyone, I’m developing an app using the FamilyControls framework, I distributed through TestFlight the other day using the “Family Controls” distribution (not Development). Everything works as expected in dev builds — but for external TestFlight testers, nothing in the FamilyControls framework seems to function. I'm using the correct Family Controls capability in Xcode (added via Signing & Capabilities). The com.apple.developer.family-controls entitlement is present in my .entitlements file. All the users who reported the issue had correctly given screen time permissions to the app. Would really appreciate some help regarding where the issue could come from.
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172
Jul ’25
How to Archive iMessages via API with User Authorization Workflow?
I’m working on a solution to archive iMessages by using an API or similar mechanism. Here’s the desired workflow: The user provides their phone number to initiate the archiving process. They receive a text message with a URL link. Clicking on the link authorizes the archiving of their iMessages. Once authorized, their text messages are archived. So far, I’ve researched third-party services and APIs but haven’t found any that offer this capability directly for iMessages. Questions: Are there any APIs or frameworks (Apple or third-party) that support accessing and archiving iMessages programmatically?
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448
Jan ’25