I have an app that uses background audio recording. From what others say, I have enabled the audio background mode to keep the audio session active, and this worked. But when submitting the app to the app store, the app was rejected because the audio background mode is only supposed to be used for audio playback. How do I create this background mode while following Apple's guidelines?

I am trying to create an app bundle with an xpc service. The main app creates a keychain item, and attempts to share (keychain access groups) with the xpc service it includes in its bundle. However, the xpc service always encounters a 'user interaction not allowed' error regardless of how I create the keychain item. kSecAttrAccessiblei is set to kSecAttrAccessibleWhenUnlockedThisDeviceOnly, the keychain access group is set for both the main app and the xpc service and in the provisioning profile. I've tried signing and notarizing. Is it ever possible for an xpc service to access the keychain? This all on macos 15.5.

Hello, My team has developed a DNS proxy for macOS. We have this set up with a system extension that interacts with the OS, and an always-running daemon that does all the heavy lifting. Communication between the two is DNS request and response packet traffic. With this architecture what are best practices for how the system extension communicates with a daemon? We tried making the daemon a socket server, but the system extension could not connect to it. We tried using XPC but it did not work and we could not understand the errors that were returned. So what is the best way to do this sort of thing?

Hi, I'm working on an application on MacOS. It contains a port-forward feature on TCP protocol. This application has no UI, but a local HTTP server where user can access to configure this application. I found that my application always exit for unknown purpose after running in backgruond for minutes. I think this is about MacOS's background process controlling. Source codes and PKG installers are here: https://github.com/burningtnt/Terracotta/actions/runs/16494390417

Hi there, I'm trying to work on an architecture where one app exposes an API (Extension Host) that other apps can plugin to. I've been reading all I can from the docs and whatever I can find online. It seemed like iOS26 added the ability to do such a thing (at least in early builds). Is that the case? Has the functionality been walked back such that extensions can only be loaded in iOS from within the single app bundle? My use case is the following: I'm working on an agent app that desires to have 3rd party developers add functionality (think how MCP servers add functionality to LLMs). The 3rd party plugins would be provided in their own app bundles vetted by the AppStore review team, of course, and would only provide hooks, basically, the main app can use to execute functions or get state. This is the best thread I found on the topic, and the subtext is that it needs to be in the same bundle. https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/803896?answerId=865314022#865314022 Let's say for the moment that this isn't possible using ExtensionKit. What's the best way to achieve this? Our current best alternative idea is a hidded WebKit window that runs JS/WASM but that's so hackish. Please let me know, thanks!

I'm a developer using Lazarus Pascal, so converting ObjC and Swift comes with its challenges. I'm trying to figure how to properly use SMAppService to add my application as a login item for the App Store. I have learned that the old method (< macOS 13) uses a helper tool, included in the app bundle, which calls the now deprecated SMLoginItemSetEnabled. Now this is already quite a pain to deal with if you're not using XCode, not to mention converting the headers being rather complicated when you're not experienced with doing this. The "new" method (as of macOS 13) is using SMAppService. Can anyone explain how to use this? The documentation (for me anyway) is a not very clear about that and neither are examples that can be found all over the Internet. My main question is: Can I now use the SMAppService functions to add/remove a login item straight in my application, or is a helper tool still required?

Hi all, Our company has an application that runs on several machines, this app is launched via a deamon that keeps it alive. One of the feature of this app, is to start a headless electron application to run some tests. When spawning this electron application with the new arm64 OS, we are getting this issue: Silent Test Agent Worker exited with code: 133 [ERROR] [75873:0205/135842.347044:ERROR:mach_port_rendezvous.cc(384)] bootstrap_look_up com.hivestreaming.silenttestagent.MachPortRendezvousServer.1: Permission denied (1100) [ERROR] [75873:0205/135842.347417:ERROR:shared_memory_switch.cc(237)] No rendezvous client, terminating process (parent died?) [ERROR] [75872:0205/135842.347634:ERROR:mach_port_rendezvous.cc(384)] bootstrap_look_up com.hivestreaming.silenttestagent.MachPortRendezvousServer.1: Permission denied (1100) [ERROR] [75872:0205/135842.347976:ERROR:shared_memory_switch.cc(237)] No rendezvous client, terminating process (parent died?) Both application (main app and electron one) are signed and notarized, but it seems that there is some other permission issue. If we run the electron application manually, all runs as expected. I added the crash report as attachment CrashReport.log

Hi, I’m using a Local Push Connectivity Extension and encountering an issue with DispatchSourceTimer. In my extension, I create a DispatchSourceTimer that is supposed to fire every 1 second. It works as expected at first. However, when the app is in the foreground and the device is locked, the timer eventually stops firing after 1–3 hours. The extension process is still alive, and no errors are thrown Has anyone experienced this behavior? Is this a known limitation for timers inside NEAppPushProvider, or is the extension being deprioritized silently by the system? Any insights or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

My app does really large uploads. Like several GB. We use the AWS SDK to upload to S3. It seemed like using BGContinuedProcessingTask to complete a set of uploads for a particular item may improve UX as well as performance and reliability. When I tried to get BGContinuedProcessingTask working with the AWS SDK I found that the task would fail after maybe 30 seconds. It looked like this was because the app stopped receiving updates from the AWS upload and the task wants consistent updates. The AWS SDK always uses a background URLSession and this is not configurable. I understand the background URLSession runs in a separate process from the app and maybe that is why progress updates did not continue when the app was in the background. Is it expected that BGContinuedProcessingTask and background URLSession are not really compatible? It would not be shocking since they are 2 separate background APIs. Would the Apple recommendation be to use a normal URLSession for this, in which case AWS would need to change their SDK? Or does Apple think that BGContinuedProcessingTask should just not be used with uploads? In other words use an upload specific API. Thanks!

Hi, I have a hard time getting my head wrapped around the possibilities of running a app or a task in a app in the background. I have a app where I utilize MusicKit to create a playlist in Apple Music, and add songs to the playlist. Now the songs added are picked from choices made by the user, and the total number of songs to add is 75, and that takes some time. And if the user switches to a different app or the phone is locked, the add songs logic stops, and then starts again as soon as the app is active again. What I am trying to achieve is of course for this to keep processing also when the app is not active, so basically to keep it running in the background. But this is where I struggle to understand how I can do that - The available choice seems to be BGTaskScheduler, but that just does not seem correct. From what I understand it just schedules a task, and it will be processed whenever the app or phone "feels like it" (again, my understanding, might be wrong), and that won't work in my scenario. I want the task to start when the user taps a button, and just keep running until it is finished, regardless of if the app is active or not. Any pointers, tips, advices out there on how I can achieve this?

Hi all, I’ve built an Electron application that uses two child processes: An Express.js server A Python executable (packaged .exe/binary) During the development phase, everything works fine — the Electron app launches, both child processes start, and the app functions as expected. But when I create a production build for macOS, the child processes don’t run. Here’s a simplified snippet from my electron.mjs: import { app, BrowserWindow } from "electron"; import { spawn } from "child_process"; import path from "path"; let mainWindow; const createWindow = () => { mainWindow = new BrowserWindow({ width: 1200, height: 800, webPreferences: { nodeIntegration: true, }, }); mainWindow.loadFile("index.html"); // Start Express server const serverPath = path.join(process.resourcesPath, "app.asar.unpacked", "server", "index.js"); const serverProcess = spawn(process.execPath, [serverPath], { stdio: "inherit", }); // Start Python process const pythonPath = path.join(process.resourcesPath, "app.asar.unpacked", "python", "myapp"); const pythonProcess = spawn(pythonPath, [], { stdio: "inherit", }); serverProcess.on("error", (err) => console.error("Server process error:", err)); pythonProcess.on("error", (err) => console.error("Python process error:", err)); }; app.whenReady().then(createWindow); I’ve already done the following: Configured package.json with the right build settings Set up extraResources / asarUnpack to include the server and Python files Verified both child processes work standalone Questions: What’s the correct way to package and spawn these child processes for macOS production builds? Do I need to move them into a specific location (like Contents/Resources/app.asar.unpacked) and reference them differently? Is there a more reliable pattern for handling Express + Python child processes inside an Electron app bundle? Any insights or working examples would be really appreciated!

I'm trying to schedule a background task that will run on an iPhone and I'm looking into creating a task request using BGProcessingTaskRequest and scheduled it using BGTaskScheduler.shared.submit(). Per earliestBeginDate documentation, this property can be used to specify the earliest time a background task will be launched by OS. All clear here. However, the question is: how is the value interpreted with respect to timezone ? Is the specified date in device timezone ? Is GMT ? Is something else ?

I have followed these steps as mentioned in this link :(https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/721737) My projects app bundle structure is like this : TWGUI.app TWGUI.app/Contents TWGUI.app/Contents/_CodeSignature TWGUI.app/Contents/_CodeSignature/CodeResources TWGUI.app/Contents/MacOS TWGUI.app/Contents/MacOS/TWAgent TWGUI.app/Contents/MacOS/TWGUI TWGUI.app/Contents/Resources TWGUI.app/Contents/Library TWGUI.app/Contents/Library/LaunchAgents TWGUI.app/Contents/Library/LaunchAgents/com.example.TWGUI.agent.plist TWGUI.app/Contents/Info.plist TWGUI.app/Contents/PkgInfo TWGUI is my main GUI App , i which i want to embed TWAgent (a command line tool target) and register it using SMAppServices so that launchd can launch it. In TWGUI, code for registering to launchd using SMAppServices is structure as follow : import SwiftUI import ServiceManagement struct ContentView: View { let agent = SMAppService.agent(plistName: "com.example.TWGUI.agent.plist") var body: some View { VStack { Button("Register Agent") { RegisterAgent () } .padding() Button("Unregister Agent") { UnregisterAgent () } .padding() } } func RegisterAgent() { DispatchQueue.global(qos: .background).async { do { print("Registering Agent. Status: \(agent.status.rawValue)") try agent.register() print("Agent registered") } catch { print("Failed to register agent: \(error)") } } } func UnregisterAgent() { DispatchQueue.global(qos: .background).async { do { print("Unregistering Agent. Status: \(agent.status.rawValue)") try agent.unregister() print("Agent unregistered") } catch { print("Failed to unregister agent: \(error)") } } } } com.example.TWGUI.agent.plist : <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs$ <plist version="1.0"> <dict> <key>Label</key> <string>com.example.TWGUI.agent</string> <key>ProgramArguments</key> <array> <string>Contents/MacOS/TWAgent</string> </array> <key>RunAtLoad</key> <true/> <key>KeepAlive</key> <true/> </dict> </plist> I have used ProgramArguements instead of using Program in above plist because i was getting this error when i was using Program earlier : Registering Agent. Status: 3 Failed to register agent: Error Domain=SMAppServiceErrorDomain Code=111 "Invalid or missing Program/ProgramArguments" UserInfo={NSLocalizedFailureReason=Invalid or missing Program/ProgramArguments} TWGUI apps Info.plist is : <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?> <!DOCTYPE plist PUBLIC "-//Apple//DTD PLIST 1.0//EN" "http://www.apple.com/DTDs/PropertyList-1.0.dtd"> <plist version="1.0"> <dict> <key>BuildMachineOSBuild</key> <string>23C71</string> <key>CFBundleDevelopmentRegion</key> <string>en</string> <key>CFBundleExecutable</key> <string>TWGUI</string> <key>CFBundleIdentifier</key> <string>com.example.TWAgent</string> <key>CFBundleInfoDictionaryVersion</key> <string>6.0</string> <key>CFBundleName</key> <string>TWGUI</string> <key>CFBundlePackageType</key> <string>APPL</string> <key>CFBundleShortVersionString</key> <string>1.0</string> <key>CFBundleSupportedPlatforms</key> <array> <string>MacOSX</string> </array> <key>CFBundleVersion</key> <string>1</string> <key>DTCompiler</key> <string>com.apple.compilers.llvm.clang.1_0</string> <key>DTPlatformBuild</key> <string></string> <key>DTPlatformName</key> <string>macosx</string> <key>DTPlatformVersion</key> <string>14.2</string> <key>DTSDKBuild</key> <string>23C53</string> <key>DTSDKName</key> <string>macosx14.2</string> <key>DTXcode</key> <string>1510</string> <key>DTXcodeBuild</key> <string>15C65</string> <key>LSMinimumSystemVersion</key> <string>14.2</string> </dict> </plist> TWAgent target has main.swift file which does this : import Foundation let startTime = CFAbsoluteTimeGetCurrent() func logTimeSinceStart() { let elapsedTime = CFAbsoluteTimeGetCurrent() - startTime NSLog("Time since program started: \(elapsedTime) seconds") } func startLoggingTime() { Timer.scheduledTimer(withTimeInterval: 1.0, repeats: true) { _ in logTimeSinceStart() } } // Start logging time startLoggingTime() // Keep the run loop running CFRunLoopRun() I followed these exact same steps in another project earlier and my agent was getting registered, although i lost that project due to some reasons. But now i am getting this error when i am registering or unregistering agent using SMAppServices from the code above : Registering Agent. Status: 3 Failed to register agent: Error Domain=SMAppServiceErrorDomain Code=1 "Operation not permitted" UserInfo={NSLocalizedFailureReason=Operation not permitted} I tried diffrent fixes for like this : Moved app bundle to /applications folder Gave permission for full disc access to this app . Code sign again (both agent and TWGUI ... But nothing seems to work , getting same error. I tried to launch agent using : Launchctl load com.example.TWGUI.agent.plist and it worked , so there is no issue with my plist implementation. Can someone help me understand how can i solve this issue ? or if i am following right steps ? Can give steps need to follow to implement this and steps so that i can register and start my agent using SMAppServices? And i also tried the project give in apples official documentation : [https://developer.apple.com/documentation/servicemanagement/updating-your-app-package-installer-to-use-the-new-service-management-api) but got same error in this project as well .

Hi! Could you please point me to the official documentation or recommended approach for launching the host app from a Share Extension? The scenario is: The user is sharing some text to my app. I need launch App and show this text. At the moment, I'm using the following hack: let selector = NSSelectorFromString("sharedApplication") if let app = UIApplication.perform(selector)?.takeUnretainedValue() as? UIApplication, app.responds(to: #selector(UIApplication.open(_:options:completionHandler:))) { app.open(url, options: [:], completionHandler: nil) } This does work, but it's terrible. So, the question: What is the official way to open the host app from within a Share Extension? Thanks!

We added the com.apple.developer.background-tasks.continued-processing.gpu key to the entitlement file and set it to true, but BGTaskScheduler.supportedResources does not include gpu. How can we configure it to obtain permission for GPU access in the background? Test device: iPhone 16 Pro Max, iOS 26 release version.

We have an application that sets a code signing requirement on a XPC connection between a File Provider extension and the main application. Only with a specific Developer ID certificate <DEVELOPER_ID_TEAM_IDENTIFIER> that designated requirement is not accepted and the application crashes with EXC_CRASH (SIGABRT) and the stacktrace Thread 1 Crashed:: Dispatch queue: com.apple.root.default-qos 0 libsystem_kernel.dylib 0x19b556388 __pthread_kill + 8 1 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x19b58f88c pthread_kill + 296 2 libsystem_c.dylib 0x19b498a3c abort + 124 3 libc++abi.dylib 0x19b545384 abort_message + 132 4 libc++abi.dylib 0x19b533cf4 demangling_terminate_handler() + 344 5 libobjc.A.dylib 0x19b1b8dd4 _objc_terminate() + 156 6 libc++abi.dylib 0x19b544698 std::__terminate(void (*)()) + 16 7 libc++abi.dylib 0x19b547c30 __cxxabiv1::failed_throw(__cxxabiv1::__cxa_exception*) + 88 8 libc++abi.dylib 0x19b547bd8 __cxa_throw + 92 9 libobjc.A.dylib 0x19b1aecf8 objc_exception_throw + 448 10 Foundation 0x19d5c3840 -[NSXPCConnection setCodeSigningRequirement:] + 140 11 libxpcfileprovider.dylib 0x301023048 NSXPCConnection.setCodeSigningRequirementFromTeamIdentifier(_:) + 1796 12 libxpcfileprovider.dylib 0x30101dc94 closure #1 in CallbackFileProviderManager.getFileProviderConnection(_:service:completionHandler:interruptionHandler:exportedObject:) + 1936 13 libxpcfileprovider.dylib 0x30101e110 thunk for @escaping @callee_guaranteed @Sendable (@guaranteed NSXPCConnection?, @guaranteed Error?) -> () + 80 14 Foundation 0x19d46c3a4 __72-[NSFileProviderService getFileProviderConnectionWithCompletionHandler:]_block_invoke_2.687 + 284 15 libdispatch.dylib 0x19b3d7b2c _dispatch_call_block_and_release + 32 16 libdispatch.dylib 0x19b3f185c _dispatch_client_callout + 16 17 libdispatch.dylib 0x19b40e490 + 32 18 libdispatch.dylib 0x19b3e9fa4 _dispatch_root_queue_drain + 736 19 libdispatch.dylib 0x19b3ea5d4 _dispatch_worker_thread2 + 156 20 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x19b58be28 _pthread_wqthread + 232 21 libsystem_pthread.dylib 0x19b58ab74 start_wqthread + 8 The designated codesign requirement on the XPC connection is set to anchor apple generic and certificate leaf[subject.OU] = <DEVELOPER_ID_TEAM_IDENTIFIER>" We have verified the designated code sign requirement to be valid on both the main bundle and the embedded extension using: codesign --verify -v -R '=anchor apple generic and certificate leaf[subject.OU] = "<DEVELOPER_ID_TEAM_IDENTIFIER>"' *.app codesign --verify -v -R '=anchor apple generic and certificate leaf[subject.OU] = "<DEVELOPER_ID_TEAM_IDENTIFIER>"' *.app/Contents/PlugIns/*

Hello, I am developing an application which is communicating with external device using BLE and L2CAP. I wonder what are the best practices of using Input & Output streams that are established with L2CAP connection when working with Swift 6 concurrency model. I've been trying to find some examples and hints for some time now but unfortunately there isn't much available. One useful thread I've found is: https://developer.apple.com/forums/thread/756281 but it does not offer much insight into using eg. actor model with streams. I wonder if something has changed in this regards? Also, are there any plans to migrate eg. CoreBluetooth stack to new swift 6 concurrency ?

I have an app that I'm using for my own purposes and is not in the app store. I would like to run an http server in the background for more than the allotted 3 minutes to allow persistent communications with a connected Bluetooth device. The Bluetooth device would poll the service at intervals. Is this possible to do? This app does not need app store approval since it's only for personal use.

When I run my app with XCode on my iPhone, and then moved into the background, I'm getting a EXC_BREAKPOINT exception after a few minutes, seemingly when iOS attempts to call my app with a BGAppRefreshTask: Thread 23 Queue: com.apple.BGTaskScheduler (com.mycompany.MyApp.RefreshTask) (serial) 0 _dispatch_assert_queue_fail 12 _pthread_wqthread Enqueued from com.apple.duet.activityscheduler.client.xpcqueue (Thread 23) 0 dispatch_async 20 start_wqthread I can't quite understand the reason from this crash. In the background task, I'm attempting to update live activities. In the process, it might encounter code that calls MainActor and manipulate @Observable objects. Might that be the reason?

When using the continuation API, we're required to call resume exactly once. While withCheckedContinuation helps catch runtime issues during debugging, I'm looking for ways to catch such errors at compile time or through tools like Instruments. Is there any tool or technique that can help enforce or detect this requirement more strictly than runtime checks? Or would creating custom abstractions around Continuation be the only option to ensure safety? Any suggestions or best practices are appreciated.