Dive into the technical aspects of audio on your device, including codecs, format support, and customization options.

Audio Documentation

Posts under Audio subtopic

Post

Replies

Boosts

Views

Activity

CoreAudio server plugin gaining write access with SystemConfiguration.framework functions
Hi, our CourAudio server plugin utilizes the SystemConfiguration.framework to store and restore specific shared system wide settings. While our application can authenticate to utilize the SystemConfiguration.framework to gain write access to the shared configuration settings the CoreAudio server plugin obviously can't have any user interaction and therefor does not authenticate. Is it possible to authenticate the CoreAudio server plugin to gain write permissions? Are there any entitlements or other means that would allow this? Thanks!
2
0
187
Apr ’25
iOS Speech Error on Mobile Simulator (Error fetching voices)
I'm writing a simple app for iOS and I'd like to be able to do some text to speech in it. I have a basic audio manager class with a "speak" function: import Foundation import AVFoundation class AudioManager { static let shared = AudioManager() var audioPlayer: AVAudioPlayer? var isPlaying: Bool { return audioPlayer?.isPlaying ?? false } var playbackPosition: TimeInterval = 0 func playSound(named name: String) { guard let url = Bundle.main.url(forResource: name, withExtension: "mp3") else { print("Sound file not found") return } do { if audioPlayer == nil || !isPlaying { audioPlayer = try AVAudioPlayer(contentsOf: url) audioPlayer?.currentTime = playbackPosition audioPlayer?.prepareToPlay() audioPlayer?.play() } else { print("Sound is already playing") } } catch { print("Error playing sound: \(error.localizedDescription)") } } func stopSound() { if let player = audioPlayer { playbackPosition = player.currentTime player.stop() } } func speak(text: String) { let synthesizer = AVSpeechSynthesizer() let utterance = AVSpeechUtterance(string: text) utterance.voice = AVSpeechSynthesisVoice(language: "en-GB") synthesizer.speak(utterance) } } And my app shows text in a ScrollView: ScrollView { Text(self.description) .padding() .foregroundColor(.black) .font(.headline) .background(Color.gray.opacity(0)) }.onAppear { AudioManager.shared.speak(text: self.description) } However, the text doesn't get read out (in the simulator). I see some output in the console: Error fetching voices: Swift.DecodingError.dataCorrupted(Swift.DecodingError.Context(codingPath: [], debugDescription: "Invalid container metadata for _UnkeyedDecodingContainer, found keyedGraphEncodingNodeID", underlyingError: nil)). Using fallback voices. I'm probably doing something wrong here, but not sure what.
5
1
695
Dec ’25
Process to request the restricted entitlement behind “DJ with Apple Music” (tempo control / time-stretch on Apple Music streams)?
Hi, I’m an iOS developer building an app with an use case that needs advanced playback on Apple Music subscription streams, specifically: • Real-time tempo change (BPM) during playback — i.e., time-stretch with key-lock, not just crossfade. • Beat-matched transitions between tracks. From what I can tell, this capability seems to exist only for approved partners and isn’t available through public MusicKit. Question: What’s the official request path to be evaluated for that restricted partner entitlement (application form, questionnaire, NDA, or internal team/BD contact)? If the entitlement identifier is internal, how can I get my account routed to the right Apple Music team? For reference, publicly announced partners include Algoriddim djay, Serato DJ Pro, rekordbox (AlphaTheta), and Engine DJ—all of which appear to implement mixing features that imply advanced playback (tempo/beat-matching) on Apple Music content. I’d prefer not to share product details publicly for the moment and can provide specifics privately if needed. Thanks in advance!
0
1
377
Oct ’25
Question about PT Framework channel tone behaviour
I've been wondering if there is a way to modify or even disable tones for indicating channel states. The behaviour regarding tones seems like a black box with little documentation. During migration to Apple's PT Framework we've noticed that there are few scenarios where a tone is played which doesn't match certain certifications. For example; moving from a channel to another produces a tone which would fail a test case. I understand the reasoning fully, as it marks that the channel is ready to transmit or receive, but this doesn't mirror the behaviour of TETRA which would be wanted in this case. I'm also wondering if there would be any way to directly communicate feedback regarding PT Framework?
3
0
416
Oct ’25
Audio session activation occasionally fails from CarPlay
I'm working on adding CarPlay support to an audio app and am running into an issue. Occasionally, when a user opens the app from CarPlay while the main app scene is either not connected or is currently in the background, I will receive an error when attempting to activate the audio session. The code below mimics my setup: do { try AVAudioSession.sharedInstance().setCategory(.playback, mode: .spokenAudio) try AVAudioSession.sharedInstance().setActive(true) } catch { print(error) // NSOSStatusErrorDomain - 560557684: Session activation failed } That error code maps to AVAudioSession.ErrorCode.cannotInterruptOthers. Once in this state, all subsequent attempts to play different pieces of content will fail. However, things will start working normally if the user opens the app on their phone and tries again from CarPlay (while the app is in the foreground on their phone). I'm not sure why it would behave this way and want to note that I do have the audio background mode capability enabled. Has anyone else encountered this? Are there any workarounds or changes I could make to prevent this from happening?
0
1
199
Apr ’25
MPNowPlayingInfoCenter nowPlayingInfo throttled
Hello, I have been running into issues with setting nowPlayingInfo information, specifically updating information for CarPlay and the CPNowPlayingTemplate. When I start playback for an item, I see lock screen information update as expected, along with the CarPlay now playing information. However, the playing items are books with collections of tracks. When I select a new track(chapter) within the book, I set the MPMediaItemPropertyTitle to the new chapter name. This change is reflected correctly on the lock screen, but almost never appears correctly on the CarPlay CPNowPlayingTemplate. The previous chapter title remains set and never updates. I see "Application exceeded audio metadata throttle limit." in the debug console fairly frequently. From that a I figured that I need to minimize updates to the nowPlayingInfo dictionary. What I did: I store the metadata dictionary in a local dictionary and only set values in the main nowPlayingInfo dictionary when they are different from the current value. I kick off the nowPlayingInfo update via a task that initially sleeps for around 2 seconds (not a final value, just for my current testing). If a previous Task is active, it gets cancelled, so that only one update can happen within that time window. Neither of these things have been sufficient. I can switch between different titles entirely and the information updates (including cover art). But when I switch chapters within a title, the MPMediaItemPropertyTitle continues to get dropped. I know the value is getting set, because it updates on the lock screen correctly. In total, I have 12 keys I update for info, though with the above changes, usually 2-4 of them actually get updated with high frequency. I am running out of ideas to satisfy the throttling thresholds to accurately display metadata. I could use some advice. Thanks.
4
1
224
May ’25
Always audio from latest connected external USB mic
Hello! I've two mics connected to a USB-hub. The USB-hub is then connected to my iPad. Both mics are part of the audio session's list of available inputs. The problem is that regardless of which mic I select in my app (using setPreferredInput() on the audio session), the audio keeps coming from the mic that was last connected to the USB-hub. Anyone that knows if this is a limitation in iPadOS/iOS?
1
1
209
Jul ’25
Failure on attempt to import track as spatial audio
I'm working on a project to support spatial audio editing, using this sample project as a reference: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cinematic/editing-spatial-audio-with-an-audio-mix This sample works well on an unedited capture, but does not work for a capture that has already been edited. The failure is occurring at "let audioInfo = try await CNAssetSpatialAudioInfo(asset: myAsset)", which is throwing "no eligible audio tracks in asset". I also find that for already edited captures, if i use CNAssetSpatialAudioInfo.assetContainsSpatialAudio, it returns false. What i mean by "already edited" is that if I take a spatial capture with my iPhone 16, and then edit that capture in the Photos app using the Cinematic effect, and then save the edited output (e.g. edited_capture.mov), I can't import that edited_capture.mov into my project as a spatial audio asset. Is this intentional behavior or a bug? If it's intentional, can you describe why?
0
1
165
Sep ’25
AVAudioSession : Audio issues when recording the screen in an app that changes IOBufferDuration on iOS 26.
Among Japanese end users, audio issues during screen recording—primarily in game applications—have become a topic of discussion. We have confirmed that the trigger for this issue is highly likely to be related to changes to IOBufferDuration. When using setPreferredIOBufferDuration and the IOBufferDuration is set to a value smaller than the default, audio problems occur in the recorded screen capture video. Audio playback is performed using AudioUnit (RemoteIO). https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfaudio/avaudiosession/setpreferrediobufferduration(_:)?language=objc This issue was not observed on iOS 18, and it appears to have started occurring after upgrading to iOS 26. We provide an audio middleware solution, and we had incorporated changes to IOBufferDuration into our product to achieve low-latency audio playback. As a result, developers using our product as well as their end users are being affected by this issue. We kindly request that this issue be investigated and addressed in a future update. “This document has been translated by AI. The original text is included below for reference.” 日本のエンドユーザー間で主にゲームアプリケーションにおける画面収録時の音声の問題が話題になっています。 こちらの症状のトリガーが、IOBufferDurationの変更によるものである可能性が高いことを確認しました。 setPreferredIOBufferDurationを使用し、IOBufferDurationがデフォルトより小さい状態の時、画面収録された動画の音声に問題が発生することをしています。 音声の再生にはAudioUnit(RemoteIO)を使用しています。 https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfaudio/avaudiosession/setpreferrediobufferduration(_:)?language=objc iOS 18ではこのような問題は確認されておらず、iOS26になってから問題が発生しているようです。 私たちはオーディオミドルウェアを提供しており、低遅延の再生のためにIOBufferDurationの変更を製品に組み込んでいました。 そのため、弊社製品をご利用いただいている開発者およびエンドユーザーの皆様がこの不具合の影響を受けています。 こちらの不具合の調査及び修正対応を検討いただけますでしょうか。
2
0
471
2w
MusicKit - ApplicationMusicPlayer fails to play certain Songs
[Note: this issue was happening on a main testing device, and after testing the same code on other devices, this issue is only happening on 1 out of 4 devices] We are successfully getting a MusicCatalogResourceResponse for every song ID where we make the MusicCatalogResourceRequest. We are able to display the song title, artist name, and album artwork for each Song in the response. However - when we go to play the song, there are some songs that play, and several songs that do not play. For the songs that don't play, the console shows “Failed to prepareToPlay error=<MPMusicPlayerControllerErrorDomain.6 "Failed to prepare to play" {}>” let musicPlayer = ApplicationMusicPlayer.shared func playSong(_ song: Song) { musicPlayer.queue = [song] Task { try await musicPlayer.prepareToPlay() try await musicPlayer.play() } Is there anything else we can investigate about what may be causing specific song IDs not to play on this specific device? Even if we remove line 6 musicPlayer.prepareToPlay() we still see the same console error when running playSong with the Songs that don't work. It is always the same song IDs that we can play and always the same song IDs that we cannot get to play, even trying them across different projects with different bundle identifiers. We can tap to play a song that works, and it starts playing immediately. Then tap a song that doesn't work, and nothing happens. Then back to a song that works. It's consistent which songs succeed and fail on this device. Perhaps there is an issue specific to this very iPad when it comes to certain specific songs, but we'd like to be confident that an app relying on MusicKit will be able to play songs that have been successfully loaded with a MusicCatalogResourceResponse. Thanks for any help or suggestions about what we may be able to investigate further on the device or what we should consider when launching an app that expects anyone with Apple Music to be able to listen to any of the songs loaded by the app. Specific iPad details: iPad Pro (12.9-inch) (6th generation) running iPadOS 26.4 Beta Two of the song IDs that won't play on this iPad (even though we can access and display their album artwork and all other information): 943204000 and 1441164805
2
1
206
Mar ’26
Audio DSP Processing Issue / Metallic Ringing Artifacts when recording acoustic instruments on iPhone 17 Pro Max
Description: I have identified a specific issue when recording acoustic guitar and other instruments on the iPhone 17 Pro Max using native applications (Voice Memos, Camera). The recordings contain an unnatural metallic resonance (ringing artifacts) that should not be present. Testing and Methodology: Hardware Verification: Initially, I suspected a hardware defect in the audio chip or microphone. However, extensive testing with third-party software suggests this is likely a software-level issue. AudioShare Test: I conducted a test using the AudioShare app in "Measurement Mode" (which bypasses standard iOS system-wide audio processing). In this mode, the audio remains perfectly clean, and the metallic ringing disappears entirely. Conclusion: The issue is rooted in the DSP (Digital Signal Processing) algorithms that iOS applies for noise suppression or voice enhancement. These algorithms appear to misinterpret the high-frequency overtones of acoustic instruments as background noise and attempt to "filter" them, resulting in audible digital artifacts. Comparison Results: This issue has not been observed on devices from other brands or on older iPhone models (preliminary tests suggest older versions handle this better). Notably, the problem persists even in GarageBand, as the app still utilizes certain system-level processing layers. Proposed Solution: I suggest adding a "Raw Audio" or "Instrument Mode" toggle within the Microphone/Audio settings for native apps. This mode should disable aggressive DSP processing, similar to how the AVAudioSession.Mode.measurement works in specialized apps. Attachments: I am attaching 4 archives, including a final "Measurement Mode" folder with comparative samples (Measurement Mode vs. Standard Mode). The artifacts are most prominent when monitored through headphones.
0
1
163
Jan ’26
AVSpeechSynthesizer system voices (SLA clarification)
Hello, I am building an iOS-only, commercial app that uses AVSpeechSynthesizer with system voices, strictly using the APIs provided by Apple. Before distributing the app, I want to ensure that my current implementation does not conflict with the iOS Software License Agreement (SLA) and is aligned with Apple’s intended usage. For a better playback experience (more accurate estimation of utterance duration and smoother skip forward/backward during playback), I currently synthesize speech using: AVSpeechSynthesizer.write(_:toBufferCallback:) Converting the received AVAudioPCMBuffer buffers into audio data Storing the audio inside the app sandbox Playing it back using AVAudioPlayer / AVAudioEngine The cached audio is: Generated fully on-device using system voices Stored only inside the app’s private container Used only for internal playback controls (timeline, seek, skip ±5 seconds) Never shared, exported, uploaded, or exposed outside the app The alternative approaches would be: Keeping the generated audio entirely in memory (RAM) for playback purposes, without writing it to the file system at any point Or using AVSpeechSynthesizer.speak(_:) and playing speech strictly in real time which has a poorer user experience compared to my approach I have reviewed the current iOS Software License Agreement: https://www.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/iOS18_iPadOS18.pdf In particular, section (f) mentions restrictions around System Characters, Live Captions, and Personal Voice, including the following excerpt: “…use … only for your personal, non-commercial use… No other creation or use of the System Characters, Live Captions, or Personal Voice is permitted by this License, including but not limited to the use, reproduction, display, performance, recording, publishing or redistribution in a … commercial context.” I do not see a specific reference in the SLA to system text-to-speech voices used via AVSpeechSynthesizer, and I want to be certain that temporarily caching synthesized speech for internal, non-exported playback is acceptable in a commercial app. My question is: Is caching AVSpeechSynthesizer system-voice output inside the app sandbox for internal playback acceptable, or is Apple’s recommended approach to rely only on real-time playback (speak(_:)) or strictly in-memory buffering without file storage? If this question falls outside DTS technical scope and is instead a policy or licensing matter, I would appreciate guidance on the authoritative Apple documentation or the correct Apple team/contact. Thank you.
1
1
444
Feb ’26
AVAudioSession.outputVolume not reporting correctly in iOS 18+ devices
I’m using the shared instance of AVAudioSession. After activating it with .setActive(true), I observe the outputVolume, and it correctly reports the device’s volume. However, after deactivating the session using .setActive(false), changing the volume, and then reactivating it again, the outputVolume returns the previous volume (before deactivation), not the current device volume. The correct volume is only reported after the user manually changes it again using physical buttons or Control Center, which triggers the observer. What I need is a way to retrieve the actual current device volume immediately after reactivating the audio session, even on the second and subsequent activations. Disabling and re-enabling the audio session is essential to how my application functions. I’ve tested this behavior with my colleagues, and the issue is consistently reproducible on iOS 18.0.1, iOS 18.1, iOS 18.3, iOS 18.5 and iOS 18.6.2. On devices running iOS 17.6.1 and iOS 16.0.3, outputVolume correctly reflects the current volume immediately after calling .setActive(true) multiple times.
3
1
347
Feb ’26
Indicate Packet Loss With AVAudioConverter for OPUS Decoding
I'm using an AVAudioConverter object to decode an OPUS stream for VoIP. The decoding itself works well, however, whenever the stream stalls (no more audio packet is available to decode because of network instability) this can be heard in crackling / abrupt stop in decoded audio. OPUS can mitigate this by indicating packet loss by passing a null pointer in the C-library to int opus_decode_float (OpusDecoder * st, const unsigned char * data, opus_int32 len, float * pcm, int frame_size, int decode_fec), see https://opus-codec.org/docs/opus_api-1.2/group__opus__decoder.html#ga9c554b8c0214e24733a299fe53bb3bd2. However, with AVAudioConverter using Swift I'm constructing an AVAudioCompressedBuffer like so:         let compressedBuffer = AVAudioCompressedBuffer(             format: VoiceEncoder.Constants.networkFormat,             packetCapacity: 1,             maximumPacketSize: data.count         )         compressedBuffer.byteLength = UInt32(data.count)         compressedBuffer.packetCount = 1   compressedBuffer.packetDescriptions! .pointee.mDataByteSize = UInt32(data.count)         data.copyBytes(             to: compressedBuffer.data .assumingMemoryBound(to: UInt8.self),             count: data.count         ) where data: Data contains the raw OPUS frame to be decoded. How can I specify data loss in this context and cause the AVAudioConverter to output PCM data whenever no more input data is available? More context: I'm specifying the audio format like this:         static let frameSize: UInt32 = 960         static let sampleRate: Float64 = 48000.0         static var networkFormatStreamDescription = AudioStreamBasicDescription(             mSampleRate: sampleRate,             mFormatID: kAudioFormatOpus,             mFormatFlags: 0,             mBytesPerPacket: 0,             mFramesPerPacket: frameSize,             mBytesPerFrame: 0,             mChannelsPerFrame: 1,             mBitsPerChannel: 0,             mReserved: 0         )         static let networkFormat = AVAudioFormat( streamDescription: &networkFormatStreamDescription )! I've tried 1) setting byteLength and packetCount to zero and 2) returning nil but setting .haveData in the AVAudioConverterInputBlock I'm using with no success.
1
1
926
May ’25
SpeechAnalyzer error "asset not found after attempted download" for certain languages
I am trying to use the new SpeechAnalyzer framework in my Mac app, and am running into an issue for some languages. When I call AssetInstallationRequest.downloadAndInstall() for some languages, it throws an error: Error Domain=SFSpeechErrorDomain Code=1 "transcription.ar asset not found after attempted download." The ".ar" appears to be the language code, which in this case was Arabic. When I call AssetInventory.status(forModules:) before attempting the download, it is giving me a status of "downloading" (perhaps from an earlier attempt?). If this language was completely unsupported, I would expect it to return a status of "unsupported", so I'm not sure what's going on here. For other languages (Polish, for example) SpeechTranscriber.supportedLocale(equivalentTo:) is returning nil, so that seems like a clearly unsupported language. But I can't tell if the languages I'm trying, like Arabic, are supported and something is going wrong, or if this error represents something I can work around. Here's the relevant section of code. The error is thrown from downloadAndInstall(), so I never even get as far as setting up the SpeechAnalyzer itself. private func setUpAnalyzer() async throws { guard let sourceLanguage else { throw Error.languageNotSpecified } guard let locale = await SpeechTranscriber.supportedLocale(equivalentTo: Locale(identifier: sourceLanguage.rawValue)) else { throw Error.unsupportedLanguage } let transcriber = SpeechTranscriber(locale: locale, preset: .progressiveTranscription) self.transcriber = transcriber let reservedLocales = await AssetInventory.reservedLocales if !reservedLocales.contains(locale) && reservedLocales.count == AssetInventory.maximumReservedLocales { if let oldest = reservedLocales.last { await AssetInventory.release(reservedLocale: oldest) } } do { let status = await AssetInventory.status(forModules: [transcriber]) print("status: \(status)") if let installationRequest = try await AssetInventory.assetInstallationRequest(supporting: [transcriber]) { try await installationRequest.downloadAndInstall() } } ...
8
0
1k
Jan ’26
Users experiencing frequent media services reset interruptions
I work on an iOS app that records video and audio. We've been getting reports for a while from users who are experiencing their video recordings being cut off. After investigating, I found that many users are receiving the AVAudioSessionMediaServicesWereResetNotification (.mediaServicesWereResetNotification) notification while recording. It's associated with the AVFoundationErrorDomain[-11819] error, which seems to indicate that the system audio daemon crashed. We have a handler registered to end the recording, show the user a prompt, and restart our AV sessions. However, from our logs this looks to be happening to hundreds of users every day and it's not an ideal user experience, so I would like to figure out why this is happening and if it's due to something that we're doing wrong. The debug menu option to trigger the audio session reset is not of much use, because it can't be triggered unless you leave the app and go to system settings. So our app can't be recording video when the debug reset is triggered. So far I haven't found a way to reproduced the issue locally, but I can see that it's happening to users from logs. I've found some posts online from developers experiencing similar issues, but none of them seem to directly address our issue. The system error doesn't include a userInfo dictionary, and as far as I can tell it's a system daemon crash so any logs would need to be captured from the OS. Is there any way that I could get more information about what may be causing this error that I may have missed?
1
0
98
Apr ’25
Convert CoreAudio AudioObjectID to IOUSB LocationID
Is there a recommended way on macOS 26 Tahoe to take a CoreAudio AudioObjectID and use it to lookup the underlying USB LocationID? I previously used AudioObjectID to query the corresponding DeviceUID with kAudioDevicePropertyDeviceUID. Then I queried for the IOService matching kIOAudioEngineClassName with property kIOAudioEngineGlobalUniqueIDKey matching DeviceUID, and I loaded kUSBDevicePropertyLocationID from the result. This fails on macOS 26, because the IO Registry for the device has an entry for usbaudiod rather than AppleUSBAudioEngine, and usbaudiod does not include a kIOAudioEngineGlobalUniqueIDKey property (or any other property to map it to a CoreAudio DeviceUID). My use-case here is a piece of audio recording software that allows configuring a set of supported audio devices via USB HID prior to recording. I present the user with a list of CoreAudio devices to use, but without a way to lookup the underlying USB LocationID, I cannot guarantee that the configured device matches the selected device (e.g. if the user plugged in two identical microphones).
2
0
615
Sep ’25
[26] audioTimeRange would still be interesting for .volatileResults in SpeechTranscriber
So experimenting with the new SpeechTranscriber, if I do: let transcriber = SpeechTranscriber( locale: locale, transcriptionOptions: [], reportingOptions: [.volatileResults], attributeOptions: [.audioTimeRange] ) only the final result has audio time ranges, not the volatile results. Is this a performance consideration? If there is no performance problem, it would be nice to have the option to also get speech time ranges for volatile responses. I'm not presenting the volatile text at all in the UI, I was just trying to keep statistics about the non-speech and the speech noise level, this way I can determine when the noise level falls under the noisefloor for a while. The goal here was to finalize the recording automatically, when the noise level indicate that the user has finished speaking.
6
0
762
Nov ’25
Application tones start when I get incoming call or message
I've got a problem with my app where I'm testing it on my own phone. I'm using audio kit to generate tones as part of the app. Everything seems to work fine. Sounds start, Stop, etc. They play when the app is closed and when the phone is locked, so background is working. However, I'm seeing an issue where, even when STOP is pressed and the application exited, if I get a notification such as a text message, the base tone for the app starts to play. If I then open the app, check the Start/Stop button - it says start so that. hasnt' been activated. If I click Start, then a 2nd tone starts. This one stops with the Stop button. However the original tone that was set off by an incoming message carries on playing. Until I go to the Open Apps View on the phone and slide the application upwards. For the life of me, I can't figure out whats happening here.
1
0
114
May ’25
CoreAudio server plugin gaining write access with SystemConfiguration.framework functions
Hi, our CourAudio server plugin utilizes the SystemConfiguration.framework to store and restore specific shared system wide settings. While our application can authenticate to utilize the SystemConfiguration.framework to gain write access to the shared configuration settings the CoreAudio server plugin obviously can't have any user interaction and therefor does not authenticate. Is it possible to authenticate the CoreAudio server plugin to gain write permissions? Are there any entitlements or other means that would allow this? Thanks!
Replies
2
Boosts
0
Views
187
Activity
Apr ’25
iOS Speech Error on Mobile Simulator (Error fetching voices)
I'm writing a simple app for iOS and I'd like to be able to do some text to speech in it. I have a basic audio manager class with a "speak" function: import Foundation import AVFoundation class AudioManager { static let shared = AudioManager() var audioPlayer: AVAudioPlayer? var isPlaying: Bool { return audioPlayer?.isPlaying ?? false } var playbackPosition: TimeInterval = 0 func playSound(named name: String) { guard let url = Bundle.main.url(forResource: name, withExtension: "mp3") else { print("Sound file not found") return } do { if audioPlayer == nil || !isPlaying { audioPlayer = try AVAudioPlayer(contentsOf: url) audioPlayer?.currentTime = playbackPosition audioPlayer?.prepareToPlay() audioPlayer?.play() } else { print("Sound is already playing") } } catch { print("Error playing sound: \(error.localizedDescription)") } } func stopSound() { if let player = audioPlayer { playbackPosition = player.currentTime player.stop() } } func speak(text: String) { let synthesizer = AVSpeechSynthesizer() let utterance = AVSpeechUtterance(string: text) utterance.voice = AVSpeechSynthesisVoice(language: "en-GB") synthesizer.speak(utterance) } } And my app shows text in a ScrollView: ScrollView { Text(self.description) .padding() .foregroundColor(.black) .font(.headline) .background(Color.gray.opacity(0)) }.onAppear { AudioManager.shared.speak(text: self.description) } However, the text doesn't get read out (in the simulator). I see some output in the console: Error fetching voices: Swift.DecodingError.dataCorrupted(Swift.DecodingError.Context(codingPath: [], debugDescription: "Invalid container metadata for _UnkeyedDecodingContainer, found keyedGraphEncodingNodeID", underlyingError: nil)). Using fallback voices. I'm probably doing something wrong here, but not sure what.
Replies
5
Boosts
1
Views
695
Activity
Dec ’25
Process to request the restricted entitlement behind “DJ with Apple Music” (tempo control / time-stretch on Apple Music streams)?
Hi, I’m an iOS developer building an app with an use case that needs advanced playback on Apple Music subscription streams, specifically: • Real-time tempo change (BPM) during playback — i.e., time-stretch with key-lock, not just crossfade. • Beat-matched transitions between tracks. From what I can tell, this capability seems to exist only for approved partners and isn’t available through public MusicKit. Question: What’s the official request path to be evaluated for that restricted partner entitlement (application form, questionnaire, NDA, or internal team/BD contact)? If the entitlement identifier is internal, how can I get my account routed to the right Apple Music team? For reference, publicly announced partners include Algoriddim djay, Serato DJ Pro, rekordbox (AlphaTheta), and Engine DJ—all of which appear to implement mixing features that imply advanced playback (tempo/beat-matching) on Apple Music content. I’d prefer not to share product details publicly for the moment and can provide specifics privately if needed. Thanks in advance!
Replies
0
Boosts
1
Views
377
Activity
Oct ’25
Question about PT Framework channel tone behaviour
I've been wondering if there is a way to modify or even disable tones for indicating channel states. The behaviour regarding tones seems like a black box with little documentation. During migration to Apple's PT Framework we've noticed that there are few scenarios where a tone is played which doesn't match certain certifications. For example; moving from a channel to another produces a tone which would fail a test case. I understand the reasoning fully, as it marks that the channel is ready to transmit or receive, but this doesn't mirror the behaviour of TETRA which would be wanted in this case. I'm also wondering if there would be any way to directly communicate feedback regarding PT Framework?
Replies
3
Boosts
0
Views
416
Activity
Oct ’25
Audio session activation occasionally fails from CarPlay
I'm working on adding CarPlay support to an audio app and am running into an issue. Occasionally, when a user opens the app from CarPlay while the main app scene is either not connected or is currently in the background, I will receive an error when attempting to activate the audio session. The code below mimics my setup: do { try AVAudioSession.sharedInstance().setCategory(.playback, mode: .spokenAudio) try AVAudioSession.sharedInstance().setActive(true) } catch { print(error) // NSOSStatusErrorDomain - 560557684: Session activation failed } That error code maps to AVAudioSession.ErrorCode.cannotInterruptOthers. Once in this state, all subsequent attempts to play different pieces of content will fail. However, things will start working normally if the user opens the app on their phone and tries again from CarPlay (while the app is in the foreground on their phone). I'm not sure why it would behave this way and want to note that I do have the audio background mode capability enabled. Has anyone else encountered this? Are there any workarounds or changes I could make to prevent this from happening?
Replies
0
Boosts
1
Views
199
Activity
Apr ’25
MPNowPlayingInfoCenter nowPlayingInfo throttled
Hello, I have been running into issues with setting nowPlayingInfo information, specifically updating information for CarPlay and the CPNowPlayingTemplate. When I start playback for an item, I see lock screen information update as expected, along with the CarPlay now playing information. However, the playing items are books with collections of tracks. When I select a new track(chapter) within the book, I set the MPMediaItemPropertyTitle to the new chapter name. This change is reflected correctly on the lock screen, but almost never appears correctly on the CarPlay CPNowPlayingTemplate. The previous chapter title remains set and never updates. I see "Application exceeded audio metadata throttle limit." in the debug console fairly frequently. From that a I figured that I need to minimize updates to the nowPlayingInfo dictionary. What I did: I store the metadata dictionary in a local dictionary and only set values in the main nowPlayingInfo dictionary when they are different from the current value. I kick off the nowPlayingInfo update via a task that initially sleeps for around 2 seconds (not a final value, just for my current testing). If a previous Task is active, it gets cancelled, so that only one update can happen within that time window. Neither of these things have been sufficient. I can switch between different titles entirely and the information updates (including cover art). But when I switch chapters within a title, the MPMediaItemPropertyTitle continues to get dropped. I know the value is getting set, because it updates on the lock screen correctly. In total, I have 12 keys I update for info, though with the above changes, usually 2-4 of them actually get updated with high frequency. I am running out of ideas to satisfy the throttling thresholds to accurately display metadata. I could use some advice. Thanks.
Replies
4
Boosts
1
Views
224
Activity
May ’25
Always audio from latest connected external USB mic
Hello! I've two mics connected to a USB-hub. The USB-hub is then connected to my iPad. Both mics are part of the audio session's list of available inputs. The problem is that regardless of which mic I select in my app (using setPreferredInput() on the audio session), the audio keeps coming from the mic that was last connected to the USB-hub. Anyone that knows if this is a limitation in iPadOS/iOS?
Replies
1
Boosts
1
Views
209
Activity
Jul ’25
Failure on attempt to import track as spatial audio
I'm working on a project to support spatial audio editing, using this sample project as a reference: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/Cinematic/editing-spatial-audio-with-an-audio-mix This sample works well on an unedited capture, but does not work for a capture that has already been edited. The failure is occurring at "let audioInfo = try await CNAssetSpatialAudioInfo(asset: myAsset)", which is throwing "no eligible audio tracks in asset". I also find that for already edited captures, if i use CNAssetSpatialAudioInfo.assetContainsSpatialAudio, it returns false. What i mean by "already edited" is that if I take a spatial capture with my iPhone 16, and then edit that capture in the Photos app using the Cinematic effect, and then save the edited output (e.g. edited_capture.mov), I can't import that edited_capture.mov into my project as a spatial audio asset. Is this intentional behavior or a bug? If it's intentional, can you describe why?
Replies
0
Boosts
1
Views
165
Activity
Sep ’25
AVAudioSession : Audio issues when recording the screen in an app that changes IOBufferDuration on iOS 26.
Among Japanese end users, audio issues during screen recording—primarily in game applications—have become a topic of discussion. We have confirmed that the trigger for this issue is highly likely to be related to changes to IOBufferDuration. When using setPreferredIOBufferDuration and the IOBufferDuration is set to a value smaller than the default, audio problems occur in the recorded screen capture video. Audio playback is performed using AudioUnit (RemoteIO). https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfaudio/avaudiosession/setpreferrediobufferduration(_:)?language=objc This issue was not observed on iOS 18, and it appears to have started occurring after upgrading to iOS 26. We provide an audio middleware solution, and we had incorporated changes to IOBufferDuration into our product to achieve low-latency audio playback. As a result, developers using our product as well as their end users are being affected by this issue. We kindly request that this issue be investigated and addressed in a future update. “This document has been translated by AI. The original text is included below for reference.” 日本のエンドユーザー間で主にゲームアプリケーションにおける画面収録時の音声の問題が話題になっています。 こちらの症状のトリガーが、IOBufferDurationの変更によるものである可能性が高いことを確認しました。 setPreferredIOBufferDurationを使用し、IOBufferDurationがデフォルトより小さい状態の時、画面収録された動画の音声に問題が発生することをしています。 音声の再生にはAudioUnit(RemoteIO)を使用しています。 https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfaudio/avaudiosession/setpreferrediobufferduration(_:)?language=objc iOS 18ではこのような問題は確認されておらず、iOS26になってから問題が発生しているようです。 私たちはオーディオミドルウェアを提供しており、低遅延の再生のためにIOBufferDurationの変更を製品に組み込んでいました。 そのため、弊社製品をご利用いただいている開発者およびエンドユーザーの皆様がこの不具合の影響を受けています。 こちらの不具合の調査及び修正対応を検討いただけますでしょうか。
Replies
2
Boosts
0
Views
471
Activity
2w
MusicKit - ApplicationMusicPlayer fails to play certain Songs
[Note: this issue was happening on a main testing device, and after testing the same code on other devices, this issue is only happening on 1 out of 4 devices] We are successfully getting a MusicCatalogResourceResponse for every song ID where we make the MusicCatalogResourceRequest. We are able to display the song title, artist name, and album artwork for each Song in the response. However - when we go to play the song, there are some songs that play, and several songs that do not play. For the songs that don't play, the console shows “Failed to prepareToPlay error=<MPMusicPlayerControllerErrorDomain.6 "Failed to prepare to play" {}>” let musicPlayer = ApplicationMusicPlayer.shared func playSong(_ song: Song) { musicPlayer.queue = [song] Task { try await musicPlayer.prepareToPlay() try await musicPlayer.play() } Is there anything else we can investigate about what may be causing specific song IDs not to play on this specific device? Even if we remove line 6 musicPlayer.prepareToPlay() we still see the same console error when running playSong with the Songs that don't work. It is always the same song IDs that we can play and always the same song IDs that we cannot get to play, even trying them across different projects with different bundle identifiers. We can tap to play a song that works, and it starts playing immediately. Then tap a song that doesn't work, and nothing happens. Then back to a song that works. It's consistent which songs succeed and fail on this device. Perhaps there is an issue specific to this very iPad when it comes to certain specific songs, but we'd like to be confident that an app relying on MusicKit will be able to play songs that have been successfully loaded with a MusicCatalogResourceResponse. Thanks for any help or suggestions about what we may be able to investigate further on the device or what we should consider when launching an app that expects anyone with Apple Music to be able to listen to any of the songs loaded by the app. Specific iPad details: iPad Pro (12.9-inch) (6th generation) running iPadOS 26.4 Beta Two of the song IDs that won't play on this iPad (even though we can access and display their album artwork and all other information): 943204000 and 1441164805
Replies
2
Boosts
1
Views
206
Activity
Mar ’26
Audio DSP Processing Issue / Metallic Ringing Artifacts when recording acoustic instruments on iPhone 17 Pro Max
Description: I have identified a specific issue when recording acoustic guitar and other instruments on the iPhone 17 Pro Max using native applications (Voice Memos, Camera). The recordings contain an unnatural metallic resonance (ringing artifacts) that should not be present. Testing and Methodology: Hardware Verification: Initially, I suspected a hardware defect in the audio chip or microphone. However, extensive testing with third-party software suggests this is likely a software-level issue. AudioShare Test: I conducted a test using the AudioShare app in "Measurement Mode" (which bypasses standard iOS system-wide audio processing). In this mode, the audio remains perfectly clean, and the metallic ringing disappears entirely. Conclusion: The issue is rooted in the DSP (Digital Signal Processing) algorithms that iOS applies for noise suppression or voice enhancement. These algorithms appear to misinterpret the high-frequency overtones of acoustic instruments as background noise and attempt to "filter" them, resulting in audible digital artifacts. Comparison Results: This issue has not been observed on devices from other brands or on older iPhone models (preliminary tests suggest older versions handle this better). Notably, the problem persists even in GarageBand, as the app still utilizes certain system-level processing layers. Proposed Solution: I suggest adding a "Raw Audio" or "Instrument Mode" toggle within the Microphone/Audio settings for native apps. This mode should disable aggressive DSP processing, similar to how the AVAudioSession.Mode.measurement works in specialized apps. Attachments: I am attaching 4 archives, including a final "Measurement Mode" folder with comparative samples (Measurement Mode vs. Standard Mode). The artifacts are most prominent when monitored through headphones.
Replies
0
Boosts
1
Views
163
Activity
Jan ’26
AVSpeechSynthesizer system voices (SLA clarification)
Hello, I am building an iOS-only, commercial app that uses AVSpeechSynthesizer with system voices, strictly using the APIs provided by Apple. Before distributing the app, I want to ensure that my current implementation does not conflict with the iOS Software License Agreement (SLA) and is aligned with Apple’s intended usage. For a better playback experience (more accurate estimation of utterance duration and smoother skip forward/backward during playback), I currently synthesize speech using: AVSpeechSynthesizer.write(_:toBufferCallback:) Converting the received AVAudioPCMBuffer buffers into audio data Storing the audio inside the app sandbox Playing it back using AVAudioPlayer / AVAudioEngine The cached audio is: Generated fully on-device using system voices Stored only inside the app’s private container Used only for internal playback controls (timeline, seek, skip ±5 seconds) Never shared, exported, uploaded, or exposed outside the app The alternative approaches would be: Keeping the generated audio entirely in memory (RAM) for playback purposes, without writing it to the file system at any point Or using AVSpeechSynthesizer.speak(_:) and playing speech strictly in real time which has a poorer user experience compared to my approach I have reviewed the current iOS Software License Agreement: https://www.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/iOS18_iPadOS18.pdf In particular, section (f) mentions restrictions around System Characters, Live Captions, and Personal Voice, including the following excerpt: “…use … only for your personal, non-commercial use… No other creation or use of the System Characters, Live Captions, or Personal Voice is permitted by this License, including but not limited to the use, reproduction, display, performance, recording, publishing or redistribution in a … commercial context.” I do not see a specific reference in the SLA to system text-to-speech voices used via AVSpeechSynthesizer, and I want to be certain that temporarily caching synthesized speech for internal, non-exported playback is acceptable in a commercial app. My question is: Is caching AVSpeechSynthesizer system-voice output inside the app sandbox for internal playback acceptable, or is Apple’s recommended approach to rely only on real-time playback (speak(_:)) or strictly in-memory buffering without file storage? If this question falls outside DTS technical scope and is instead a policy or licensing matter, I would appreciate guidance on the authoritative Apple documentation or the correct Apple team/contact. Thank you.
Replies
1
Boosts
1
Views
444
Activity
Feb ’26
AVAudioSession.outputVolume not reporting correctly in iOS 18+ devices
I’m using the shared instance of AVAudioSession. After activating it with .setActive(true), I observe the outputVolume, and it correctly reports the device’s volume. However, after deactivating the session using .setActive(false), changing the volume, and then reactivating it again, the outputVolume returns the previous volume (before deactivation), not the current device volume. The correct volume is only reported after the user manually changes it again using physical buttons or Control Center, which triggers the observer. What I need is a way to retrieve the actual current device volume immediately after reactivating the audio session, even on the second and subsequent activations. Disabling and re-enabling the audio session is essential to how my application functions. I’ve tested this behavior with my colleagues, and the issue is consistently reproducible on iOS 18.0.1, iOS 18.1, iOS 18.3, iOS 18.5 and iOS 18.6.2. On devices running iOS 17.6.1 and iOS 16.0.3, outputVolume correctly reflects the current volume immediately after calling .setActive(true) multiple times.
Replies
3
Boosts
1
Views
347
Activity
Feb ’26
Indicate Packet Loss With AVAudioConverter for OPUS Decoding
I'm using an AVAudioConverter object to decode an OPUS stream for VoIP. The decoding itself works well, however, whenever the stream stalls (no more audio packet is available to decode because of network instability) this can be heard in crackling / abrupt stop in decoded audio. OPUS can mitigate this by indicating packet loss by passing a null pointer in the C-library to int opus_decode_float (OpusDecoder * st, const unsigned char * data, opus_int32 len, float * pcm, int frame_size, int decode_fec), see https://opus-codec.org/docs/opus_api-1.2/group__opus__decoder.html#ga9c554b8c0214e24733a299fe53bb3bd2. However, with AVAudioConverter using Swift I'm constructing an AVAudioCompressedBuffer like so:         let compressedBuffer = AVAudioCompressedBuffer(             format: VoiceEncoder.Constants.networkFormat,             packetCapacity: 1,             maximumPacketSize: data.count         )         compressedBuffer.byteLength = UInt32(data.count)         compressedBuffer.packetCount = 1   compressedBuffer.packetDescriptions! .pointee.mDataByteSize = UInt32(data.count)         data.copyBytes(             to: compressedBuffer.data .assumingMemoryBound(to: UInt8.self),             count: data.count         ) where data: Data contains the raw OPUS frame to be decoded. How can I specify data loss in this context and cause the AVAudioConverter to output PCM data whenever no more input data is available? More context: I'm specifying the audio format like this:         static let frameSize: UInt32 = 960         static let sampleRate: Float64 = 48000.0         static var networkFormatStreamDescription = AudioStreamBasicDescription(             mSampleRate: sampleRate,             mFormatID: kAudioFormatOpus,             mFormatFlags: 0,             mBytesPerPacket: 0,             mFramesPerPacket: frameSize,             mBytesPerFrame: 0,             mChannelsPerFrame: 1,             mBitsPerChannel: 0,             mReserved: 0         )         static let networkFormat = AVAudioFormat( streamDescription: &networkFormatStreamDescription )! I've tried 1) setting byteLength and packetCount to zero and 2) returning nil but setting .haveData in the AVAudioConverterInputBlock I'm using with no success.
Replies
1
Boosts
1
Views
926
Activity
May ’25
Get device Voice Isolation status via Core Audio?
Is there any feasible way to get a Core Audio device's system effect status (Voice Isolation, Wide Spectrum)? AVCaptureDevice provides convenience properties for system effects for video devices. I need to get this status for Core Audio input devices.
Replies
1
Boosts
1
Views
889
Activity
Nov ’25
SpeechAnalyzer error "asset not found after attempted download" for certain languages
I am trying to use the new SpeechAnalyzer framework in my Mac app, and am running into an issue for some languages. When I call AssetInstallationRequest.downloadAndInstall() for some languages, it throws an error: Error Domain=SFSpeechErrorDomain Code=1 "transcription.ar asset not found after attempted download." The ".ar" appears to be the language code, which in this case was Arabic. When I call AssetInventory.status(forModules:) before attempting the download, it is giving me a status of "downloading" (perhaps from an earlier attempt?). If this language was completely unsupported, I would expect it to return a status of "unsupported", so I'm not sure what's going on here. For other languages (Polish, for example) SpeechTranscriber.supportedLocale(equivalentTo:) is returning nil, so that seems like a clearly unsupported language. But I can't tell if the languages I'm trying, like Arabic, are supported and something is going wrong, or if this error represents something I can work around. Here's the relevant section of code. The error is thrown from downloadAndInstall(), so I never even get as far as setting up the SpeechAnalyzer itself. private func setUpAnalyzer() async throws { guard let sourceLanguage else { throw Error.languageNotSpecified } guard let locale = await SpeechTranscriber.supportedLocale(equivalentTo: Locale(identifier: sourceLanguage.rawValue)) else { throw Error.unsupportedLanguage } let transcriber = SpeechTranscriber(locale: locale, preset: .progressiveTranscription) self.transcriber = transcriber let reservedLocales = await AssetInventory.reservedLocales if !reservedLocales.contains(locale) && reservedLocales.count == AssetInventory.maximumReservedLocales { if let oldest = reservedLocales.last { await AssetInventory.release(reservedLocale: oldest) } } do { let status = await AssetInventory.status(forModules: [transcriber]) print("status: \(status)") if let installationRequest = try await AssetInventory.assetInstallationRequest(supporting: [transcriber]) { try await installationRequest.downloadAndInstall() } } ...
Replies
8
Boosts
0
Views
1k
Activity
Jan ’26
Users experiencing frequent media services reset interruptions
I work on an iOS app that records video and audio. We've been getting reports for a while from users who are experiencing their video recordings being cut off. After investigating, I found that many users are receiving the AVAudioSessionMediaServicesWereResetNotification (.mediaServicesWereResetNotification) notification while recording. It's associated with the AVFoundationErrorDomain[-11819] error, which seems to indicate that the system audio daemon crashed. We have a handler registered to end the recording, show the user a prompt, and restart our AV sessions. However, from our logs this looks to be happening to hundreds of users every day and it's not an ideal user experience, so I would like to figure out why this is happening and if it's due to something that we're doing wrong. The debug menu option to trigger the audio session reset is not of much use, because it can't be triggered unless you leave the app and go to system settings. So our app can't be recording video when the debug reset is triggered. So far I haven't found a way to reproduced the issue locally, but I can see that it's happening to users from logs. I've found some posts online from developers experiencing similar issues, but none of them seem to directly address our issue. The system error doesn't include a userInfo dictionary, and as far as I can tell it's a system daemon crash so any logs would need to be captured from the OS. Is there any way that I could get more information about what may be causing this error that I may have missed?
Replies
1
Boosts
0
Views
98
Activity
Apr ’25
Convert CoreAudio AudioObjectID to IOUSB LocationID
Is there a recommended way on macOS 26 Tahoe to take a CoreAudio AudioObjectID and use it to lookup the underlying USB LocationID? I previously used AudioObjectID to query the corresponding DeviceUID with kAudioDevicePropertyDeviceUID. Then I queried for the IOService matching kIOAudioEngineClassName with property kIOAudioEngineGlobalUniqueIDKey matching DeviceUID, and I loaded kUSBDevicePropertyLocationID from the result. This fails on macOS 26, because the IO Registry for the device has an entry for usbaudiod rather than AppleUSBAudioEngine, and usbaudiod does not include a kIOAudioEngineGlobalUniqueIDKey property (or any other property to map it to a CoreAudio DeviceUID). My use-case here is a piece of audio recording software that allows configuring a set of supported audio devices via USB HID prior to recording. I present the user with a list of CoreAudio devices to use, but without a way to lookup the underlying USB LocationID, I cannot guarantee that the configured device matches the selected device (e.g. if the user plugged in two identical microphones).
Replies
2
Boosts
0
Views
615
Activity
Sep ’25
[26] audioTimeRange would still be interesting for .volatileResults in SpeechTranscriber
So experimenting with the new SpeechTranscriber, if I do: let transcriber = SpeechTranscriber( locale: locale, transcriptionOptions: [], reportingOptions: [.volatileResults], attributeOptions: [.audioTimeRange] ) only the final result has audio time ranges, not the volatile results. Is this a performance consideration? If there is no performance problem, it would be nice to have the option to also get speech time ranges for volatile responses. I'm not presenting the volatile text at all in the UI, I was just trying to keep statistics about the non-speech and the speech noise level, this way I can determine when the noise level falls under the noisefloor for a while. The goal here was to finalize the recording automatically, when the noise level indicate that the user has finished speaking.
Replies
6
Boosts
0
Views
762
Activity
Nov ’25
Application tones start when I get incoming call or message
I've got a problem with my app where I'm testing it on my own phone. I'm using audio kit to generate tones as part of the app. Everything seems to work fine. Sounds start, Stop, etc. They play when the app is closed and when the phone is locked, so background is working. However, I'm seeing an issue where, even when STOP is pressed and the application exited, if I get a notification such as a text message, the base tone for the app starts to play. If I then open the app, check the Start/Stop button - it says start so that. hasnt' been activated. If I click Start, then a 2nd tone starts. This one stops with the Stop button. However the original tone that was set off by an incoming message carries on playing. Until I go to the Open Apps View on the phone and slide the application upwards. For the life of me, I can't figure out whats happening here.
Replies
1
Boosts
0
Views
114
Activity
May ’25