(Note: this is part 1 of a 3 part posting. See Part 2 or Part 3) 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 Camera & Photos. WWDC25 Camera & Photos group lab ran for one hour at 6 PM PST on Tuesday June 10th, 2025 Introductory kick-off questions Question 1 Tell us a little about the new AVFoundation Capture APIs we've made available in the new iOS 26 developer preview? Cinematic Capture API (strong/weak focus, tracking focus)(scene monitoring)(simulated aperture)(dog/cat heads/groupIDs) Camera Controls and AirPod Stem Clicks Spatial Audio and Studio Quality AirPod Mics in Camera Lens Smudge Detection Exposure and Focus Rect of Interest Question 2 I built QR code scanning into my app, but on newer iPhones I have to hold the phone very far away from the QR code, otherwise the image is blurry and it doesn't scan. Why is this happening and how can I fix it? Every year, the cameras get better and better as we push the state of the art on iPhone photography and videography. This sometimes results in changes to the characteristics of the lenses. min focus distance newer phones have multiple lenses automatic switching behavior Use virtual device like the builtInDualWide or built in Triple, rather than just the builtInWide Set the videoZoomFactor to 2. You're done. Question 3 Last year, we saw some exciting new APIs introduced in AVFoundation in the health space. With Constant Color photography, developers can take pictures that have constant color regardless of ambient lighting. There are some further advancements this year. Davide, could you tell us about them? constant color photography is mean to remove the "tone mapping" applied to photograph captured with camera app, usually incldsuing artistic intent, and instead try to be a close as possible to the real color of the scene, regardless of the illumination constant color images could be captured in HEIF anf JPEG laste year. this year we are adding Support for the DICOM medical imaging photo format. It is a fomrat used by the health industry to store images related to medical subjects like MRI, skin problems, xray and so on. It's writable and also readable format on all OS26, supported through AVCapturePhotoOutput APIs and through the coregraphics api. for coregrapphics there is a new DICOM entry in the property dictionary which includes all the dicom availbale and defined propertie in a file. finder will also display all those in the info panel (Address why a developer would want to use it) - not for regualr picture taking apps. for those HEIF and JPEG are the preferred delivery format. use dicom if your app produces output that are health related, that you can also share with health providers or your doctors Main session developer questions Question 1 LiDAR vs. Dual Camera depth generation: Which resolution does the LiDAR sensor natively have (iPhone 16 Pro) and when to prefer LiDAR over Dual Camera? Both report formats with output resolutions (we don't advertise sensor resolution) Lidar vs Dual, etc: Lidar: Best for absolute depth, real world scale and computer vision Dual, etc: relative, disparity-based, less power, photo effects Also see: 2022 WWDC session "Discovery advancements in iOS camera capture: Depth, focus and multitasking" Question 2 Can true depth and lidar camera run at 60fps? Lidar can do 30fps (edited) Front true depth can do 60fps. Question 3 What’s the first class way to use PhotoKit to reimplement a high performance photo grid? We’ve been using a LazyVGrid and the photos caching manager, but are never able to hit the holy trinity (60hz, efficient memory footprint, minimal flashes of placeholder/empty cells) use the PHCachingImageManager to get media content delivered before you need to display it specify the size you need for grid sized display set the options PHVideoRequestOptionsDeliveryModeFastFormat, PHImageRequestOptionsDeliveryModeFastFormat and PHImageRequestOptionsResizeModeFast Question 4 For rending live preview of video stream, Is there performance overhead from using async and Swift UI for image updates vs UIViewRepresentable + AVCaptureVideoPreviewLayer.self? AVCaptureVideoPreviewLayer is the most efficient display path Use VDO + AVSampleBufferDisplayLayer if you need to modify the image data Swift UI image is optimized for static image content Question 5 Is there a way to configure the AVFoundation BuiltInLiDarDepthCamera mode to provide a depth map as accurate as ARKit at close range? The AVCaptureDepthDataOutput supports filtering that reduces noise and fills in invalid values. Consider using this for smoother depth maps Question 6 Pyramid-based photo editing in core image (such as adobe camera raw highlights and shadows)? First off you may want to look a the builtin filter called CIHighlightShadowAdjust Also the noise reduction in the CIRawFilter uses a pyramid-based algorithm. You can also write your own pyramid-based algorithms by taking an input image: down sample it by two multiply times using imageByApplyingAffineTransform apply additional CIKernels to each downsampled image as needed. use a custom CIKernel to combine the results. Question 7 Is the best way to integrate an in-app camera for a “non-camera” app UIImagePickerController? Yes, UIImagePickerController provides system-provided UI for capturing photos and movies. Question 8 Hello, my question is on Deferred Photo Processing? Say I have a photo capture app that adds a CIFilter to the capture. How can I take advantage of Deferred Photo Processing? Since I don’t know how to detect when the deferred captured photo is ready CIFilter can be called on the final at that point Photo will have to be re-inserted into the Photo library as adjustment Question 9 For shipping photo style assets in the app that need transparency what is the best format to use? JPEG2000? will moving to this save a lot of space comapred to PNG or other options? If you want lossless compression PNG is good and supports unpremutiplied alpha If you want lossy compression HEIF supports premutiplied or unpremutiplied alpha (Note: this is part 1 of a 3 part posting. See Part 2 or Part 3)

I’m an amateur developer working on a free utility for composers/producers, for which the macOS release needs to create and name RTP-MIDI sessions in Audio MIDI Setup from the command line (so I can ship a small C helper instead of telling users to click through the UI). Here’s what I’ve tried so far, without luck: • Plist hacks: Injecting entries into ~/Library/Audio/MIDI Configurations/*.mcfg works when AMS is closed, but AMS immediately locks and reverts my changes when it’s open. • CoreMIDI C API: I can create virtual ports with MIDISourceCreate, but attempting MIDIObjectGetDataProperty on the apple.midirtp.session plugin always returns err –10836. • Obj-C & Swift: Loading MIDINetworkSession and calling defaultSession, init, setNetworkName: and setting enabled = YES doesn’t produce a new session object in the Network panel. • dlopen/dlsym: I extracted the real CoreMIDI binary out of the dyld shared cache and tried binding _MIDINetworkSessionCreate, _SetName, _SetEnabled, etc., but all the symbols come back null or my tool segfaults. • Plugin registration: I’ve pulled the factory UUID (70C9C5EA-7C65-11D8-B317-000393A34B5A) from /System/Library/Extensions/AppleMIDIRTPDriver.plugin/Contents/Info.plist and called CFPlugInRegisterFactories, but it still never exposes the session-creation calls. At this point I’m convinced I’m either loading the wrong binary or missing one critical step in registering the RTP-MIDI plugin’s private API. Can anyone point me to: The exact path of the dylib or bundle that actually exports the MIDINetworkSessionCreate/MIDINetworkSessionSetName/MIDINetworkSessionSetEnabled symbols? A minimal working snippet (C or Obj-C) that reliably creates and names a Network-MIDI session? Any pointers, sample code, or even ideas about where Apple hides this functionality on macOS 15 would be hugely appreciated. Thanks!

We are seeing logs were on iOS devices we see some keyframes request. but on safari browser don’t see any request like this. could you please explain what is it. /d8ceb9244ff889b42b82eb807327531-c27dbcb10e0bbf3cde6c-1/d8ceb9244ff88e9b42b82eb807327531-c27dbcb10e0bbf3cde6c-1/keyframes/hls/.

Hey folks, I'm running into an odd issue suddenly with an app that had a working MusicKit integration before. I'm using ApplicationMusicPlayer to play Apple Music albums and songs. I'm testing on a physical device, signed in to Apple ID, and with a valid subscription. Apple Music via the first-party app works entirely fine on this device. Attempting to play back any content at all gives the log: <ICUserIdentityStoreACAccountBackend: 0x1070bf3e0> Failed to initialize primary apple account, error=Error Domain=ICError Code=-7013 "Client is not entitled to access account store" UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=Client is not entitled to access account store} [ICUserIdentityStore] - initializing account histories with activeAccountDSID = nil, activeLockerAccountDSID = nil, timestamp = 14605951908 [ICUserIdentityStore] Failed to fetch local store account with error: Error Domain=ICError Code=-7013 "Client is not entitled to access account store" UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=Client is not entitled to access account store}. The album artwork, track names, etc, all appear in the control center playback controls, but the music doesn't play. Trying to trigger playback with control center just results in it skipping to the next track, which doesn't play either. This exact code used to work. I have the MusicKit service selected in Apple Connect. Since this isn't entitlement-based, I'm not sure how else to check that I'm set up correctly. I've tried deleting/reinstalling the app, restarting the device, cleaning/rebuilding, and deleting DerivedData, to no avail. Any help? Running Xcode 16.4 (16F6), testing on iOS 18.5 (22F76)

Hello, I'm trying to subscribe to AVPlayerItem status updates using Combine and it's bridge to Swift Concurrency – .values. This is my sample code. struct ContentView: View { @State var player: AVPlayer? @State var loaded = false var body: some View { VStack { if let player { Text("loading status: \(loaded)") Spacer() VideoPlayer(player: player) Button("Load") { Task { let item = AVPlayerItem( url: URL(string: "https://sample-videos.com/video321/mp4/360/big_buck_bunny_360p_5mb.mp4")! ) player.replaceCurrentItem(with: item) let publisher = player.publisher(for: \.status) for await status in publisher.values { print(status.rawValue) if status == .readyToPlay { loaded = true break } } print("we are out") } } } else { Text("No video selected") } } .task { player = AVPlayer() } } } After I click on the "load" button it prints out 0 (as the initial status of .unknown) and nothing after – even when the video is fully loaded. At the same time this works as expected (loading status is set to true): struct ContentView: View { @State var player: AVPlayer? @State var loaded = false @State var cancellable: AnyCancellable? var body: some View { VStack { if let player { Text("loading status: \(loaded)") Spacer() VideoPlayer(player: player) Button("Load") { Task { let item = AVPlayerItem( url: URL(string: "https://sample-videos.com/video321/mp4/360/big_buck_bunny_360p_5mb.mp4")! ) player.replaceCurrentItem(with: item) let stream = AsyncStream { continuation in cancellable = item.publisher(for: \.status) .sink { if $0 == .readyToPlay { continuation.yield($0) continuation.finish() } } } for await _ in stream { loaded = true cancellable?.cancel() cancellable = nil break } } } } else { Text("No video selected") } } .task { player = AVPlayer() } } } Is this a bug or something?

I've been working with MusicKit without enrolling for a developer account and I haven't run into any issues until I noticed nil on the SysteyMusicPlayer item for some songs and I don't understand why. Are some songs blocked from the framework? Or is it somehow a limitation to not having registered MusicKit to the bundle ID? I am planning on using MusicKit properly in prod and this is just a test app for a package I'm working on. These are the nil songs which I got from the Discovery Station: https://music.apple.com/ca/album/okay/950816298?i=950816304 https://music.apple.com/ca/album/youre-so-cool/1670485433?i=1670485446

I'm experiencing an unexpected behavior with AVURLAsset and cookies. When setting cookies through AVURLAssetHTTPCookiesKey option, they seem to be sent only on the initial request but not on retry attempts. Here's my current implementation: let cookieProperties: [HTTPCookiePropertyKey: Any] = [ .name: "sessionCookie", .value: "testValue", .domain: url.host ?? "", .path: "/", .secure: true ] if let cookie = HTTPCookie(properties: cookieProperties) { let asset = AVURLAsset(url: url, options: [ AVURLAssetHTTPCookiesKey: [cookie], ]) } According to the documentation, AVURLAssetHTTPCookiesKey should apply the cookies to all requests made by this asset. However, when the initial request fails and AVPlayer retries, the cookies are not included in subsequent requests. Only when I store the cookie with HTTPCookieStorage.shared.setCookie, then it persists. Questions: Is this the expected behavior? If not, what could be causing the cookies to not persist for retry attempts? Is using HTTPCookieStorage.shared the recommended approach instead? Environment: iOS 16+ Using AVPlayer with AVURLAsset Streaming HLS content Any insights would be greatly appreciated.

Please consider adding the ability to programatically download Premium and Enhanced voices. At the moment it is extremely inconvenient for our users, as they have to navigate to settings themselves to download voices. Our app relies heavily on SpeechSynthesis integration, and it would greatly benefit from this feature. FB16307193

AVPictureInPictureControllerContentSource *contentSource = [[AVPictureInPictureControllerContentSource alloc] initWithSampleBufferDisplayLayer:self.renderView.sampleBufferDisplayLayer playbackDelegate:self]; AVPictureInPictureController *pictureInPictureController = [[AVPictureInPictureController alloc] initWithContentSource:contentSource]; pictureInPictureController.delegate = self; (void)pictureInPictureController:(AVPictureInPictureController *)pictureInPictureController failedToStartPictureInPictureWithError:(NSError *)error { //error NSError * domain: @"PGPegasusErrorDomain" - code: -1003 0x00000002819fe3a0 } when first start the PiP play, I got the error "//error NSError * domain: @"PGPegasusErrorDomain" - code: -1003 0x00000002819fe3a0", why? and second start is Ok.

How can I use my RGB Curve points: let redCurve = [CIVector(x: 0, y: 0), CIVector(x: 0.235, y: 0.152), CIVector(x: 0.5, y: 0.5), CIVector(x: 1, y: 1)] let greenCurve = [CIVector(x: 0, y: 0), CIVector(x: 0.247, y: 0.196), CIVector(x: 0.5, y: 0.5), CIVector(x: 1, y: 1)] let blueCurve = [CIVector(x: 0, y: 0), CIVector(x: 0.235, y: 0.184), CIVector(x: 0.466, y: 0.466), CIVector(x: 1, y: 1)] in colorCurvesFilter which I've found in Apple Docs: func colorCurves(inputImage: CIImage) -&gt; CIImage { let colorCurvesEffect = CIFilter.colorCurves() colorCurvesEffect.inputImage = inputImage colorCurvesEffect.curvesDomain = CIVector(x: 0, y: 1) colorCurvesEffect.curvesData = Data( bytes: [Float32]([ 0.0,0.0,0.0, 0.8,0.8,0.8, 1.0,1.0,1.0 ]), count: 36) colorCurvesEffect.colorSpace = CGColorSpaceCreateDeviceRGB() return colorCurvesEffect.outputImage! }

We are currently working on a CarPlay navigation app and so far everything is working well except for speaking turn notifications. Our TTS implementation works fine on the phone and works fine on CarPlay if the voice is spoken over the speaker in the car. If users connect a BT headset to the car and listen through that headset, then the voice commands are chopped up / stutter. Why would users use BT headset? Well, we are working on a motorcycle app, and there are no speakers usually on a motorcycle. It sounds like the BT channel is opened and closed repeatedly for every character / word spoken. This happens on different CarPlay devices and different Bluetooth headsets, we have reports from multiple users that they find this behavior annoying and that other apps work fine. Is this a known issue? Are there possible workaround?

My app Balletrax is a music player for people to use while they teach ballet. Used to be you could silence notifications during use, but now the customer seems to have to know how to use Focus mode, remember to turn it on and off, and have to check the notifications one does and doesn't want to use. Is there no way to silence all notifications when the app is in use?

I'm reaching out regarding a recurring issue I'm experiencing with MusicKit developer tokens. I'm using a valid .p8 private key to sign JWTs for Apple MusicKit integration. Each token I generate includes the appropriate claims (iss, iat, exp) and is signed with the ES256 algorithm, with an expiration date set approximately 6 months ahead. Everything works as expected immediately after generating the token. However, after a few days, the same JWT (still well within its expiration period) suddenly begins returning invalid/unauthorized responses when used in Postman and other API clients. Importantly: I did not delete or revoke the .p8 key during this time. I verified the JWT contains valid claims and a proper structure. The issue consistently resolves only when I create a new .p8 file and regenerate a fresh JWT with it—after which the cycle repeats. This issue occurs even when the environment and app identifiers remain unchanged. I would greatly appreciate it if you could help me understand: Why these tokens become invalid after a few days, despite having a long exp value and an unchanged key. Whether there's any automatic revocation or timeout policy on .p8 keys that could explain this behavior. If there's a better way to maintain long-lived developer tokens without requiring new .p8 key generation every few days. Thank you for your help and clarification on this issue. Best regards, Liad Altif

Environment→ ・Device: iPad 10th generation ・OS：**iOS18.3.2 We're using AVAudioPlayer to play a sound when a button is tapped. In our use case, this button can be tapped very frequently — roughly every 0.1 to 0.2 seconds. Each tap triggers the following function: var audioPlayer: AVAudioPlayer? func soundPlay(resource: String, type: String){ guard let path = Bundle.main.path(forResource: resource, ofType: type) else { return } do { audioPlayer = try AVAudioPlayer(contentsOf: URL(fileURLWithPath: path)) audioPlayer!.delegate = self try audioSession.setCategory(.playback) } catch { return } self.audioPlayer!.play() } The issue is that under high-frequency tapping (especially around 0.1–0.15s intervals), the app occasionally crashes. The crash does not occur every time, but it happens randomly — sometimes within 30 seconds, within 1 minute, or even 3 minutes of continuous tapping. Interestingly, adding a delay of 0.2 seconds between button taps seems to prevent the crash entirely. Delays shorter than 0.2 seconds (e.g.,0.15s,0.18s) still result in occasional crashes. My questions are: **Is this expected behavior from AVAudioPlayer or AVAudioSession? Could this be a known issue or a limitation in AVFoundation? Is there any documentation or guidance on handling frequent sound playback safely?** Any insights or recommendations on how to handle rapid, repeated audio playback more reliably would be appreciated.

In iOS 18, CarPlay shows an error: “There was a problem loading this content” after playback starts. Audio works fine, but the Now Playing screen doesn’t load. I’m using MPPlayableContentManager. This worked fine in iOS 17. Anyone else seeing this error in iOS 18?

I'm trying to implement Ambisonic B-Format audio playback on Vision Pro with head tracking. So far audio plays, head tracking works, and the sound appears to be stereo. The problem is that it is not a proper binaural playback when compared to playing back the audiofile with a DAW. Has anyone successfully implemented B-Format playback on Vision Pro? Any suggestions on my current implementation: func playAmbiAudioForum() async { do { try AVAudioSession.sharedInstance().setCategory(.playback) try AVAudioSession.sharedInstance().setActive(true) // AudioFile laoding/preperation guard let testFileURL = Bundle.main.url(forResource: "audiofile", withExtension: "wav") else { print("Test file not found") return } let audioFile = try AVAudioFile(forReading: testFileURL) let audioFileFormat = audioFile.fileFormat // create AVAudioFormat with Ambisonics B Format guard let layout = AVAudioChannelLayout(layoutTag: kAudioChannelLayoutTag_Ambisonic_B_Format) else { print("layout failed") return } let format = AVAudioFormat( commonFormat: audioFile.processingFormat.commonFormat, sampleRate: audioFile.fileFormat.sampleRate, interleaved: false, channelLayout: layout ) // write audiofile to buffer guard let buffer = AVAudioPCMBuffer(pcmFormat: format, frameCapacity: UInt32(audioFile.length)) else { print("buffer failed") return } try audioFile.read(into: buffer) playerNode.renderingAlgorithm = .HRTF // connecting nodes audioEngine.attach(playerNode) audioEngine.connect(playerNode, to: audioEngine.outputNode, format: format) audioEngine.prepare() playerNode.scheduleBuffer(buffer, at: nil) { print("File finished playing") } try audioEngine.start() playerNode.play() } catch { print("Setup error:", error) } }

When I create a SFSpeechRecognizer object, I find SFLocalSpeechRecognitionClient remains in memory and never gets released. You can create a demo with a single UIButton whose touch action is SFSpeechRecognizer(locale: Locale(identifier: "zh_CN"))

Hi 👋! We have a SpriteKit-based app where we play AVAudio sounds in three different ways: Effects (incl. UI sounds) with AVAudioPlayer. Long looping tracks with AVAudioPlayer. Short animation effects on the timeline of SpriteKit's SKScene files (effectively SKAudioNode nodes). We've found that when you exit the app or otherwise interrupt audio plays, future audio plays often fail. For example, there's a WebKit-based video trailer inside the app, and if you play it, our looping background music track (2.) will stop playing, and won't resume as you close the trailer (return from WebKit). This is probably due to us not manually restarting the track (so may well be easily fixed). Periodically played AVAudioPlayer audio (1.) are not affected. However, the more concerning thing is that the audio tracks on SKScene file timelines (3.) will no longer play. My hypothesis is that AVAudioEngine gets interrupted, and needs to be restarted for those AVAudioNode elements to regain functionality. Thing is, we don't deal with AVAudioEngine at all currently in the app, meaning it is never initiated to begin with. Obviously things return to normal when you remove the app from short-term memory and restart it. However, it seems many of our users aren't doing this, and often report audio failing presumably due to some interruption in the past without the app ever being cleared from memory. Any idea why timeline-run SKAudioNodes would fail like this? Should the app react to app backgrounding/foregrounding regarding audio? Any help would be very much appreciated ✌️!

Hello, I'm trying to create a webbrowser but currently when signed into apple music webplayer I get the following message when I attempt to play on any versions of my webbrowser: Not available on the web You can listen to this in the Apple Music app. Is there a way to setup DRM (assuming this is the issue) with apple to allow my webbrowser to play this content? I believe Apple TV is also affected. Thank you ahead of time.

Hi all, i can successfully match music using shazamkit on Apple using SwiftUI, a simple app that let user to load an audio file and exctracts the relative match, while i am unable to match music using shamzamkit on Android. I am trying to make the same simple app but i cannot match music as i get MATCH_ATTEMPT_FAILED every time i try to. I don't know what i am doing wrong but the shazam part in the kotlin Android code is in this method : suspend fun processAudioFileInBackground( filePath: String, developerTokenProvider: DeveloperTokenProvider ) = withContext(Dispatchers.IO) { val bufferSize = 1024 * 1024 val audioFile = FileInputStream(filePath) val byteBuffer = ByteBuffer.allocate(bufferSize) byteBuffer.order(ByteOrder.LITTLE_ENDIAN) var bytesRead: Int while (audioFile.read(byteBuffer.array()).also { bytesRead = it } != -1) { val signatureGenerator = (ShazamKit.createSignatureGenerator(AudioSampleRateInHz.SAMPLE_RATE_44100) as ShazamKitResult.Success).data signatureGenerator.append(byteBuffer.array(), bytesRead, System.currentTimeMillis()) val signature = signatureGenerator.generateSignature() println("Signature: ${signature.durationInMs}") val catalog = ShazamKit.createShazamCatalog(developerTokenProvider, Locale.ENGLISH) val session = (ShazamKit.createSession(catalog) as ShazamKitResult.Success).data val matchResult = session.match(signature) println("MatchResult : $matchResult") setMatchResult(matchResult) byteBuffer.clear() } audioFile.close() } I noticed that changing Locale in catalog creation results in different result as i get NoMatch without exception. Can you please help me with this?