A Summary of the WWDC25 Group Lab - Accessibility 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 Accessibility. Accessibility Nutrition Labels are a really big step forward for the experience people have on the App Store to find apps that will work for them. How should developers get started with Accessibility Nutrition Labels? A good starting point is to review the Accessibility Nutrition Label evaluation criteria on App Store Connect Help. It's a concise document, roughly 10 pages, and you can approach it section by section after the introduction. Even with prior experience using accessibility features like VoiceOver, the criteria offer valuable insights that might not be immediately apparent. For those newer to accessibility, a good entry point might be one of the visual feature labels, such as Dark Interface, which is a popular and frequently used feature. Which accessibility features can I indicate support for in Accessibility Nutrition Labels? The accessibility features covered include support for assistive technologies like VoiceOver and Voice Control, media enhancements such as captions and audio descriptions, and display accommodations. These display accommodations cover options like larger text, dark interface, differentiating without color alone, sufficient contrast, and reduced motion. With the new Accessibility Nutrition Labels, will app store reviewers validate what we select? The Accessibility Nutrition Label can be edited at any time without requiring a new app submission. However, if an app inaccurately claims feature support, App Review may contact the developer and request an update to the label or the app. Are there any updates to tools for analyzing the accessibility of our apps? Although there aren't new updates this year, continued support for Accessibility Audits is available through Xcode's built-in Accessibility Inspector. XCTest also supports accessibility audits, enabling developers to test app accessibility with every build. These audits analyze aspects like contrast, dynamic type, text clipping, element labels, and more within each view. For a deeper dive, the "Perform accessibility audits for your app" session from WWDC 2023 is a valuable resource. What are accessibility features you wish more people integrated? Accessibility features encompassing user input labels optimized for voice control, keyboard navigation and shortcuts, and dynamic type support could be more used to benefit users. What were some of the biggest accessibility challenges your team encountered while developing Liquid Glass? Apple is known for its innovation and strives to deliver a high-quality experience for everyone. Accessibility is considered a core component of visual design from the outset. For example, the Liquid Glass design inherently supports reduced transparency and increased contrast. As design continues to evolve, user feedback submitted through Feedback Assistant is invaluable. How does Liquid Glass respond to contrast? Especially for text and low contrast environments. Content legibility is a crucial aspect of the Liquid Glass design. It inherently supports accessibility features like reduced transparency and increased contrast. Your feedback during the beta period and beyond is essential to ensuring Liquid Glass provides a great experience within your apps. What are some Apple apps that stand out for their accessibility? Apps like Keynote in the iWork suite offer groundbreaking VoiceOver features to enhance creative productivity for all users. Assistive Access makes core apps such as Messages, Photos, Camera, Phone, and Music more accessible. Podcasts provides transcripts to broaden its reach, and frameworks like SwiftUI ensure that apps built with the latest UI frameworks have excellent built-in accessibility.

I find the inspector, file navigator, issue navigator, etc. all hard to read. Is there a way to increase the size of these texts without changing all of the text on my machine?

Hi, I want to detect if there is a fullscreen window on each screen. _AXUIElementGetWindow and kAXFullscreenAttribute methods work, but I have to be in a non-sandbox environment to use them. Is there any other way that also works? I don't think it's enough to judge if it's fullscreen by comparing the window size to the screen size, since it doesn't work on MacBook with notch, or the menu bar is set to 'auto-hide'. Thanks.

Hello Albert! I am experiencing some strange bugs around DeviceActivityEvents (part of the DeviceActivity framework) on iOS 26 / iOS 26.1 / iOS 26.2 beta: When creating a DeviceActivityEvent we can assign a threshold and applicationTokens. The idea is, that after the user has spent said threshold on said apps, eventDidReachThreshold() is called. The property includesPastActivity is set to false. On iOS 26 however, it happens (quite reliably after updating to a new beta seed) quite often that eventDidReachThreshold() is called immediately (after a couple of seconds) instead of waiting for the threshold to be met. Is anyone else seeing similar issues on iOS 26 / iOS 26.1 / iOS 26.2 beta? Only workaround I have found is to ask users to revoke and re-grant Screen Time permissions. This only holds for about two weeks though or at most until the next iOS 26 beta update is installed, so it is not a permanent solution unfortunately. Feedback (incl. sysdiagnoses and sample project) is filed under: FB18061981 FB18927456 One of our users has filed their own feedback request as well: FB20817853 Thanks a lot for any help on this!

User might be caught in a Guided Access page with error like this when they trying to leave Guided Access. Please pardon me for shotting a photo with phone to show this condition, because I can't even get a screenshot with home button and power key pressed together. I can't lock the screen with power key or by the magnet sensor, can't get back home page with home button. The ways to exit is waiting for the exit button might could use, or the screen shutdown, or enforce the device to shutdown. After exit the Guided Access without rebooting the system, the Guided Access would be freezed for minutes, noticing the Guided Access can't be used. In iPadOS 26, since, I can prove confidently, 26.5beta1 even earlier, could discover that issue. The problem could happen several times in a day. I have raised that issue since April 25th and the ID is FB22608734, which has more than 10 similar reports. To say something beyond the issue, actually I guessed that my device, iPad mini 5th, might can't get the update of iPadOS 27, so I hoped that Apple Developer Teams could at least fix those annoying problems. Actually there is a long list in Chinese with problems summarised by some Chinese User I waited for a long time for a miracle in WWDC 27. But that's a miracle.

Environment: Xcode 26.5, macOS Tahoe 26.5.1 (MacBook Pro, Apple M4 Max). As a blind developer working in Xcode with VoiceOver only, I'd like to report accessibility issues that make it hard to complete properly signed and entitled apps using VoiceOver alone. Issue: The "Signing & Capabilities" tab is not directly accessible. The "Signing & Capabilities" tab in the target editor is central to app configuration (team selection, capabilities, provisioning profiles), but there is no dedicated keyboard shortcut to reach it. The path requires many steps: Cmd+1 to focus the navigator, selecting the project file with the arrow keys, activating it with Return, switching to the central editor area, selecting the target, and finally locating the tab in the top bar. Specific VoiceOver problems: When the project file is activated with VoiceOver, focus often lands inside the inline rename field instead of opening the project editor as expected. The toolbar containing the editor tabs (General, Signing & Capabilities, Resource Tags, Info, Build Settings, Build Phases, Build Rules) cannot reliably be focused with VoiceOver, which prevents direct tab switching from the keyboard. Impact: A routine task such as adding a capability requires a long VoiceOver sequence that must be repeated on every visit, plus the cognitive load of remembering the exact tab order. Suggested improvements: Provide a direct keyboard shortcut for the "Signing & Capabilities" tab, and ideally for each target editor tab (for example Cmd+Option+1 through Cmd+Option+7). Ensure that activating the project file in the navigator opens the project editor by default; renaming should require an explicit second key press (Return on an already selected item, consistent with Finder). Ensure the editor tab bar can be reached and traversed with VoiceOver, for example via Tab or Ctrl+Tab.

On tvOS, third-party apps cannot read number key presses from a connected keyboard or remote (except inside a text field). There is also no HDMI-CEC API. Because of this, a live-TV / IPTV app cannot let the user simply type a channel number to change channels. This excludes a large group of users, especially older people. They have used numbered channels for their whole lives — they remember that a given number is a specific channel and just want to press that number to get there. It is the simplest and most familiar way for them to use a TV. Making them navigate an on-screen grid with the Siri Remote instead is much harder and unfamiliar for them. Please give apps a way to support numeric channel entry on tvOS — for example by letting apps receive number key presses (0–9) from a connected Bluetooth keyboard/keypad without forcing a text field, or by exposing the numeric keys from the TV's own remote via HDMI-CEC. Other TV platforms already pass number keys from the remote to apps, so this works for them today. tvOS does not, which leaves these users without a basic, expected way to use their TV.

Hi everyone, We're experiencing a bug on iOS 26 that only occurs when the user has Reduce Transparency enabled in Accessibility settings. App structure: Our app uses a TabView with a standard tab bar. Inside each tab, we use a NavigationStack. The tab bar is visible on root-level screens, and hidden on all pushed destinations using: .toolbar(.hidden, for: .tabBar) The problem: On iOS 26 with Reduce Transparency off (Liquid Glass active) — everything works correctly. The tab bar hides as expected. On iOS 26 with Reduce Transparency on — a white bar appears at the bottom of the screen in every place where the tab bar is hidden. This white bar: Overlaps content at the bottom of the screen. Blocks scroll, tap, and all user interactions in that area. We also tried: .toolbarBackground(.hidden, for: .tabBar) Removing all custom UITabBarAppearance configuration The only workaround we found is setting UIDesignRequiresCompatibility = YES in Info.plist, which reverts the entire app to the pre-iOS 26 design — not a viable long-term solution. What can we do? Thanks in advance.

I'm using Dynamic Font throughout my entire app yet the audits in Accessibility Inspector will give me a ton of "Dynamic Type font sizes are unsupported: User will not be able to change the font size of this SwiftUI.AccessibilityNode" warnings. This is incorrect because users are able to change the font size. I can even move to the inspector panel and adjust the font and see it all change right within the Accessibility Inspector. I assume this is a bug since I can change the font but I was also wondering if there's some special thing I'm missing that could prevent these warnings from appearing especially when management runs audits to look for deficiencies.

I would like to implement a focus-based Menu-Bar command in my SwiftUI iPadOS app, or react to key command while certain elements are focused. Traditionally, this requires using @FocusedValue and focusable() and focused, however, it appears that setting a @FocusState on macOS will work, but setting a @FocusState on iPadOS will never work. How can this API work and support MenuBar commands and keyboard inputs? It kind of has an accessibility impact as well. Not all users are going to know, or want to turn on "full keyboard control" for basic interactions. Here's a small sample that doesn't appear to focus on iPadOS: struct FocusableTestView: View { @FocusState private var isRectFocused: Bool var body: some View { VStack { // This text field should focus the custom input when pressing return: TextField("Enter text", text: .constant("")) .textFieldStyle(.roundedBorder) .onSubmit { isRectFocused = true } .onKeyPress(.return) { isRectFocused = true return .handled } // This custom "input" should focus itself when tapped: Rectangle() .fill(isRectFocused ? Color.accentColor : Color.gray.opacity(0.3)) .frame(width: 100, height: 100) .overlay( Text(isRectFocused ? "Focused" : "Tap me") ) .focusable(true) .focused($isRectFocused) .onTapGesture { isRectFocused = true print("Focused rectangle") } // The focus should be able to be controlled externally: Button("Toggle Focus") { isRectFocused.toggle() } .buttonStyle(.bordered) } .frame(maxWidth: .infinity, maxHeight: .infinity, alignment: .center) } }

My app needs both Accessibility and Input Monitoring permissions. Accessibility works as expected — calling AXIsProcessTrusted() automatically adds the app to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility, and the user just needs to toggle it on. Input Monitoring doesn't behave the same way. I'm calling CGRequestListenEventAccess() and creating a CGEvent.tapCreate(.listenOnly), but the app doesn't reliably appear in the Input Monitoring list. The user opens the pane and sees nothing to enable. What I've tried: CGRequestListenEventAccess() — shows the system prompt once per install, but doesn't always add the app to the list CGEvent.tapCreate(tap: .cgSessionEventTap, place: .headInsertEventTap, options: .listenOnly, ...) — returns nil before Accessibility is granted; after Accessibility is granted, the tap succeeds but the app still may not appear in the Input Monitoring list 3. Calling both after Accessibility is confirmed, with a delay before opening the Settings pane The flow: User grants Accessibility (app appears automatically via AXIsProcessTrusted()) App creates a listen-only CGEventTap (succeeds) App opens x-apple.systempreferences:com.apple.preference.security?Privacy_ListenEvent User sees the Input Monitoring pane but the app is not listed Environment: macOS 15 (Sequoia), signed and notarized app, correct bundle ID, Hardened Runtime with com.apple.security.device.audio-input-monitoring entitlement not set (not applicable — this is for audio, not HID). Question: Is there an API equivalent to AXIsProcessTrusted() that reliably registers an app in the Input Monitoring list? Or is there a specific entitlement, Info.plist key, or sequence of calls required on macOS 14+/15 to ensure the app appears?

My app needs both Accessibility and Input Monitoring permissions. Accessibility works as expected - calling AXIsProcesstrusted() automatically adds the app to System Settings > Privacy & Security > Accessibility, and the user just needs to toggle it on. Input Monitoring doesn't behave the same way. I'm calling CGRequestListenEventAccess() and creating a CGEvent.tapCreate(.listenOnly), but the app doesn't reliably appear in the Input Monitoring list. The user opens the pane and sees nothing to enable. What I've tried: CGRequestListenEventAccess() — shows the system prompt once per install, but doesn't always add the app to the list CGEvet.tapCreate(tsp: .cgSessionEventTap, place: .headInsertEventTap, options: listenOnly, ...) — returns nil before Accessibility is granted; after Accessibility is granted, the tap succeeds but the app still may not appear in the Input Monitoring list Calling both after Accessibility is confirmed, with a delay before opening the Settings pane The flow: User grants Accessibility (app appears automatically via AXIsProcessTrusted()) App creates a listen-only CGEventTap (succeeds) App opens x-apple.systempreferences:com.apple.preferences.security?Privacy_ListenEvent User sees the Input Monitoring pane but the app is not listed Environment: macOS 15, signed and notarized app, correct bundle ID, Hardened Runtime with com.apple.security.device.audio-input-monitoring entitlement not set (not applicable). Is there an API equivalent to AXIsProcessTrusted() that reliably registers an app in the Input Monitoring list? Or is there a specific entitlement, Info.plist key, or sequence of calls required on macOS 14+/15 to ensure the app appears?

[Also submitted as FB20213961] SwiftUI Button with a label: closure containing only an Image view has a smaller tap target than buttons created with a Label or the convenience initializer. The hit area shrinks to the image bounds instead of preserving the standard minimum tappable size. SCREEN RECORDING On a physical device, the difference is obvious—it’s easy to miss the button. Sometimes it even shows the button-tapped bounce animation but doesn’t trigger the action. SYSTEM INFO Xcode Version 26.0 (17A321) macOS 15.6.1 (24G90) iOS 26.0 (23A340) SAMPLE CODE The following snippet shows the difference in hit targets between the convenience initializer, a Label, and an Image (the latter two in a label: closure). // ✅ Hit target is entire button Button("Button 1", systemImage: "1.square.fill") { print("Button 1 tapped") } // ✅ Hit target is entire button Button { print("Button 2 tapped") } label: { Label("Button 2", systemImage: "2.square.fill") } // ❌ Hit target is smaller than button Button { print("Button 3 tapped") } label: { Image(systemName: "3.square.fill") }

Our app supports Full Keyboard Access. When an element is focused, the system-drawn FKA focus indicator (the ring/overlay) sits over the UI component. This overlay drops the content's colour contrast below the WCAG 2.1 minimums — 4.5:1 for text (1.4.3) and 3:1 for UI components and focus indicators (1.4.11) — causing the focused state to fail accessibility audits. Is there a supported way to completely remove this focus overlay on a view without breaking FKA keyboard navigation or VoiceOver?

On iOS 26 (26.0–26.5), a rectangular region in the lower half of the screen sometimes does not render while the content underneath remains laid out and interactive — scrolling works, hit testing succeeds, and rows visibly emerge from behind the floating tab bar as you scroll. This is a render-server / compositor gap, not a layout or safe-area issue. We see it on both UIKit and SwiftUI scroll surfaces inside the same UITabBarController: UIKit: UICollectionView with UICollectionViewFlowLayout (sectionInsetReference = .fromSafeArea) SwiftUI: List(.plain) nested in TabView(.page) inside a UIHostingController Confirmed on iPhone 16 Pro, iPhone 17 Pro, iPhone 13 Pro Max. Community threads (linked below) report the same symptom in Messages, Notes, Safari, Mail, and the App Store. Questions for Apple Is this acknowledged as an OS-level regression, and is a fix targeted for an upcoming iOS 26.x release? Is there a deterministic repro? We've tried background/foreground cycles, push notifications mid-scroll, tab switches during inertia, lock/unlock, orientation flips, simulated memory warnings, layout-invalidation storms, and trait-collection cycles — none reliably trigger it on our test devices. Is there a developer-side mitigation (e.g. avoiding specific UIVisualEffectView / Glass configurations, opting out of a rendering optimization) until a system fix lands? Is there a runtime signal on CALayer or UIScrollView we can inspect to detect this gap state and force a recovery (tile redraw, backing-store discard, etc.)? Notes We cannot reproduce locally. Affected users hit it organically; once it appears it persists across re-layout until the view controller is torn down. Community reports consistently mention Reduce Transparency being enabled on affected devices, and toggling it off clears the issue for many. In our own testing, RT alone is not sufficient to trigger the bug — it appears to be a contributing condition rather than the trigger. References: Apple Discussions: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256182149 Reddit r/ios (multiple system apps): https://www.reddit.com/r/ios/comments/1nlzn7f/some_apps_cutting_off_half_the_display/ https://www.idownloadblog.com/2026/03/23/webpage-content-cutting-off-safari/

input[type=number] mapped to AXTextField instead of AXIncrementor/UIAccessibilityTraitAdjustable in Safari (macOS and iOS). According to ML-AAM 1.0, <input type="number"> is required to map to the ARIA spinbutton role, but it is not being mapped as expected on WebKit (macOS and iOS) to the platform accessibility APIs: the element is reported as AXTextField on macOS and lacks UIAccessibilityTraitAdjustable on iOS. As a consequence, VoiceOver announces the element as a textfield rather than a spinbutton, does not increment with arrow keys on macOS, and does not respond to the swipe up/down gesture on iOS. This affects every <input type="number"> on the web (quantity steppers, age inputs, year pickers, etc). Authors are currently forced to work around it by reimplementing the spinbutton with role="spinbutton", which force the authors to emulate the native HTML solutions with JavaScript, contradicts the First Rule of ARIA Use and presents another interaction issues in WebKit (will create an issue about this and update this post later). References: HTML-AAM 1.0, input type=number: https://www.w3.org/TR/html-aam-1.0/#el-input-number ARIA 1.2, spinbutton role: https://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria-1.2/#spinbutton First Rule of ARIA Use: https://www.w3.org/TR/using-aria/#firstrule Reproduction: https://codesandbox.io/p/sandbox/beautiful-hofstadter-vn7nj3 <!DOCTYPE html> <html lang="en"> <head> <meta charset="utf-8" /> <title>spinbutton techniques</title> </head> <body> <main> <h1>Spinbutton pattern</h1> <section aria-labelledby="html-solution"> <h2 id="html-solution">HTML solution: spinbutton</h2> <label for="qty">Quantity</label> <input id="qty" type="number" min="0" max="10" value="1" /> </section> </main> </body> </html> Expected behavior: AX role on macOS: AXIncrementor (mapped from spinbutton) AX trait on iOS: UIAccessibilityTraitAdjustable VoiceOver on macOS announces "[value], [name of the input], stepper" and then "you are currently on a stepper. To begin interacting with this stepper, press Control-Shift-Down Arrow", after pressing the combo should announce "in stepper" and inmmediately should announce "you are currently in a stepper. To decrease this value, press Control-Option-Down Arrow. To increase this value, press Control-Option-Up Arrow. to exit this stepper, press Control-Option-Shift-Up Arrow" One-finger swipe up/down on iOS increments/decrements the value Actual behavior on Safari: AX role on macOS: AXTextField AX trait on iOS: standard textfield, no Adjustable VoiceOver announces "[value], insertion at the beginning/end of the text, [name of the input], number field" and then "you are currently on text field. To enter text in this field, type". Omitting the native functionality of a spinbutton One-finger swipe up/down on iOS does nothing Cross-platform comparison (same HTML, same spec): Firefox + NVDA on Windows: Chrome + NVDA on Windows: same as Firefox Safari + VoiceOver on macOS: broken as described above Safari + VoiceOver on iOS: broken as described above Environment: macOS: maOS Tahoe 26.4.1 Safari: 26.4 (21624.1.16.11.4) iOS: iOS 26.4.2 Device: iPhone 15 VoiceOver: default settings

I am developing an iOS app using ActivityKit Live Activities with interactive buttons based on LiveActivityIntent. The implementation works correctly: LiveActivityIntent.perform() executes correctly. The Live Activity updates visually. MediaPlayer actions are triggered successfully. The app does not open when tapping the buttons. Repeated taps correctly update the Live Activity state. However, I observed a behavior difference on the Lock Screen: Now Playing controls keep the Lock Screen awake while interacting repeatedly. Apple Stopwatch/Timer controls also keep the Lock Screen awake while interacting. My app’s Live Activity fades to black after around 5–7 seconds even while the user continues tapping the Live Activity buttons. I also tested a third-party timer app with Live Activity buttons and observed the same fade-to-black behavior. I additionally tested: repeated Activity.update(...) calls after each tap; visual state updates after every interaction; multiple consecutive interaction updates. None of these prevented the Lock Screen from dimming/fading to black. So my question is: Is this expected behavior for third-party Live Activities using LiveActivityIntent? Or is there any recommended way to keep the Lock Screen interaction session active while the user is continuously interacting with Live Activity buttons? I am especially interested from an accessibility perspective, because short interaction windows can make repeated Lock Screen interactions more difficult for users with motor impairments or slower interaction patterns.

I have already filed a bug report with a sample project via Feedback Assistant: FB22760723 When presenting a UIViewController using UIModalPresentationFormSheet alongside UISheetPresentationController with a small custom detent (e.g., around 300pt height), VoiceOver spatial swipe navigation breaks. The user is unable to swipe left or right to navigate sequentially through the accessible elements inside the sheet. Accessibility Inspector reveals that the focus seems to get trapped by the background layer (UIDimmingView / "dismiss popup"). If the sheet is taller (e.g., 600pt), the issue does not occur and swipe navigation works as expected Steps to Reproduce: Run the attached sample Objective-C/UIKit project. Turn on VoiceOver. Tap the “Open transparent modal” button to present the modal with UIModalPresentationOverFullScreen presentation. Tap the "Open form sheet" button to present the sheet (configured with a custom 300pt detent). Attempt to swipe right using VoiceOver to navigate to the next element (e.g., from the title label to the buttons). Expected Results: VoiceOver should smoothly navigate through the sequential accessibility elements inside the sheet's view hierarchy, respecting the bounds of the modal sheet. Actual Results: VoiceOver gets stuck. The swipe right/left gestures fail to move focus to the next element inside the sheet. Instead, focus often escapes to the background or doesn’t change completely.

I found difficulty interacting with close button on placement inside Health app on newest iOS. Steps to reproduce: Open Health app Scroll to "Get more from health" Try to focus on close button on any box like "Set Up your medical ID" Focus is on the whole box and there is now way to move to close button. After hitting space it opens next screen. Solving this issue might help with similar issue in our app.

When using Full Keyboard Access some content in Reminders app is not accessible. Steps to reproduce: Open Reminders app Open one of the lists with few (ex. 4) records. Try to check reminder. Issue: Navigating with keyboard focuses on whole row, using arrows left/right doesn't move to check control. Using space on whole row activates textfield, then still left/right arrow does not move outside textfield. Tested on iPhone 13 mini with iOS 26.4 using Magic Keyboard. Solving this issue might help with similar issues in our app.

When using Full Keyboard Access on iPhone in Photos app some interactive content is not available to enter. Steps to reproduce: Open Photos app Go to Collections tab Go to memories Try to select any memory playlist Whole scroll view is selectable as one element and using space is not making any difference. Using tab goes to navigation controls. Tested on iPhone 13 mini with iOS 26.4 using Magic Keyboard.