Project Background： I am developing a third-party custom keyboard for iOS whose primary feature is real-time voice input. In my current design, responsibilities are split as follows: 1. The container (main) app is responsible for: Audio recording Speech recognition (ASR) 2. The keyboard extension is responsible for: Providing the keyboard UI Initiating the voice input workflow Receiving transcription results via an App Group Inserting recognized text into the active text field using textDocumentProxy.insertText(_:) Intended User Flow The intended workflow is: The user is typing in a third-party app (for example, WeChat) using my custom keyboard. The user taps a “Voice Input” button in the keyboard extension. The keyboard extension activates the container app so that audio recording and ASR can begin. After recording has started, control returns to the original app where the user was typing. The container app continues running in the background, maintaining active audio recording and ASR. Recognized text is continuously streamed back to the keyboard extension and inserted into the current cursor position in real time. Observed Industry Behavior Some popular third-party keyboards on iOS, such as WeChat Keyboard and Doubao Keyboard, appear to provide a similar user experience in which: Voice input can be initiated directly from the keyboard while typing in another app. The user remains (or returns) in the original typing context after voice input starts. Speech recognition continues and text is streamed into the active text field without interrupting the typing experience. I would like to better understand how this type of workflow aligns with iOS platform capabilities and supported APIs. My Questions Is it supported by iOS public APIs for a custom keyboard extension to activate its container app to start audio recording and ASR, then return to the original host app while the container app continues recording and performing ASR in the background? If this workflow is not supported, are there any Apple-recommended or supported alternative architectures for achieving a similar user experience, especially when audio recording and ASR logic are currently implemented in the container app rather than in the keyboard extension? Goal My goal is to design a solution that is fully compliant with iOS public APIs and platform constraints, while providing a real-time voice input experience comparable to existing third-party keyboards on the platform. Any guidance on supported APIs, recommended architectures, or relevant documentation would be greatly appreciated.

I'm working on adding MetricKit to our iPad application that we distribute internally via Enterprise distribution. I've set up the didReceive functions for both MXMetricPayload and MXDiagnosticPayload. When I build onto a device via Xcode and use the Simulate MetricKit Payloads command, everything works as expected. The issue I'm having is when testing on a device via our enterprise distribution. When I simulate a crash, I am receiving the MXDiagnosticPayload so that part is working correctly. However, I am never receiving a MXMetricPayload. I've been using the app and waiting up to 3 days in some tests and not receiving any payload over that time frame. Some information I found suggested the issue might be MetricKit not working fully on enterprise apps but I haven't been able to find a definitive source on that question. Hoping someone here can guide me on that. Thanks!

We're building a parental control app using FamilyControls (.child authorization). Our architecture: Parent sends pause command → Firestore + FCM Child receives push → NotificationService Extension triggers main app Main app sets ManagedSettings Shields Problem: If child disables Notifications in Settings and force-quits the app, we cannot enforce Shields. What we've tried: Firestore Realtime Listener (works only when app is running) DeviceActivityMonitor (intervalDidStart/End only triggers at schedule boundaries, eventDidReachThreshold requires explicit app selection via FamilyActivityPicker) Question: Is there a recommended approach for parental control apps to reliably enforce Shields when the child has disabled notifications? Or is this a known limitation?

On macOS, one can set the "Open With ..." application in the information panel of a file without changing the default for this file type. However, doing this for a number of files is very tedious. A simple case is to change all .txt files in a directory to a special editor, but leave the system wide default (usually TextEdit). I have tried AppleScript, command line tools as well as a minimal GUI app (using LSSetItemAttribute), but all fail because of a lack of permission. Is there any way to achieve this?

We are a research team conducting a study collecting subject's SensorKit speech data, and we've encountered some questions we couldn't resolve ourselves or by looking up the online SensorKit documentation: Microphone Activation: In general, how is the microphone being turned on to capture a speech session? And how was each session determined to be an independent session? Negative Values: In the speech classification data, there are entries where some of the start and end values are negative (see screenshot below). How should we interpret and handle these values? Is it safe to filter them out? Duplicated sessions: From the same screenshot you can see there are multiple session identifiers linked to the same subject with the same timestamp - what does this represent? Another Negative Values: The same question for speech recognition data's average pause duration, what does the -1 mean and should we remove them as well? (Note that these screenshot got rid of subject IDs for privacy purposes but each screenshot was from one subject.) We greatly appreciate your time and help.

I have an iOS app that includes a local Swift package. This Swift package contains some .plist files added as resources. The package also depends on an XCFramework. I want to read these .plist files from within the XCFramework. What I’d like to know is: Is this a common or recommended approach—having resources in a Swift package and accessing them from an XCFramework? Previously, I had the .plist files added directly to the main app target, and accessing them from the XCFramework felt straightforward. With the new setup, I’m trying to determine whether this method (placing resources in a Swift package and accessing them from an XCFramework) is considered good practice. For context: I am currently able to read the .plist files from the XCFramework by passing Bundle.module through one of the APIs exposed by the XCFramework.

Hi Apple Developer Community, I'm implementing MetricKit launch performance tracking in our iOS app and need clarification on two properties: histogrammedTimeToFirstDraw histogrammedOptimizedTimeToFirstDraw The Documentation Problem: The official MetricKit documentation provides minimal explanation of these properties beyond their names. Based on naming conventions, I initially assumed: histogrammedTimeToFirstDraw = cold launches histogrammedOptimizedTimeToFirstDraw = warm/optimized launches Based on our measurements: The “optimized” metric appears only in a small fraction of launches The "optimized" metric is actually slower The naming suggests the opposite behavior Questions: What specific launch conditions does each metric measure? Why would "optimized" launches be slower and less frequent? Is histogrammedOptimizedTimeToFirstDraw related to iOS app pre-warming or prediction features? If these metrics don’t correspond to cold vs. warm launch times, is there an alternative way to measure them accurately? Any clarification from Apple or insights from developers who've tracked these metrics would be greatly appreciated.

Hello, Recently we got a question about the keyboard sensor data collection in our research project: "For the typing statistics, was any typing included or only messaging and notes? E.g., typing in the browser, phone search, calendar, etc?" While I believe it should be any typing included, I was not able to find a document explicitly stating that. Could you help to confirm it or guide me to any documentation explaining it? Thanks!

I'm building a voice-to-text keyboard extension that needs to open the main app briefly for audio recording (since keyboard extensions can't record audio), then return the user to their original app. The flow I'm trying to achieve: User is in WhatsApp (or Messages, Slack, etc.) User taps "Voice" button in my keyboard My main app opens via deep link (myapp://keyboard/dictation) App starts recording App automatically returns user to WhatsApp I cannot find a way to detect which app the keyboard is running inside, or which app opened my main app via the deep link. UIInputViewController.textDocumentProxy - No host app information available UIApplication.OpenURLOptionsKey.sourceApplication in application(_:open:options:) - When opened from a keyboard extension, does this return the host app bundle ID or the keyboard extension bundle ID? Private APIs (for research only, not production): _hostBundleID on UIInputViewController - blocked/returns nil on iOS 18 KVC approaches - all blocked Hardcoded app support - Works but requires maintaining a list of popular apps and showing multiple buttons instead of a single "Voice" button My questions: When a keyboard extension triggers a URL open (via SwiftUI Link or UIApplication.shared.open), what does sourceApplication contain? The host app or the keyboard extension? Is there any supported way for a main app to know which app it was launched from, specifically when that launch originated from a keyboard extension? How do apps like "Wispr Flow" achieve seamless return-to-app with a single voice button? They seem to auto-return to whatever app the user was in. Environment: iOS 18.0+ Xcode 16 SwiftUI keyboard using KeyboardKit Any guidance on the recommended approach would be greatly appreciated. I understand there may be privacy reasons for limiting host app detection, but the UX of requiring users to manually swipe back (or tap app-specific buttons) is significantly worse than automatic return.

I am trying to port my sandboxed macOS app completely over to iOS using a Catalyst target. In my macOS app, I use 'SwiftySandboxFileAccess' package to add a symlink to '~/Library/PDF Services' so that the 'share to my app' menuItem shows up in the macOS Print Panel (in the PDF menu). It is critical for the function of my app to have this work on macOS. In the Catalyst target, I am having problems gaining access to '~/Library'. I have tried having the user select the folder, but the picker always returns 'canceled'. I have a test app that illustrates this. The test app tries to coax the user into selecting the library folder and then it is supposed to bookmark the location, but I am unable to get this far. As an aside, macOS should probably automatically add an entry to the Print Panel when the app includes PDF as a document type in XCode; it would save a lot of hassle and avoid having to go outside of the sandbox. However, I cannot wait for that. Hopefully someone can help. Download Test App from iCloud (If you have problems downloading the file, it might be because of some iCloud share setting that I am not aware of. Just tell me and I'll figure something out.)

Since legacyScreenSaver is still the thing running screensavers we make, and it's still buggy, why won't they give us a new template for building screensavers that run in the new engine? And hopefully they don't require them to blend in with the desktop, because most of us don't want that. A wallpaper is a wallpaper, and a screensaver is a screensaver.

When a user enables an SMS filtering extension via iOS Settings → Messages → Text Message Filtering and selects an app, the following prompt appears: "The developer of [App Name] will receive the text, attachments and sender information in text messages from senders not in your Contacts. Messages may include personal or sensitive information like bank verification codes." This message cannot be modified by developers, and we're receiving complaints and negative reviews from users who are alarmed by it, despite our app not collecting any data. iOS should allow developers to customize this message or reword this message to not make false claims about data collection. We've opened a feedback assistant report here: FB21445903

After I upgraded to MacOS 26（beta）, my program caused the system to pop up a window as shown in the following picture. My application is a process with only a tray icon. I found that my tray icon is not displayed in the current version, even though I clicked the "Always Allow" button. Here are my questions: 1.Will this related feature remain consistent in the official release? 2.How can I create a cmd process that only displays a system tray icon (no main window) like Alfred?

My app is a VoIP softphone for Mac that allows people to make phone calls to a regular phone numbers. The app exists since before Mac App Store. The app declares itself to the system as capable of handling tel: URLs. Until now, people could change the default handler for tel URLs in FaceTime settings (Default for calls). In macOS Tahoe 26, this doesn't seem to be possible any more. That option is gone from the FaceTime settings. Is it completely gone or has it been moved somewhere else? If there is no UI control for this any more, is it possible to change it programmatically?

Hi all, I have set up a trivial test project to try Apple-hosted background assets following the instructions in the three articles at https://developer.apple.com/documentation/backgroundassets. When I run the local mock server with xcrun ba-serve and set the URL override in Settings as described in the "Testing asset packs locally" article, I am able to download a test pack on my iOS devices. On the Mac that I use to run the mock server, however, the same call to AssetPackManager.shared.assetPack(withID: "TestAssetPack") that works on iOS always reports The asset pack with the ID “TestAssetPack” couldn’t be looked up: No asset pack with the ID “TestAssetPack” was found. even when not running the mock server, which led me to believe that it may not be hitting it at all. In fact, the macOS app will download asset packs uploaded to App Store Connect even when running the local server and setting the xcrun ba-serve url-override to the exact same string as in Settings on iOS. My initial suspicion was that something is wrong with the URL override, so I have tried all combinations of the Mac's hostname, IP address or "localhost" (with the corresponding SSL certificates) with and without port 443, always prefixing with "https://" for the url-override. All the same. Does anyone have an idea what may be the issue here? My asset pack has the following manifest: { "assetPackID": "TestAssetPack", "downloadPolicy": { "onDemand": {} }, "fileSelectors": [ { "file": "TestAsset.txt" } ], "platforms": [ "iOS", "macOS" ] } I am running v26.1 for macOS, iOS & Xcode. Edit: Just to be clear, my assumption here is that the URL overrides (in Settings on iOS or via ba-serve on macOS) is what should cause the app to hit the mock server. Is that correct or am I missing something?

Hi, Submitted Family Controls entitlement requests yesterday for a digital wellness app (main app + 3 extensions). For those who've been through this: How long did approval take? Did Apple ask for more info? Any tips? Thanks!

Hello Apple Developer Support Team, I am the Account Holder of my Apple Developer Program team (Team ID: T2BKUF6E93). My iOS app is using Swift WeatherKit (WeatherService) on device. Although my environment is completely configured, the system WeatherDaemon consistently fails to generate the WeatherKit JWT token. My environment: Team type: Apple Developer Program (paid) Team ID: T2BKUF6E93 Account role: Account Holder Xcode: latest version Device: iPhone (real device) Provisioning Profile: iOS Team Provisioning Profile (auto-managed) Entitlement: com.apple.developer.weatherkit included WeatherKit Key: created successfully (.p8 downloaded) Bundle ID: correct and WeatherKit capability enabled App reinstalled after each configuration change Device rebooted Even after enabling WeatherKit capability and generating a WeatherKit Key, the system still fails to generate JWT: Failed to generate jwt token for: com.apple.weatherkit.authservice Error Domain=WeatherDaemon.WDSJWTAuthenticatorServiceListener.Errors Code=2 "(null)" The error persists across: multiple device restarts full clean/rebuild in Xcode deleting and reinstalling the app pulling the latest provisioning profiles waiting more than several hours for backend propagation What I suspect My WeatherKit entitlement and/or WeatherKit Key may not be fully propagated to the provisioning server or WeatherDaemon backend, even though everything appears correctly configured on the Developer Center. I kindly request the support team to: Verify whether the WeatherKit Entitlement is correctly attached to my app ID and provisioning profile. Verify whether my WeatherKit Key is properly registered and propagated for my team. Check if there are any backend propagation delays or stuck states for my Team ID (T2BKUF6E93). Confirm whether WeatherDaemon has permission to generate JWT for my app. Thank you Please let me know if any logs, screenshots, or provisioning profile identifiers are needed. Thank you for your help! Best regards, Jiangyang

I'm facing the same problem as addressed in this discussion: After switching from legacy QLGenerators to Preview extensions on macOS I cannot debug the extensions' code in Xcode, anymore: I launch the app with the embedded appex from Xcode in debug mode. When trying to attach to the appex process the following error is reported: Code: 6 Failure Reason: Ensure “AppName Preview” is not already running, and matthias has permission to debug it. User Info: {... } System Information macOS Version 15.4.1 (Build 24E263) Xcode 16.3 (23785) (Build 16E140) Timestamp: 2025-05-12T14:07:14+02:00 I'm using a standard user account (no admin) and might miss some obvious steps. Can someone detail the steps to debug a Preview (or Thumbnail) extension with Xcode 16? For legacy Quick Look plugins I was using "qlmanage", but that's not working on extensions. All the best, Matthias P.S.: Pardon me re-posting my reply as a separate thread, to increase visibility, but I'm quite desperate and couldn't find any solution on the web...

A message filter extension is only forwarded SMSs by the OS for filtering, iMessages aren't. But what is the situation with RCS messages? Will they be filterable by a message filtering extension?

We are planning on renaming our app. The new name is not like the current name. It will be renamed in the App Store as well as the App display name. Yet, we still want new and existing users to be able to find the app by using the old name in search/spotlight under iOS. A great example of this is entering Twitter to find the X app and it shows up in the App section in the Spotlight search. Are there any guidelines, settings, or tricks for doing this? Some have suggested adding a Spotlight search term but that will not have it show up in the App section I fear.