We would like to better understand the discrepancy between a Push To Start and the subsequent Updates where I see a number of recipients drop greatly. Our assumption is that this is a result of the end user not clicking the "Allow" prompt when a push to start widget is shown on the screen for the first time, but we currently do not have a way to listen to the user's choice when prompted. Is there any way of tapping into this, to determine if this is in fact where the variance is coming from, or if there is actually just a problem with the request to retrieve the update token from our end?

Hello Apple Developer Support, We are observing inconsistent behavior with push notification sounds routing to Bluetooth / external speakers. Our app sends push notifications with a custom sound file using the sound parameter in the APNs payload. When an iPhone is connected to a Bluetooth speaker or headphones: On some devices, the notification sound plays through the connected Bluetooth/external speaker. On other devices, the notification sound plays only through the iPhone’s built-in speaker. We also tested with native apps like iMessage and noticed similar behavior — in some cases, notification sounds still play through the phone speaker even when Bluetooth is connected. Media playback (e.g., YouTube or Music) routes correctly to Bluetooth, so the connection itself is functioning properly. We would like clarification on the following: Is this routing behavior expected for push notification sounds? Are notification sounds intentionally restricted from routing to Bluetooth in certain conditions (e.g., device locked, system policy, audio session state)? Is there any supported way to ensure notification sounds consistently route through connected Bluetooth/external speakers? The inconsistent behavior across devices makes it difficult to determine whether this is by design or a configuration issue. Thank you for your guidance.

Hey everyone! I'm trying to develop an app that would need to send periodic notifications (every 20 minutes, for instance) to the user even when the app is not running (but only when the phone is being used). I've been reading through the prior comments and all about not being able to have a timer run in the background in the way I need it to, but I wanted to ask if there's any way around this, or is there truly no way? If there is no way to do this, I was just now considering another workaround, where I could try getting the time they open their phone, and from there, I schedule local notification for every 20 minutes or so for the entire day, and they keep sending until the phone is turned off, when the rest of the scheduled local notifications are cancelled. Is this possible? I would also appreciate any other suggests/workarounds for this. Happy to provide any additional details needed! Thanks!

Is there anyway that I could use AVAudioSession, AVAudioPlayer or anything similar in Notification Service Extension? I am trying to implement Audio Playback in the Notification Service Extension to play specific audio file when receiving Notification regardless the app state(foreground, background or killed), but I am not able to activate audio session in Notification Service Extension. NSError *sessionError = nil; BOOL success = [[AVAudioSession sharedInstance] setCategory:AVAudioSessionCategoryPlayback error:&sessionError]; success = [[AVAudioSession sharedInstance] setActive:YES error:&sessionError]; if (!success) { NSLog(@"Error activating audio session: %@", sessionError); } Below is the error that I got when I am trying to run the code above in Notification Service Extension. Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=561015905 "Session activation failed" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Session activation failed}

I’m receiving notifications from all third-party apps that I use however, most of the time there is no sound or haptics with the notification. In some cases, very seldomly I will receive a sound when a notification comes in, but that’s only with one of the many third-party apps that I use. I’ve spoken to Apple about this when this whole problem started during an update that you guys rolled out sometime between September and November 2024. They blamed it on the app programmers but I think at this point we all know that it’s Apple’s inability to accept that the problem is on their end. I never had problems receiving notifications from any of the apps prior to that. I guess my question is will Apple ever fix this or are they going to sweep it under the rug and pretend like it doesn’t exist?

I'm trying to provide custom localized descriptions for the iOS notification permission popup in my app, which supports multiple locales. To achieve this, I'm using InfoPlist.strings files per locale with the following keys: NSUserNotificationsUsageDescription NSUserTrackingUsageDescription The issue I'm facing is that NSUserTrackingUsageDescription is working correctly across all tested locales, but NSUserNotificationsUsageDescription only works for some locales. Locales tested: Working: ja, tr, fr-CA Not working: fr-BE, nl-BE In each case, the correct localized NSUserTrackingUsageDescription appears, but the NSUserNotificationsUsageDescription falls back to the default or does not appear as expected in fr-BE and nl-BE. I'm using Xcode 16 and testing on both iOS 18 simulator and physical devices, and the issue is consistent across both. Any insights on whether this is a known issue in iOS or if there are additional steps needed for NSUserNotificationsUsageDescription to localize properly would be greatly appreciated.

Hello everyone in the iOS Devolution community! I'd like to share a suggestion that I believe would bring an unprecedented level of intelligence and comfort to the daily iPhone experience: Smart Adaptive Volume & Brightness. The Problem We Aim to Solve How many times has your iPhone rung too loudly in a quiet environment, embarrassing you in a meeting or waking someone up? Or, the opposite, you missed an important call on a busy street because the volume was too low? And what about screen brightness? It's a constant adjustment: too bright in the dark, hard to see in the sun. Currently, we have to manually adjust volume and brightness, or rely on Auto-Brightness (which only works for the screen) and Focus modes, which can be a bit "all or nothing." This leads to interruptions, frustration, and that feeling that your phone isn't really adapting to you. The Solution: Smart Adaptive Volume & Brightness My proposal is for iOS to use the iPhone's own sensors to dynamically adapt notification and ringtone volume, and screen brightness, to the environment we're in. How it would work in practice: Environmental Scan Before Ringing/Displaying: When a notification (call, message, app alert) is about to be delivered, and even before it makes a sound, the iPhone would briefly activate its sensors. The microphone would read the ambient noise level (in decibels), but without recording audio or analyzing any content. Just the "noise" of the surroundings. The ambient light sensor would assess the light intensity around the device. Intelligent and Coordinated Adjustment: Based on these combined readings of noise and brightness, iOS would make the adjustments: In noisy and bright environments (e.g., on the street during the day): The ringtone volume would be automatically increased to ensure you hear it, and the screen brightness would also be raised to facilitate viewing in strong light. In quiet and dark environments (e.g., cinema, bedroom at night): The volume would be discreetly reduced to avoid disturbances, and the screen brightness would be dimmed for your visual comfort and to avoid bothering others. Adjustments would be gradual, adapting to any type of environment (office, cafe, etc.). User Control: Of course, we'd have the option to enable or disable "Smart Adaptive Volume & Brightness" in the settings. We could also define minimum and maximum limits for these automatic adjustments, ensuring the iPhone adapts to our personal comfort levels. This feature would complement existing Focus modes, operating within the permissions of any active Focus. The Benefits for the User Goodbye to Inconvenient Interruptions: No more startling loud rings in quiet places. Never Miss a Call Again: In noisy environments, your iPhone will adapt to be heard. Constant Visual Comfort: The screen will always be at the ideal brightness, without blinding you in the dark or disappearing in the sun. Smoother Experience: Fewer manual adjustments, more time to focus on what matters. Guaranteed Privacy: The use of microphones and sensors would be strictly for environmental measurement, without recording or analyzing personal data. I believe this feature would bring a new level of intelligence and usability to iOS, making the iPhone even more intuitive and adapted to our daily lives. What do you all think of this idea?

Hi, We have a simple calendar reminder app that uses UNNotificationRequest to schedule local notifications for user events. I’m wondering whether UNNotificationRequest has a system-imposed limit of 64 upcoming scheduled notifications, similar to the deprecated UILocalNotification. We’re asking because one of our users is not receiving recently scheduled reminders. Our current workflow is: We schedule notifications on app launch and when the app is about to quit. Before scheduling, we call removeAllPendingNotificationRequests(). We then fetch the 64 nearest upcoming events and schedule them using UNUserNotificationCenter.current().add(...). This approach works fine during our testing, but we’re unsure what might be causing the issue for some users. Any insights would be appreciated. Thanks!

When sending a single push notification to iOS 18 devices users receive the same notification multiple times. This issue appears specific to iOS 18 and was not observed in previous iOS versions Our server logs confirm each notification is sent only once. Notification payloads include proper apns-id values for identification and no network issues detected on our side

I'm strugling about the way how to code notifications for my weather aplication. I use data from my server that receives weather changing values from my own weather station and want to notify user of my app when eg strong wind will blow or temperature go under eg 3℃ etc. The weather station has 8 sensors so there is sometimes a lot of data changing in particular minute that i set to parse data from server and notify user about it. But the notifications only works only when app is on and couple minutes after locking display. So please what could i use strategy for the app to works even when the app sleeps ?

We are observing an issue where the iOS Notification Service Extension (NSE) is terminated by the system during startup, before either didReceive(_:withContentHandler:) or serviceExtensionTimeWillExpire(_:) is invoked. When this occurs, the notification is delivered without modification (for example, an encrypted payload is shown to the user). System logs frequently contain the message “Extension will be killed because it used its runtime in starting up”. During testing, we observed that CPU-intensive operations or heavy initialization performed early in the extension lifecycle — especially inside init() or directly on the main thread in didReceive often cause the system to kill the NSE almost immediately. These terminations happen significantly earlier than the commonly observed ~30-second execution window where the OS normally invokes serviceExtensionTimeWillExpire(_:) before ending the extension. When these early terminations occur, there is no call to the expiry handler, and the process appears to be forcefully shut down. Moving the same operations to a background thread changes the behavior: the extension eventually expires around the usual 30-second window, after which the OS calls serviceExtensionTimeWillExpire(_:). We also observed that memory usage plays a role in early termination. During tests involving large memory allocations, the system consistently killed the extension once memory consumption exceeded a certain threshold (in our measurements, this occurred around 150–180 MB). Again, unlike normal time-based expiration, the system did not call the expiry handler and no crash report was produced. Since Apple’s documentation does not specify concrete CPU, memory, or startup-cost constraints for Notification Service Extensions or any other extensions beyond the general execution limit, we are seeking clarification and best-practice guidance on expected behaviors, particularly around initialization cost and the differences between startup termination. NSE Setup: class NotificationService: UNNotificationServiceExtension { static var notificationContentHandler: ((UNNotificationContent) -> Void)? static var notificationContent: UNMutableNotificationContent? static var shoudLoop = true override func didReceive(_ request: UNNotificationRequest, withContentHandler contentHandler: @escaping (UNNotificationContent) -> Void) { NotificationService.notificationContentHandler = contentHandler NotificationService.notificationContent = request.content.mutableCopy() as? UNMutableNotificationContent NotificationService.notificationContent!.title = "Weekly meeting" NotificationService.notificationContent!.body = "Updated inside didReceive" // Failing scenarios } override func serviceExtensionTimeWillExpire() { NotificationService.shoudLoop = false guard let handler = NotificationService.notificationContentHandler, let content = NotificationService.notificationContent else { return } content.body = "Updated inside serviceExtensionTimeWillExpire()" handler(content) } }

I am sending push notification using HTTP/2 to https://api.push.apple.com:443 api but I am getting Operation TimeOut error in response . Can someone help

User is using my app, the goes to System Settings, and changes some of my App's settings (switches, text fields, etc). Does the system send my app any kind of notification? David PS: I tried all kinds of searches on this and found nothing.

I am using push notification in my app. User token gets properly registered and is sent to server. Notification are also sent by server and recieved on device as expected. The problem occurs when user uninstalls the app. iOS does not provide any option to handle uninstall event. On top of that when server send notification to such device token APNS feedback service sends success message. Meaning APNS sends push notifications to uninstalled app.I have an API to unregister the device on server since no event is triggered I am unable to call it.Please suggest a way out.

I created an app. One if its functionalities is receive Remote Notification in the background, while app is monitoring Significant Location Changes (SLC). This functionality worked fine. I was receiving these notifications correctly. Sometimes instantly, sometime with small or large delay. And then I send the app for review. It was rejected with 3 remarks: The app or metadata includes information about third-party platforms that may not be relevant for App Store users, who are focused on experiences offered by the app itself (I wrote that app communication works both for iOS and Android.) The app declares support for audio in the UIBackgroundModes key in your Info.plist but we are unable to locate any features that require persistent audio. EULA (End User License Agreement) is missing for in-app purchases. After the rejection the app is no longer receiving these notifications. They are there, since the app receives them, when I open app, or significant location change is detected. It also works, when I run the app directly from Xcode (in debug mode), not from TestFlight nor in Sandbox. It seem to me like Apple somehow spoiled my background capabilities on purpose or accidentally. Is it possible? What can I do with it? Is it the case that I should just fix the review remarks and send the app back to review, and once the app passes it, it will work again? Or should I not count on it? Any suggestions? I asked Apple using: https://developer.apple.com/contact/topic/#!/topic/select but so far no response.

We are developing an app that receives push notifications (via Firebase) from configured IoT devices. It is essential that when a specific type of notification is received, a sound is played continuously until the user interacts with the notification. This behavior is crucial for alerting users to certain critical states of the IoT device. We understand that Critical Alerts on iOS can bypass Do Not Disturb and silent mode. However, from our testing and available documentation, the sound from a Critical Alert seems to be limited to around 30 seconds. Our question: Is it possible on iOS to have a Critical Alert (or any other type of notification) continue playing sound until the user interacts with the notification or app? If so, could someone please point us to the appropriate documentation or APIs? Thanks in advance for any guidance.

Observations​​: When our app calls the APNs API for push notifications, we observed significant fluctuations: July 15-25​​: The success response volume ​​increased by 20%​​ compared to the baseline before July 15. ​​After July 25​​: Success rates returned to baseline levels. July 30​​: Success response volume ​​decreased by 10%​​ compared to the pre-July 15 baseline. ​​ Excluded Factors​​: No changes in target audience size or characteristics (business factors ruled out). Server logs confirm consistent API request parameters and frequency. ​​Key Questions​​: Were there any ​​adjustments to response metrics​​ (e.g., success status code definitions) during this period? Have other developers reported similar issues? Were there server-side configuration updates or known incidents on Apple’s end?

We are in the process of transferring our app to a new Apple Developer Organization account. Our app uses the Apple Push Notification service (APNs) with a .p8 authentication key configured on our server to send push notifications. We would like to confirm: Once the app transfer is completed, will push notifications continue to work temporarily using the existing .p8 key on our server, until we generate and configure a new .p8 key under the new organization's account? Understanding this behavior is critical for us to ensure a smooth transition and avoid any disruption in push notification delivery for our users. Thank you for your guidance and support.

I am checking if the user taps on the firebase push notification and get the payload. override func userNotificationCenter(_ center: UNUserNotificationCenter, didReceive response: UNNotificationResponse, withCompletionHandler completionHandler: @escaping () -> Void) { let userInfo = response.notification.request.content.userInfo os_log("notification tapped %{public}@", log: OSLog.push, type: .info, userInfo) handleNotificationPayload(userInfo as! [String: AnyObject]) setFlutterLinkClickedVariable() } My use case is in app terminated state when push notification is tapped, get the link from payload and navigate to corresponding screen based on the link. This is working when there is only one push notification. When there are multiple push notifications with different links in the payload, only the first notification I tap works. Rest of the notifications just launches the app and does not navigate because the link is not set. I am getting the link from the payload and invoking flutter code which sets the link in the user defaults (shared preferences) and when the app launches in the home screen it checks for this variable and navigates accordingly. func handleNotificationPayload(_ payload: [String: AnyObject]) { if let link = payload["link"] as? String { setFlutterLinkVariable(link) } } override func application(_ application: UIApplication, didReceiveRemoteNotification userInfo: [AnyHashable : Any], fetchCompletionHandler completionHandler: @escaping (UIBackgroundFetchResult) -> Void) { os_log("app did receive remote notification %{public}@", log: OSLog.push, type: .info, userInfo) handleNotificationPayload(userInfo as! [String : AnyObject]) completionHandler(.newData) } Currently when there is only one push notification it works because the link is set from the above method. The click delegate is not calling. I did set the delegate in application(:didFinishLaunchingWithOptions). UNUserNotificationCenter.current().delegate = self application.registerForRemoteNotifications() How to solve this issue? Thanks.

I have my app configured as a Driving Task app with the entitlement and provisioning profile correctly set up. I am also requesting the ".carPlay" notification authorization option and setting up the carplay notification category with the ".allowInCarPlay" category, both without error. When testing with the iPhone and carplay simulators the user notifications I send are appearing on the phone but not in carplay. When I check the notification settings with UNUserNotificationCenter.current().getNotificationSettings() I see that carplay is shown to be not supported ("carPlaySetting: NotSupported"). The CarPlay Developer Guide 2025-06-09 (which is the version currently referenced in the Apple docs) states that "Starting in iOS 18.4, notifications are also supported in CarPlay driving task apps". Has this discrepancy been addressed anywhere, or is this an open issue? My software versions: MacOS: Sequoia 15.6 XCode: 16.4 iPhone Simulator: iPhone 16 with iOS 18.6