Notifications

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Learn about the technical aspects of notification delivery on device, including notification types, priorities, and notification center management.

Notifications Documentation

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Smart Adaptive Volume & Brightness - Say Goodbye to Noise & Visual Pollution!
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?
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55
Jun ’25
Location Push Extension Cannot Wake after 10 mins
Hi team, I'm developing a feature that's collecting the device locations for home security app. We've been following https://developer.apple.com/documentation/corelocation/creating-a-location-push-service-extension apns-push-type set to location. apns-priority set to 5. during testing, we found that the device's notification extension cannot be triggered after device going into lock screen for 10 mins. Wonder should we set the priority to 10? Thanks!
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297
Feb ’25
watchOS Standalone App Notification Settings Not Appearing
I'm having an issue on my standalone watchOS app where the settings to adjust notifications does not appear anywhere on the iPhone or the Watch. I have successfully requested notifications access from the user and have successfully displayed a local notification to them. However, if the user ever decides to revoke my notification access (or if they deny originally and want to change), the settings pane for notifications does not appear anywhere. I've looked in the following places: On the watch in Settings > Notifications, however it looks like you can no longer edit per app notification settings directly on the watch (none of the installed apps on my watch appear in here). The only options are settings like "tap to show full notification" and "announce notifications" which affect all notifications (Why not? Especially for apps that don't have a iPhone companion app?). On the iPhone in the Watch app (the app you set up your watch in), in Watch > Notification. My app does not appear anywhere in there. On the iPhone in the iPhone Settings app, in Settings > Notifications. My app does not appear anywhere in there. On the iPhone in the iPhone Settings app, in Settings > Apps. My app does not appear anywhere in there I've tried: Adding capabilities in Signing & Capabilities for Push Notification, Time-Sensitive Notifications and Communication Notifications Building the app for release instead of debug My app also requires location access and has successfully appeared in the settings pane directly on the watch in Settings > Privacy & Security > Location Services, however notification settings do not appear anywhere. I have created a stripped down test app to try and that also does not work. This test code successfully asks the user for permission and (from a button in ContentView), successfully schedules a notification and displays it to the user when they're not in the app. Here's the code for my NotificationManager: import UserNotifications class NotificationManager: NSObject, ObservableObject, UNUserNotificationCenterDelegate { static let shared = NotificationManager() @Published var hasAuthorisation = false private override init() { super.init() UNUserNotificationCenter.current().delegate = self requestAuthorisation() } func requestAuthorisation() { UNUserNotificationCenter.current().requestAuthorization(options: [.alert, .sound]) { authorised, error in DispatchQueue.main.async { if let error = error { print("Error requesting notifications: \(error.localizedDescription)") } self.hasAuthorisation = authorised } } } func scheduleNotification(title: String, body: String, timeInterval: TimeInterval) { let content = UNMutableNotificationContent() content.title = title content.body = body content.sound = .default let trigger = UNTimeIntervalNotificationTrigger(timeInterval: timeInterval, repeats: false) let request = UNNotificationRequest(identifier: UUID().uuidString, content: content, trigger: trigger) UNUserNotificationCenter.current().add(request) { error in if let error = error { print("Error scheduling notification: \(error.localizedDescription)") } else { print("Notification scheduled successfully.") } } } } This issue has persisted across two iPhones (recently upgraded) and the watch was wiped when connecting to the new iPhone. Am I missing some code? Am I missing some flag I need to set in my project somewhere? Please can someone with an Apple Watch try this code in a standalone watchOS app and see if the notifications pane appears anywhere for them? I've contacted Apple DTS, but they're taking a while to respond.
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344
Jan ’25
Only the last notification is being delivered
Good morning all! We are facing a specific case dealing with push notifications to iOS devices. In my scenario: I turn off my device's internet Send multiple push notifications via server using Firebase. I turned ON my device's internet again. I only see the last push notification I sent. This is an expected scenario? There is any documentation that supports this statement? Thank you all!
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354
Mar ’25
Alternate App Icon Change Does Not Reflect in Notification Center on iOS 18.1+
Version: iOS 18.1 and later (works as expected on iOS 18.0 and earlier) Area: SpringBoard / Notification Center / App Icon Rendering Description: When changing the app's alternate icon using UIApplication.setAlternateIconName(_:completionHandler:), the icon is updated correctly on the Home Screen and App Switcher. However, in Notification Center, the old app icon is still shown for notifications, even after the change has completed. This issue only occurs on iOS 18.1 and later. In iOS 18.0 and earlier, Notification Center correctly reflects the updated icon. - Steps to reproduce: Create an iOS app with alternate app icons configured in the Info.plist. Use UIApplication.shared.setAlternateIconName("IconName") to change the icon at runtime. Send a notification. Pull down Notification Center and observe the icon shown beside the notification. - Expected Behavior: Notification Center should reflect the updated (alternate) app icon immediately after the change. - Actual Behavior: Notification Center continues to display the old (primary) app icon. The new icon appears correctly on the Home Screen and App Switcher. Restarting the device does cause Notification Center to update and reflect the correct icon, which suggests a cache or refresh issue in SpringBoard or Notification Center. - Notes: Issue introduced in iOS 18.1; not present in 18.0. Reproduces on both physical devices and simulators. Occurs with both scheduled local notifications and remote notifications. Restarting the device updates the Notification Center icon, but this is not a viable user-facing workaround.
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165
Apr ’25
AlarmKit alarms do not fire when foregrounded app is in landscape
Hello! When setting an alarm in an AlarmKit app, the alarm will not fire properly/reliably (the alert presentation is not shown) while the device has an app foregrounded in the landscape orientation. This behaviour has been present since the betas, however until the first party Reminders app showed the behaviour in the iOS 26.2 beta I suspected the issue was in my own code. The behaviour is exhibited when scheduling alarms in several AlarmKit apps: The Reminders app The AlarmKit WWDC Demo Project My own AlarmKit app However alarms scheduled by the stock Clock app do not seem to exhibit the behaviour. Minimal repro with first party app: Be using iOS 26.2 beta Open Reminders app Create an urgent reminder for a time in the not too distant future Open Mail.app Change to landscape orientation Wait for the fire time Observe the phone vibrates at the correct time but no alarm is fired Drag the notifications pane down, observe the LiveActivity has been started Change to portrait orientation Observe alarm fires I have noticed this behaviour from the AlarmKit apps mentioned while foregrounding other apps besides Mail, both first and third party: Photos YouTube Netflix The behaviour does not seem to occur when the foregrounded app is restricted to portrait mode, no matter the actual orientation of the device. In the case of my own app I have tried a multitude of ideas to get it to work reliably, getting alarms to fire in landscape is very intermittent at best and most often works after a fresh reboot. I've submitted a Feedback for the Reminders app: FB20956492. Any advice or suggestions would be appreciated!
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160
Nov ’25
Background Push Notifications for Emergency App Delayed Despite Critical Alert Entitlement
I’m using Appnotic from my server to send notifications for an emergency service, where it is critical that notifications are delivered immediately. My payload looks like this: "aps": { "alert": "Test alert", "sound": { "critical": 1, "name": "sound.wav", "volume": 0.5 }, "content-available": 1, "category": "alert" }, "topic": "com.fireservicerota.FSR-Primary-Alerting", "custom_payload": { "id": "11", "type": "alert", "incident_id": 23434, "incident_response_id": 2652343, "expiration_time": "2024-06-06T16:59:05+01:00" } } I already have the critical alert entitlement and background processing enabled. Everything seems fine when debugging, but I’m experiencing issues: • Some notifications never arrive • Around 60% of notifications arrive with noticeable delay Since this is an emergency app, delivery speed is crucial. What could be causing this inconsistency?
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125
Apr ’25
iOS 26 Notification Extension open(uri) Fails on Cold Start (LSApplicationWorkspaceErrorDomain Code=115)
I'm experiencing a critical regression on iOS 26 with a Notification Content Extension. extensionContext.open(uri) fails to open external URLs with LSApplicationWorkspaceErrorDomain Code=115 under specific conditions. Problem: When the main app is killed, and a rich push notification is received and expanded, tapping a button (specifically one with a transparent background, cornerRadius=0, clipsToBounds=false) fails to open its associated URL. Key Details: iOS 26 Only: Works perfectly on iOS 17, 18, etc. App Killed State Only: Works if the app is running (foreground/background). Works on Subsequent Notifications: The link will open if a second notification is received. LSApplicationQueriesSchemes: Confirmed to be correctly configured in the main app's Info.plist and present in the app bundle. Delay No Help: Adding a 1s delay before open(uri) does not fix it. My os_log statements confirm the button tap
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125
Nov ’25
APN push notifications failling
After my membership was renewed (auto-payment was rejected, and my account was manually paid), my app stopped receiving notifications I thought was an invalidation by membership but after some days, my app kept not receiving notifications. I just recreated a new key for my app, (I hope it solves the problem) My question is, do I need to make another change to my account to reenable services?
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213
Jan ’25
Real-time notification
I need to create a background notification that counts down time and uses buttons to add or subtract time. Currently, I'm developing in React Native and using Expo Go to develop my app. I managed to display a simple notification, but I can't get it to work in real-time, so that when the time is up, it emits a sound indicating that the break is over. How can I implement this feature? My application now: My goal:
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83
Nov ’25
Questions for AlarmKit
We are so interested in AlarmKit which is presented at WWDC25. While we planning our app using AlarmKit, We had a few questions come to mind and were hoping you could provide some clarity. Please excuse the rather long list of questions, as we don't currently have a device available to test these features ourselves. System Actions Related Is there a limit to the number of alarms that can be scheduled using AlarmKit? Are alarms scheduled with AlarmKit persistent across device reboots? When an alarm is dismissed (either by swiping or pressing the power button), can our app detect this action and execute code in response? Can we control the behavior of the physical Lock Screen buttons when an AlarmKit alarm is active, for instance, to trigger a snooze action? Does AlarmKit function correctly during Do Not Disturb or Low Power Mode? What is the expected behavior when an alarm from our app (using AlarmKit) overlaps with an alarm from another app that also uses AlarmKit? Which one is going to get its priority? Thank you for your help. Sincerely
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213
Aug ’25
All Apple Push Notification Architecture
I've built an iOS & Watch OS app using Sign in with Apple & CloudKit exclusively. I'm now wanting to implement Push Notifications. I understand that I need a server to trigger the push notifications (I guess I could spool up a Node server somewhere or use Firebase), but I'd really like to not use any non-Apple backend services. Am I correct in understanding that I can do this with Push Notifications Console, or do I still need a separate backend?
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400
Feb ’25
Delay in notifications iPhone 16 Pro iOS 18.3
Hi, I’m having issues with push notifications on my phone across multiple apps. When someone sends me a message, I only receive the notification 10 to 15 minutes later. For example, on WhatsApp, people say that my chat only shows one checkmark when they send me a message. I don’t know what else to do. I’ve already contacted Apple Support, visited an Apple-affiliated physical store, and followed all the recommended procedures. This is my first time using an iPhone—I bought it for professional use, but it’s practically useless if I don’t receive notifications instantly. They even told me that if I send it in for warranty service, there’s a 90% chance they won’t detect the issue, and the iPhone will come back with the same problem.
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630
Feb ’25
Can iOS automatically launch an app or show a screen upon receiving a push notification (including critical alerts)?
Hi all, May I please ask for an official clarification or documentation reference from Apple regarding this scenario: Is it possible for an iOS app to automatically launch or open a specific screen when a push notification is received — while the app is in the background or terminated (killed) state? I understand that for most cases, user interaction (such as tapping the notification) is required before the app can show UI. However, I’d like to confirm whether this is also true for time-sensitive or critical alert notifications, including emergency use cases (e.g. public safety alerts). Specifically: Can a critical alert notification directly launch the app or present a view controller? Or is user interaction always required before the app can present any UI, even with the critical alert entitlement? I would appreciate if anyone — especially Apple staff or engineers — could share an official Apple document or statement that confirms this behavior. Thank you very much! (Use case context: I’m developing an emergency broadcast feature for a property management / tenant app.)
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104
Oct ’25