Hi everyone, We are currently exploring ways to implement a frictionless Wi-Fi setup for our hardware devices without requiring a dedicated third-party application. We are interested in leveraging Apple's WAC (Wireless Accessory Configuration) to sync Wi-Fi credentials directly from iOS devices. However, we have struggled to find comprehensive technical documentation or specifications regarding the WAC service. Could anyone point us to the official source for these materials? Additionally, we have a couple of technical questions: 1.We are testing WAC provisioning and found that the Home app can discover our device and successfully get it online. However, it always ends with a "Failed to add accessory" message. Does WAC support imply that a device should be addable via the Home app? If not, why is the Home app able to discover and start the setup for a non-HomeKit WAC device? 2. Our device is already Apple AirPlay certified. Does implementing WAC require additional standalone certification, or is it covered under the existing MFi/AirPlay certification umbrella? Any insights or guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Hello, I am an individual developer working on a macOS application using SwiftUI and RealityKit. I would like to understand the feasibility of face-related tracking on macOS when using an external USB camera, compared to iOS/iPadOS. Specifically: • Does macOS provide an ARKit Face Tracking–equivalent API (e.g., real-time facial expressions, gaze direction, depth)? • If not, is it common to rely on Vision / AVFoundation as alternatives for: • Facial expression coefficients • Gaze estimation • Depth approximation • In an environment without dedicated sensors such as TrueDepth, is it correct to assume that accurate depth data and high-fidelity blend shape extraction are realistically difficult? Any clarification on official limitations, recommended alternatives, or relevant documentation would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

Environment: iPhone 17 / iPhone 17 Pro (Apple N1 chip) iOS 26.x Xcode 26 Framework: Flutter app with native iOS BLE library (CoreBluetooth) We have a production IoT app that communicates with BLE nodes (Nordic, PIC, EnOcean peripherals) using an advertising/scanning-based protocol — not GATT connections. The app broadcasts commands via CBPeripheralManager (advertising service UUIDs) and receives responses by scanning with CBCentralManager (reading manufacturer data and service UUIDs from advertisement packets). This workflow has been reliable across all iPhone models from iPhone 8 through iPhone 16 Pro Max. On iPhone 17 devices, we are experiencing multiple failures in this workflow. Architecture: Sending commands: We use CBPeripheralManager.startAdvertising() with CBAdvertisementDataServiceUUIDsKey to broadcast a UUID-encoded command to nearby nodes. Receiving responses: We use CBCentralManager.scanForPeripherals(withServices: nil, options: [CBCentralManagerScanOptionAllowDuplicatesKey: true]) and filter responses in centralManager(_:didDiscover:advertisementData:rssi:) by matching CBAdvertisementDataServiceUUIDsKey or CBAdvertisementDataManufacturerDataKey against expected UUID masks. Communication pattern: Advertise a command → stop advertiser → start scanner → wait for matching response → process result. Typical timeout is 1.5 seconds per exchange. Issues observed on iPhone 17: peripheralManagerDidStartAdvertising behaviour change After calling CBPeripheralManager.startAdvertising(:), the delegate callback peripheralManagerDidStartAdvertising(:error:) either fires with errors that did not occur on previous hardware, or advertising does not appear to reach the peripheral nodes at all. The same advertising payload works immediately when tested on iPhone 15/16. Is the N1 chip's Bluetooth 6 stack handling CBAdvertisementDataServiceUUIDsKey advertising differently? Are there new constraints on advertising payload size or format? Scanner returning fewer/no results with withServices: nil Our scanner uses scanForPeripherals(withServices: nil) because we need to read manufacturer data from advertisement packets and filter using a custom UUID mask. On iPhone 17, we observe significantly fewer didDiscover callbacks compared to iPhone 15/16 in the same physical environment, with the same nodes advertising. We understand that passing service UUIDs in withServices: is recommended, but our protocol requires reading raw manufacturer data bytes that aren't associated with a single service UUID — we use mask-based matching (e.g., filter mask 11110000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 against scan results). Has the N1 chip changed the rate or filtering behaviour of unfiltered BLE scans? Is there a new throttling mechanism? Background scanning stops immediately When the app moves to background, scanning appears to stop entirely on iPhone 17 — even with bluetooth-central in UIBackgroundModes. On iPhone 16, background scanning continued (at reduced intervals) and delivered results for peripherals advertising filtered service UUIDs. Aggressive session termination on app backgrounding Our advertise-then-scan sequences (typically 1.5s round-trip) are being interrupted when the user briefly switches apps. The CBPeripheralManager stops advertising and the CBCentralManager stops scanning, causing timeout errors. This was not observed on previous iPhone models with the same iOS background mode configuration. Questions for Apple: Are there documented changes to CoreBluetooth behaviour on the N1 Bluetooth 6 chip that affect advertising-based (non-GATT) communication patterns? Has the scan response rate for scanForPeripherals(withServices: nil) been intentionally reduced on iPhone 17? Is CBCentralManagerOptionRestoreIdentifierKey now required for reliable background scanning on iPhone 17, or is this a known regression? Are there new advertising payload constraints (size, format, interval) that we should be aware of for the N1 chip? What we've tried: Added NSBluetoothAlwaysUsageDescription and NSBluetoothWhileInUseUsageDescription to Info.plist Confirmed Bluetooth permissions are granted Tested with identical BLE nodes that work on iPhone 15/16 Verified CBManagerState.poweredOn before all operations Any guidance or known workarounds would be greatly appreciated. Happy to provide sysdiagnose logs or a minimal reproducible sample project.

Hi all, I’m facing a device-specific issue in a live production iOS app distributed privately via the App Store . The app crashes immediately after login on one client’s iPhone, while the same account works fine on other devices. There’s no crash log generated in Analytics, and the app just pops to the home screen. Environment: App: Production app on App Store iOS version: 26.3 Devices: Only one device exhibits the crash; other iPhones work fine Login flow: App calls an API and writes the response to a local SQLite database immediately after login Distribution: App Store (Privately). The user is install via the redemption codes. Observations: All users on the problematic device crash immediately after login. The crash does not occur on any other devices, including the same iOS version. The client had already uninstalled and reinstalled the app via App Store cloud download, but the crash persisted. No crash log appears in Analytics or Xcode (process just terminates). Device restart had not been attempted before reinstall. App does not use Keychain tokens; local DB is only SQLite in the app sandbox. Hypotheses so far: Corrupted binary or cached app installation on that device SQLite database corruption or write failure Device-specific OS/environment issue (temp files, file locks, provisioning) iOS watchdog silently terminating the app during post-login DB write Language / region differences unlikely Questions: Is it possible for a device to retain a corrupted app binary or cached installation even after uninstall + cloud download reinstall from the App Store? Can uninstalling, restarting the device, and reinstalling guarantee a fresh binary and sandbox? Are there any known iOS behaviors where a local SQLite write could trigger an instant crash on one device only, without generating crash logs? Any other suggestions for diagnosing this device-specific post-login crash in a live production environment? Thanks in advance for any guidance — this issue is affecting a client’s live usage, and we’d like to understand the root cause and best way to resolve it safely.

Hello Apple Developer Technical Support Team, I’m working on an iOS banking/security SDK and we’re trying to match an Android feature that reads payment cards via NFC (EMV). On Android, this is implemented using an NFC scanning screen (e.g., “NfcScanActivity”) that can read EMV data from contactless credit/debit cards. Could you please clarify the current iOS capabilities and App Store policy around this? On iOS, is it currently possible for a third-party App Store app to read contactless credit/debit cards using Core NFC (i.e., accessing EMV application data/AIDs from payment cards)? If this is possible, what are the supported APIs/frameworks and any entitlement requirements (if applicable)? If this is not possible for App Store apps, could you recommend the closest acceptable alternatives for achieving a similar user outcome? For example: Using Apple Pay / PassKit flows for payment-related experiences Card scanning alternatives (camera-based OCR) for capturing card details (if allowed) Using an external certified card reader accessory (MFi) and required approach/entitlements Any other Apple-recommended approach for “card verification / identification” without reading EMV NFC data Our goal is not to bypass security restrictions, but to provide a compliant solution on iOS comparable to Android’s NFC-based card reading, or to adopt an Apple-approved alternative if direct EMV reading is not supported. If helpful, I can share a brief technical summary of the Android behavior and the exact data we need to obtain (e.g., whether it’s card presence verification vs. reading specific EMV tags). Thank you for your guidance. Best regards, Imran

Hello Apple Developer Technical Support Team, I’m working on an iOS banking/security SDK and we’re trying to match an Android feature that reads payment cards via NFC (EMV). On Android, this is implemented using an NFC scanning screen (e.g., “NfcScanActivity”) that can read EMV data from contactless credit/debit cards. Could you please clarify the current iOS capabilities and App Store policy around this? On iOS, is it currently possible for a third-party App Store app to read contactless credit/debit cards using Core NFC (i.e., accessing EMV application data/AIDs from payment cards)? If this is possible, what are the supported APIs/frameworks and any entitlement requirements (if applicable)? If this is not possible for App Store apps, could you recommend the closest acceptable alternatives for achieving a similar user outcome? For example: Using Apple Pay / PassKit flows for payment-related experiences Card scanning alternatives (camera-based OCR) for capturing card details (if allowed) Using an external certified card reader accessory (MFi) and required approach/entitlements Any other Apple-recommended approach for “card verification / identification” without reading EMV NFC data Our goal is not to bypass security restrictions, but to provide a compliant solution on iOS comparable to Android’s NFC-based card reading, or to adopt an Apple-approved alternative if direct EMV reading is not supported. If helpful, I can share a brief technical summary of the Android behavior and the exact data we need to obtain (e.g., whether it’s card presence verification vs. reading specific EMV tags). Thank you for your guidance. Best regards, Anis

EASession(accessory:forProtocol:) always returns nil — MFI accessory iAP2 Platform: iOS 17+ | Hardware: Custom MFI-certified accessory (USB-C, iAP2) | Language: Swift Problem We have a custom MFI-certified accessory communicating over USB-C using ExternalAccessory. The app calls EASession(accessory:forProtocol:) after receiving EAAccessoryDidConnect but it always returns nil. We never get past session creation. What we have verified We captured a sysdiagnose on-device and analysed the accessoryd-packets log. The full iAP2 handshake completes successfully at the OS level: USB attach succeeds MFI auth certificate is present and Apple-issued Auth challenge and response complete successfully IdentificationInformation is accepted by iOS — protocol string and Team ID are correct EAAccessoryDidConnect fires as expected iOS sends StartExternalAccessoryProtocolSession — the OS-level session is established So the hardware, MFI auth, protocol string, and Team ID are all correct. Despite this, EASession(accessory:forProtocol:) returns nil in the app. We also confirmed: Protocol string in UISupportedExternalAccessoryProtocols in Info.plist matches the accessory exactly Protocol string in code matches Info.plist App entitlements are correctly configured EAAccessoryManager.shared().registerForLocalNotifications() is called before connection Current connection code @objc private func accessoryDidConnect(_ notification: Notification) { guard let accessory = notification.userInfo?[EAAccessoryKey] as? EAAccessory else { return } DispatchQueue.main.asyncAfter(deadline: .now() + 1.0) { self.tryConnectToAccessory() } } private func tryConnectToAccessory() { DispatchQueue.main.asyncAfter(deadline: .now() + 3.0) { for accessory in EAAccessoryManager.shared().connectedAccessories { let session = EASession(accessory: accessory, forProtocol: "") // session is always nil here } } } Questions The packet log shows a ~4 second gap between EAAccessoryDidConnect firing and iOS internally completing session readiness (StartExternalAccessoryProtocolSession). Is there a reliable way to know when iOS Is it actually ready to grant an EASession, rather than using a fixed delay? Is there a delegate callback or notification that fires when the accessory protocol session is ready to be opened, rather than relying on EAAccessoryDidConnect + an arbitrary delay? Are there any known conditions on iOS 17+ under which EASession returns nil even though the iAP2 handshake completed successfully at the OS level? Is retrying EASession after a nil result a supported pattern, or does a nil result mean the session will never succeed for that connection? Any guidance appreciated.

目前这个findmy 设备是已经通过MFI认证，不过后续想的在”Find My “应用上像 AirTag 一样支持UWB测距功能。 寻找了相关资料，在这篇文章《Nearby-Interaction-Accessory-Protocol-Specification-Release-R4》中找到了UWB的相关功能，但是需要我们自己开发第三方应用。 所以需要怎么做才可以做到像airtag 一样在“Find My”应用上显示距离和方向