Recently Apple gave us the possibility to upload asset resources in the background. We implemented our background upload extension but when our CI tried to upload the app on TestFlight we got an error that the extension point identifier - in our case com.apple.photos.backgound-upload - is not an official one. Any idea when it will become official and we will be able to release a working background uploading?

Hi, I’m trying to implement the new PhotoKit PHBackgroundResourceUploadExtension. I created the extension, enabled full photo library access in the host app, and registered the extension point using the string: com.apple.photos.background-upload. However, when I attempted to enable the extension with: try library.setUploadJobExtensionEnabled(true) I received the following error: Error Domain=PHPhotosErrorDomain Code=-1 "(null)" This happens when running the app on Xcode 26.1 and 26.2 Beta, using the iPhone 17 Pro Max simulator (iOS 26.1 and 26.2). My question is: Is this extension supported on the simulator? I’m asking because at the moment it’s difficult for me to test this on a physical device. Also, What's the meaning of the error? Thanks.

I'm trying to benchmark a Core Image filter chains memory footprint and notice a weird quirk in instruments. On a real device, even with a simple Core Image chain, the memory balloons each time I ran the filter. See attached screen shots. Running on iPhone 17 Pro: Running on simulator (M2 Macbook Pro) As you can see there's a huge build up of 4MB "VM: IOSurface" memory on the real device, but the simulator seems to clean it up correctly. Here's my basic code: func processImage() { guard let inputImage = ContentViewModel.loadImageFromBundle(name: "kitty.HEIC") else { print("Failed to load sample_image from bundle") return } var outputImage = inputImage outputImage = outputImage.applyingFilter("CIBloom", parameters: [ kCIInputRadiusKey: 20, kCIInputIntensityKey: 0.8 ]) DispatchQueue.global(qos: .userInitiated).async { let data = self.context.jpegRepresentation(of: outputImage, colorSpace: CGColorSpace(name: CGColorSpace.sRGB)!) if let data = data, let uiImage = UIImage(data: data) { DispatchQueue.main.async { self.displayImage = Image(uiImage: uiImage) } } } } Why is this happening? Seems like a bug to me or I need to release an object. At the very least makes it challenging to measure memory usage. Any help is greatly appreciated. Alex

Device: iPhone 17 Pro iOS Version: iOS 26.1 Camera: Ultra-wide (0.5x) using AVCaptureSession Our camera app freezes on iPhone 17 when switching frame rates (30fps ↔ 60fps). This works fine on iPhone 16 Pro and earlier. What We've Observed: Freeze happens on frame rate change - particularly when stabilization was enabled Thread.sleep is used - to allow camera hardware to settle before re-enabling stabilization Works on older iPhones - only iPhone 17 exhibits this behavior Console shows these errors before freeze: 17281 <<<< FigXPCUtilities >>>> signalled err=18446744073709534335 <<<< FigCaptureSourceRemote >>>> err=-17281 Is Thread.sleep on the main thread causing the freeze? Should all camera configuration be on a background queue? Is there something specific about iPhone 17 ultra-wide camera that requires different handling? Should we use session.beginConfiguration() / session.commitConfiguration() instead of direct device configuration? Is calling setFrameRate from a property's didSet (which runs synchronously) problematic? Are the FigCaptureSourceRemote errors (-17281) indicative of the problem, and what do they mean?

PHPhotoLibrary.authorizationStatus(for: .readWrite) == .authorized Iinfo.plist Privacy - Photo Library Usage Description set I check authorization before attempting to get the photoPickerItem.itemIdentifier, but every time the return value from itemIdentifier is nil. Seems I missing some permissions, but unsure why the system is still keeping _shouldExposeItemIdentifier set to false.

I am new to Swift and iOS development, and I have a question about video capture performance. Is it possible to capture video at a resolution of 4032×3024 while simultaneously running a vision/ML model on the video stream (e.g., using Vision or CoreML)? I want to know: whether iOS devices support capturing video at that resolution, whether the frame rate drops significantly at that scale, and whether it is practical to run a Vision/ML model in real-time while recording at such a high resolution. If anyone has experience with high-resolution AVCaptureSession setups or combining them with real-time ML processing, I would really appreciate guidance or sample code.

I'm adopting Liquid Glass in iOS 26, when I try to test VNDocumentCameraViewController with document scanning after Liquid Glass enabled, there's a crash just after a photo is taken in VNDocumentCameraViewController, here's the screenshot when it crashed The exception output in XCode console is this: *** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInternalInconsistencyException', reason: 'Layout requested for visible navigation bar, <UINavigationBar: 0x1240bde00; frame = (0 117; 390 54); opaque = NO; tintColor = UIExtendedSRGBColorSpace 1 1 0 1; layer = <CALayer: 0x120c21e60>> standardAppearance=0x12407b900 scrollEdgeAppearance=0x12407bb80 compactAppearance=0x12407b880 no-scroll-edge-support, when the top item belongs to a different navigation bar. topItem = <UINavigationItem: 0x1240bd800> style=navigator leftBarButtonItems=0x123d4e5f0 rightBarButtonItems=0x123d4d5a0, navigation bar = <UINavigationBar: 0x107b9ad00; frame = (0 47; 390 54); opaque = NO; autoresize = W; tintColor = UIExtendedSRGBColorSpace 1 1 0 1; layer = <CALayer: 0x120c20150>> delegate=0x10a805200 standardAppearance=0x107b2c300 scrollEdgeAppearance=0x107b2c280 compactAppearance=0x107b2c100, possibly from a client attempt to nest wrapped navigation controllers.' *** First throw call stack: (0x18e1db994 0x18b0f5814 0x18c092aa0 0x193b18660 0x193a7d540 0x193a7e020 0x1953ec4a0 0x1943b7d78 0x18ed83420 0x18ed82f74 0x18eb83134 0x18eb44c10 0x18eb70bc4 0x18eb7e74c 0x193ac8cd0 0x193ac8c04 0x193ad6afc 0x193ad5f8c 0x27b456560 0x18e12c4cc 0x18e15c0b0 0x18e15bfd8 0x18e133c1c 0x18e132a6c 0x22ed54498 0x193af6ba4 0x193a9fa78 0x193bcb68c 0x102cc2718 0x102cc2688 0x102cc2794 0x18b14ae28) libc++abi: terminating due to uncaught exception of type NSException

I’m writing to report a serious usability regression in the iOS 26 Photos app. Folders can still be created and albums can still be assigned to them, but folders can no longer be opened to view the albums they contain. A container that cannot be opened is not a container, and this breaks a fundamental information architecture model that has existed in Photos for well over a decade. This change disproportionately harms users who maintain large, intentional photo libraries—travel archives, projects, professional work, or long-term personal documentation—where hierarchy and ordering are essential. Search and automated surfacing are not substitutes for deliberate structure. Removing the ability to browse folder → album hierarchy on iOS strips users of control while still exposing the UI for folder creation, which is internally inconsistent. If this behavior is intentional, it should be clearly documented and the folder UI removed to avoid misleading users. If it is not intentional, it needs urgent correction. At minimum, iOS should retain parity with macOS Photos for basic navigation of folders and albums. This is not a niche request; it is a regression in core functionality.

Environment Device: iPhone 15 Pro iOS: iOS 18.0 Framework: AVFoundation App type: Custom camera app using AVCaptureSession + AVCaptureVideoPreviewLayer I’m seeing an intermittent but frequent issue where the camera preview layer briefly flashes empty after certain interruptions, even though the capture session reports itself as running and no errors are emitted. This happens most often after: Locking and unlocking the device Switching cameras (back ↔ front) The issue is not 100% reproducible, but occurs often enough to be noticeable in normal usage. What happens The preview layer briefly flashes as empty (sometimes just a “micro-frame”) Duration: typically ~0.5–2 seconds before frames resume session.isRunning == true throughout No crash, no runtime error, no interruption end failure Focus/exposure restore correctly once frames resume Visually it looks like the preview layer loses frames temporarily, even though the session appears healthy. Repro Intermittent but frequent after: Lock → unlock device Switching camera (front/back) Timing-dependent and non-deterministic Happens multiple times per session, but not every time Key observation AVCaptureSession.isRunning == true does not guarantee that frames are actually flowing. To verify this, I added an AVCaptureVideoDataOutput temporarily: During the blank period, no sample buffers are delivered Frames resume after ~1–2s without any explicit restart Session state remains “running” the entire time What I’ve tried (did NOT fix it) Adding delays before/after startRunning() (0.1–0.5s) Calling startRunning() on different queues Restarting the session in AVCaptureSessionInterruptionEnded Verifying session.connections (all show isActive == true) Rebuilding inputs/outputs during interruption recovery Ensuring startRunning() is never called between beginConfiguration() / commitConfiguration() (Hit the expected runtime warning when attempted) None of the above removed the brief blank preview. Workaround (works visually but expensive) This visually fixes the issue, but: Energy impact jumps from Low → High in Xcode Energy Gauge AVCaptureVideoDataOutput processes 30–60 FPS continuously The gap only lasts ~1–2s, but toggling the delegate on/off cleanly is difficult Overall CPU and energy cost is not acceptable for production Additional notes CPU usage is already relatively high even without the workaround (this app is camera-heavy by nature) With the workaround enabled, energy impact becomes noticeably worse The issue feels like a timing/state desync between session state and actual frame delivery, not a UI issue Questions Is this a known behavior where AVCaptureSession.isRunning == true but frames are temporarily unavailable after interruptions? Is there a recommended way to detect actual frame flow resumption (not just session state)? Should the AVCaptureVideoPreviewLayer.connection (isActive / isEnabled) be explicitly checked or reset after interruptions? Is there a lightweight, energy-efficient way to bridge this short “no frames” gap without using AVCaptureVideoDataOutput? Is rebuilding the entire session the only reliable solution here, or is there a better pattern Apple recommends?

We have a very strange issue that I am trying to solve or find the best practice for. We have a SwiftUI View that uses the Camera to preview. So as suggested in Apples Docs we check authorisation status and then if it's not determined we request authorisation. We also have the privacy entry in the info.plist case .notDetermined: AVCaptureDevice.requestAccess(for: .video) { accessStatusAuthorised in if !accessStatusAuthorised { self.cameraStatus = .notAuthorised } else { self.isAuthorized = true self.cameraStatus = .authorised self.startCameraSession(cameraPosition: cameraPosition) } } case .restricted: cameraStatus = .notAuthorised isAuthorized = false case .denied: cameraStatus = .notAuthorised isAuthorized = false case .authorized: cameraStatus = .authorised isAuthorized = true startCameraSession(cameraPosition: cameraPosition) break @unknown default: isAuthorized = true cameraStatus = .notAuthorised } However when we call this code it freezes the Camera feed, even when allow has been tapped. However and this is the confusing part. If we do not call the code above, we still get the permission for camera access pop up and the camera works fine after allowing. What im concerned about is changing the code to do this and its a possible apple bug that gets fixed and hey then none of the Apps allow the camera function. I cannot see any where that the process has changed for iOS 26 / Xcode 26. Can anyone shed any light on this or had similar experience ?

At which point in the image processing pipeline does iOS apply the white balance gains which can be set via AVCaptureDevice.setWhiteBalanceModeLocked(with:completionHandler:)? Are those gains applied in the analog part of the camera pipeline, before the pixel voltage gets converted via the ADC to digital values? Or does the camera first convert the pixel voltages to digital values and then the gains are applied to the digital values? Is this consistent across devices or can the behavior vary from device to device?

Hi Apple Developer Support Team, We are developing an iOS application using a camera package within a hybrid (cross-platform) framework, and we would like to confirm whether it is possible to disable the camera shutter sound programmatically. As per our understanding, the shutter sound on iOS is system-controlled and depends on the device’s silent/ring mode, and there is no App Store–approved API available to force-disable this sound. Kindly confirm whether this understanding is correct or if any supported alternative approach exists for hybrid or native implementations. Thank you for your clarification. Best regards, ParkhyaSolutions

While implementing the new background backup feature introduced in iOS 26.1, I create a PHAssetResourceUploadJob in an Extension. On iOS 26.1, the system successfully triggers the upload. However, on iOS 26.2, although the job is created successfully and all related configurations are correctly set, the system does not trigger the upload. Could you please help confirm the cause of this issue? Thank you.

Hello Apple Developer Support, I’m developing a virtual camera using the CMIOExtensionDevice / CMIOExtensionStreamSource APIs on macOS. While the virtual camera appears in system settings and apps like Zoom and Google Meet, the video output exhibits the following issues: Jittering frames: The first frame sometimes appears correctly, but subsequent frames flicker or jitter. Solid color fill: Eventually, the camera feed fills entirely with a solid accent color (e.g., blue), rather than the intended video content. Console logs: Repeated messages appear in Console.app: Invalid display 0x00000000 Setup details: The virtual camera is created using CMIOExtensionDevice and CMIOExtensionStream. Video frames are rendered from NSImage/CGImage using CGContext and copied into CVPixelBuffers. Frame delivery is controlled by a DispatchSourceTimer at 60 FPS. macOS version: 26.2 Xcode version: 26.1 Observations: The Invalid display 0x00000000 logs suggest that CGContext drawing or NSImage operations are failing in headless mode (i.e., there is no real display attached to the virtual camera). Using CIContext with .useSoftwareRenderer = true appears to mitigate some flicker, but not entirely. Questions / Requests: Is it expected that CoreMediaIO virtual cameras cannot reliably render CGImage / NSImage frames offscreen? Are there recommended APIs or approaches to render virtual camera frames fully headless to avoid display-dependent jitter? Is there any documentation or sample code from Apple showing stable video output from a virtual camera extension that does not rely on a physical display? Any guidance or examples would be greatly appreciated. This issue prevents the virtual camera from being used reliably in standard video apps. Thank you, Savvy

Hi, I am trying to implement a PHBackgroundResourceUploadExtension to upload backup media files to an external cloud service based on these docs: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/PhotoKit/uploading-asset-resources-in-the-background#Acknowledge-completed-jobs Creating jobs and actual uploading is working as expected, but the problem I have is in the acknowledgeCompletedJobs() function. When trying to access a job's resource, the resource is nil and thus has empty assetLocalIdentifier and originalFilename. Did anybody successfully implement this extension or knows, why this would happen? Because the resource of an acknowledgable job is empty, I can not match it back to my processed assets.

How I can get iCloud photo file size? Could I use private API like this in prod? Does anyone know another way? (without downloading the file to the device) func getFileSize(asset: PHAsset) -> Int64? { let resources = PHAssetResource.assetResources(for: asset) let resource = resources.first let size = resource?.value(forKey: "fileSize") as? Int64 return size }

I'm developing a PHBackgroundResourceUploadExtension and finding it difficult to debug because the system controls when the extension launches. Current experience: The extension starts at unpredictable times (anywhere from 1 minute to several hours after photos are added) By the time I attach the debugger, the upload may have already completed or failed Breakpoints in init() or early lifecycle methods are often missed Questions: Is there a way to force-launch the extension during development (similar to how we can manually trigger Background App Refresh in Xcode)? Are there any launch arguments or environment variables that put the extension in a debug/eager mode? I tried taking photos/videos, but this doesn't trigged app extension in all cases. Any tips for improving the debug cycle would be greatly appreciated. Environment: iOS 26, Xcode 18

Hello! In iOS1.7.5, photogrammetry sessions cannot be performed on iPhones without LiDAR, but I don't think there is much difference in GPU performance between those with and without LiDAR. For example, the chips installed in the iPhone 14 Pro and iPhone 15 are the same A16 Bionic, and I think the GPU performance is also the same. Despite this, photogrammetry can be performed on the iPhone 14 Pro but not on the iPhone 15. Why is this? In fact, we have confirmed that if you transfer images taken with an iPhone 16 without LiDAR to an iPhone 16 Pro and run a photogrammetry session using those images, a 3D model can be generated. Also, will photogrammetry be able to be performed on high-performance iPhones without LiDAR in the future?

My app is a camera app that supports Picture-in-Picture (PiP) mode. Normally, when the device rotates, I get the device orientation from iOS and use it to rotate the camera feed so that the preview stays correctly aligned. However, when the app enters PiP mode, it is considered to be in the background, and I can no longer receive orientation updates from the system. As a result, I can’t apply rotation corrections to the camera video in PiP mode. Is there any way to retrieve device orientation while the app is in the background (specifically during PiP mode)? Any guidance would be greatly appreciated. Thank you!

I'm developing a video capture app using AVFoundation, designed specifically for use on a boat pylon to record slalom water skiing. This setup involves considerable vibration. As you may know, the OIS that Apple began adding to lenses since the iPhone 7 is actually very problematic in high vibration circumstances, ironically creating very shaky video, whereas lenses without OIS produce perfectly stable video. Because of this, up until iPhone 14, the solution for my app was simply to use the Selfie lens, which did not have OIS. Starting with iPhone 14 through iPhone 16 (non-Pro models), technical specs suggest the selfie lens still does not include OIS. However, I’m still seeing the same kind of shaky video behavior I see on OIS-equipped lenses. The one hardware change I see in this camera module is the addition of PDAF (Phase Detection Autofocus), so that is my best guess as to what is causing the unstable video. 1- Does that make any sense - that in high vibration settings, PDAF could create unstable video in the same way that OIS does? Or could it be something else that was changed between the iPhone 13 and 14 Selfie lens? Thinking that the issue was PDAF, I figured that if I enabled my app to set a Manual Focus level, that ought to circumvent PDAF (expecting that if a lens is manually focusing, it can’t also be autofocusing via PDAF). However, even with manual focus locked via AVCaptureDevice in my app, on the Selfie lens of an iPhone 16, the video still comes out very shaky, basically unusable. I also tested with the built-in Apple Camera app (using the press-and-hold to lock focus and exposure) and another 3rd party camera app to lock focus, all with the same results, so it's not that my app just isn't correctly doing manual focus. So I'm stuck with these questions: 2- Does the selfie camera on iPhones 14–16 use PDAF even when focus is set to locked/manual mode? 3- Is there any way in AVFoundation to disable or suppress PDAF during video recording (e.g., a flag, device format setting, or private API)? 4- Is PDAF behavior or suppression documented or controllable via AVCaptureDevice or any related class? 5- If no control of PDAF is available, are there any best practices for stabilizing or smoothing this effect programmatically? Note that I also have set my app to use the most aggressive form of stabilization available, so it defaults to .cinematicExtendedEnhanced, if that’s not available, then .cinematicExtended, etc. On the 16 Selfie lens, it is using .cinematicExtended. As an additional question: 6- Would those be the most appropriate stabilization settings for a high vibration environment, and if not, what would be best?