Prioritize user privacy and data security in your app. Discuss best practices for data handling, user consent, and security measures to protect user information.

All subtopics
Posts under Privacy & Security topic

Post

Replies

Boosts

Views

Activity

Issues with Password based Platform SSO
We are using Apple's PSSO to federate device login to out own IdP. We have developed our own extension app and deployed it using MDM. Things works fine but there are 2 issues that we are trying to get to the root cause - On some devices after restarting we see an error message on the logic screen saying "The registration for this device is invalid and must be repaired" And other error message is "SmartCard configuration is invalid for this account" For the 1st we have figured out that this happens when the registration doesn't happen fully and the key is not tied to the user so when the disk needs to be decrypted at the FileVault screen the issue is raised. For the "SmartCard configuration is invalid for this account" issue also one aspect is invalid registration but there has been other instances as well where the devices were registered completely but then also the the above error was raised. We verified the registration being completed by checking if the SmartCard is visible in the System Report containing the key. Has anyone seen the above issues and any possible resolution around it?
1
0
212
Oct ’25
Unexpectedly invalidated Biometrics in iOS 18.3.2 or later
There is a sudden surge of users in our apps with invalidated biometrics. Even though the issue is being handled correctly and the user has another way to login, some of the users forgot their passwords and they can not login. Is there any known issue with Biometrics in iOS 18.3.2 or later? There is a (possible) related discussion here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256011565
1
0
118
Apr ’25
Is there a way to hide the 'Save to another device' option during iOS WebAuthn registration?
Hello, I am currently implementing a biometric authentication registration flow using WebAuthn. I am using ASAuthorizationPlatformPublicKeyCredentialRegistrationRequest, and I would like to know if there is a way to hide the "Save to another device" option that appears during the registration process. Specifically, I want to guide users to save the passkey only locally on their device, without prompting them to save it to iCloud Keychain or another device. If there is a way to hide this option or if there is a recommended approach to achieve this, I would greatly appreciate your guidance. Also, if this is not possible due to iOS version or API limitations, I would be grateful if you could share any best practices for limiting user options in this scenario. If anyone has experienced a similar issue, your advice would be very helpful. Thank you in advance.
1
0
1.1k
Oct ’25
Sign In by Apple on Firebase - 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable
Hello everyone, I'm encountering a persistent 503 Server Temporarily Not Available error when trying to implement "Sign in with Apple" for my web application. I've already performed a full review of my configuration and I'm confident it's set up correctly, which makes this server-side error particularly confusing. Problem Description: Our web application uses Firebase Authentication to handle the "Sign in with Apple" flow. When a user clicks the sign-in button, they are correctly redirected to the appleid.apple.com authorization page. However, instead of seeing the login prompt, the page immediately displays a 503 Server Temporarily Not Available error. This is the redirect URL being generated (with the state parameter truncated for security): https://appleid.apple.com/auth/authorize?response_type=code&client_id=XXXXXX&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2FXXXXXX.firebaseapp.com%2F__%2Fauth%2Fhandler&state=AMbdmDk...&scope=email%20name&response_mode=form_post Troubleshooting Steps Performed: Initially, I was receiving an invalid_client error, which prompted me to meticulously verify every part of my setup. I have confirmed the following: App ID Configuration: The "Sign in with Apple" capability is enabled for our primary App ID. Services ID Configuration: We have a Services ID configured specifically for this. The "Sign in with Apple" feature is enabled on this Services ID. The domain is registered and verified under "Domains and Subdomains". Firebase Settings Match Apple Settings: The Services ID from Apple is used as the Client ID in our Firebase configuration. The Team ID is correct. We have generated a private key, and both the Key ID and the .p8 file have been correctly uploaded to Firebase. The key is not revoked in the Apple Developer portal. Since the redirect to Apple is happening with the correct client_id and redirect_uri, and the error is a 5xx server error (not a 4xx client error like invalid_client), I believe our configuration is correct and the issue might be on Apple's end. This has been happening consistently for some time. My Questions: What could be causing a persistent 503 Server Temporarily Not Available error on the /auth/authorize endpoint when all client-side configurations appear to be correct? What is the formal process for opening a technical support ticket (TSI) directly with Apple Developer Support for an issue like this? Thank you for any insights or help you can provide.
0
0
639
Sep ’25
Control over "\(your_app) wants to open \(another_app)" Dialog
I can't find any information about why this is happening, nor can I reproduce the 'successful' state on this device. My team needs to understand this behavior, so any insight would be greatly appreciated! The expected behavior: If I delete both apps and reinstall them, attempting to open the second app from my app should trigger the system confirmation dialog. The specifics: I'm using the MSAL library. It navigates the user to the Microsoft Authenticator app and then returns to my app. However, even after resetting the phone and reinstalling both apps, the dialog never shows up (it just opens the app directly). Does anyone know the logic behind how iOS handles these prompts or why it might be persistent even after a reset? Thanks in advance!
0
0
161
Jan ’26
Outlook for Mac add-in - Passkeys
hello, My organization has an outlook add-in that requires auth into our platform. As Microsoft forces Auth on MacOS to use WKWebView https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/add-ins/concepts/browsers-used-by-office-web-add-ins, we are running into a situation that we cannot use passkeys as an auth method as we are unable to trigger WebAuthN flows. We’ve raised this in Microsoft side but they have deferred to Apple given WKWebView is Safari based. This is a big blocker for us to achieve a full passwordless future. Has anyone come across this situation? Thank you.
0
0
358
Aug ’25
App Attest – DCAppAttestService.isSupported == false on some devices (~0.23%)
Hi Apple team, For our iPhone app (App Store build), a small subset of devices report DCAppAttestService.isSupported == false, preventing App Attest from being enabled. Approx. impact: 0.23% (352/153,791) iOS observed: Broadly 15.x–18.7 (also saw a few anomalous entries ios/26.0, likely client logging noise) Device models: Multiple generations (iPhone8–iPhone17); a few iPad7 entries present although the app targets iPhone Questions In iPhone main app context, what conditions can make isSupported return false on iOS 14+? Are there known device/iOS cases where temporary false can occur (SEP/TrustChain related)? Any recommended remediation (e.g., DFU restore)? Could you share logging guidance (Console.app subsystem/keywords) to investigate such cases? What fallback policy do you recommend when isSupported == false (e.g., SE-backed signature + DeviceCheck + risk rules), and any limitations? We can provide sysdiagnose/Console logs and more case details upon request. Thank you, —
3
0
241
Oct ’25
Clarification on Apple Sign-In Integration Across Multiple Applications
Dear Apple Support Team, I hope this message finds you well. Our tech team is currently working on integrating the Apple Sign-In feature, and we have a specific query where we would appreciate your guidance. Background Context: We have several applications across different brands and are aiming to implement a unified sign-up and sign-in experience. Currently, we are utilizing a shared website to enable single sign-in functionality across all these applications. Our Query: If we embed the same website in all of these applications and implement the Apple Sign-In within this website—using a dedicated Service ID that is configured with the App Store name and icon—will users consistently see the Apple Sign-In pop-up with the Service ID’s name and icon, regardless of which base application (e.g., App A, App B, etc.) the website is accessed from? We would like to ensure a seamless and consistent user experience and want to confirm that the branding within the Apple Sign-In prompt will reflect the Service ID’s configuration, rather than that of the hosting app. Looking forward to your guidance on this matter.
0
0
90
Apr ’25
Empty userID for cross-platform attestation with Android
I've come across strange behavior with the userID property on the returned credential from a passkey attestation. When performing a cross-device passkey assertion between iOS and Android by scanning the generated QR code on my iPhone with an Android device the returned credential object contains an empty userID. This does not happen when performing an on device or cross-device assertion using two iPhones. Is this expected behavior, or is there something I'm missing here? I couldn't find any more information on this in the documentation. iOS Version: 26.0.1, Android Version: 13
0
0
445
Oct ’25
The login button that was originally supposed to show the Apple ID sign-in option inexplicably displayed the DiDi app icon instead.
"Our app has absolutely no integration with DiDi login. We only integrate WeChat, QQ, carrier, and Apple ID login, and all related login entry icons are local resources. On an iPhone 16 Pro Max device with iOS system version 18.7, there was one isolated incident where the Apple ID login entry icon mysteriously changed to the DiDi app icon. What could be the possible iOS system-level causes for this?"
0
0
93
Sep ’25
Webview In-App Browser Microsoft Login Redirection Not Working
Hello, We received a rejection on one of our IOS applications because we were doing Microsoft MSAL login through the user's browser. The representative recommended that we use Webview to do in-app logins. However when we tried to handle the custom app uri redirection (looking like myapp://auth/), Webview does not seem to send the user back to the application. Does anyone have a fix for this? Thanks!
0
0
335
Sep ’25
Apple Sign-In: "invalid-credential" error despite correct configuration - Firebase Auth iOS
Problem Summary I'm experiencing a persistent invalid-credential error with Apple Sign-In on iOS despite having verified every aspect of the configuration over the past 6 months. The error occurs at the Firebase Authentication level after successfully receiving credentials from Apple. Error Message: Firebase auth error: invalid-credential - Invalid OAuth response from apple.com. Environment Platform: iOS (Flutter app) Firebase Auth: v5.7.0 Sign in with Apple: v6.1.2 Xcode: Latest version with capability enabled iOS Target: 13.0+ Bundle ID: com.harmonics.orakl What Actually Happens ✅ Apple Sign-In popup appears ✅ User can authenticate with Apple ID ✅ Apple returns credentials with identityToken ❌ Firebase rejects with invalid-credential error The error occurs at Firebase level, not Apple level. What I've Tried Created a brand new Apple Key (previous key was 6 months old) Tested with both App ID and Service ID in Firebase Completely reinstalled CocoaPods dependencies Verified nonce handling is correct (hashed to Apple, raw to Firebase) Activated Firebase Hosting and attempted to deploy .well-known file Checked Cloud Logging (no detailed error messages found) Disabled and re-enabled Apple Sign-In provider in Firebase Verified Return URL matches exactly Waited and retried multiple times over 6 months Questions Is the .well-known/apple-developer-domain-association.txt file required? If yes, how should it be generated? Firebase Hosting doesn't auto-generate it. Could there be a server-side caching/blacklist issue with my domain or Service ID after multiple failed attempts? Should the Apple Key be linked to the Service ID instead of the App ID? The key shows as linked to Z3NNDZVWMZ.com.harmonics.orakl (the App ID). Is there any way to get more detailed error logs from Firebase about why it's rejecting the Apple OAuth response? Could using a custom domain instead of .firebaseapp.com resolve the issue? Additional Context Google Sign-In works perfectly on the same app The configuration has been reviewed by multiple developers Error persists across different devices and iOS versions No errors in Xcode console except the Firebase rejection Any help would be greatly appreciated. I've exhausted all standard troubleshooting steps and documentation. Project Details: Bundle ID: com.harmonics.orakl Firebase Project: harmonics-app Team ID: Z3N....... code : // 1. Generate raw nonce final String rawNonce = _generateRandomNonce(); // 2. Hash with SHA-256 final String hashedNonce = _sha256Hash(rawNonce); // 3. Send HASHED nonce to Apple ✅ final appleCredential = await SignInWithApple.getAppleIDCredential( scopes: [AppleIDAuthorizationScopes.email, AppleIDAuthorizationScopes.fullName], nonce: hashedNonce, // Correct: hashed nonce to Apple ); // 4. Create Firebase credential with RAW nonce ✅ final oauthCredential = OAuthProvider("apple.com").credential( idToken: appleCredential.identityToken!, rawNonce: rawNonce, // Correct: raw nonce to Firebase ); // 5. Sign in with Firebase - ERROR OCCURS HERE ❌ await FirebaseAuth.instance.signInWithCredential(oauthCredential);
0
0
94
Oct ’25
Errors with Attestation on App
We recently deployed Attestation on our application, and for a majority of the 40,000 users it works well. We have about six customers who are failing attestation. In digging through debug logs, we're seeing this error "iOS assertion verification failed. Unauthorized access attempted." We're assuming that the UUID is blocked somehow on Apple side but we're stumped as to why. We had a customer come in and we could look at the phone, and best we can tell it's just a generic phone with no jailbroken or any malicious apps. How can we determine if the UUID is blocked?
3
0
220
May ’25
Certificates, Identifiers, and Provisioning Profiles
Confirmation on "Sign in with Apple JS" Web Implementation Compatibility Hello Developers We are trying to implement "Sign in with Apple JS" on our e-commerce website, which is built on a SaaS platform called Ticimax in Turkey. Our platform provider (Ticimax) claims that a web-based implementation of "Sign in with Apple" is not currently possible. They state this is due to "Apple's browser security policies" that prevent consistent and secure support across all major browsers, particularly Safari with its privacy features. Could you please confirm if there are any fundamental security policies or technical restrictions imposed by Apple that would prevent a standard, secure implementation of "Sign in with Apple JS" on a typical e-commerce website? We know many global websites use this feature successfully. We need to know if our provider's claim has a technical basis from Apple's perspective, or if this is a standard implementation challenge that developers are expected to handle (e.g., using pop-ups instead of redirects to comply with ITP). Any official clarification or documentation you can provide on this matter would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
0
0
226
Aug ’25
APP ID's indentifier not updating
When implementing Sign In with Apple I created an App ID and a Service ID for my app. I didn't configure the Server-to-Server Notification URL properly there and token revocation didn't work. Later on I updated the url config and the name of the identifiers. However, when I Sign in with Apple in my app I still see the old identifier name in my iPhone Settings->Apple Account->Sign in with Apple. I would assume that if the name doesn't update, the configuration doesn't update either. I'm using automatic Xcode signing, I have deleted all the profiles locally, cleaned project, bumped versions, waited for a week, nothing worked. Token revocation for account deletion doesn't work properly I would assume because of the initial misconfiguration. I want to mention that this is working fine for my development build (another bundleID, AppID, ServiceID) What am I missing here?
0
0
129
Jun ’25
Received email that my Sign in with Apple account was rejected
I set up "Sign in with Apple" via REST API according to the documentation. I can log in on my website and everything looks fine for the user. But I receive an email, that my "Sign in with Apple" account has been rejected by my own website. It states, I will have to re-submit my name and email address the next time I log in to this website. I don't see any error messages, no log entries, no HTTP errors anywhere. I also can't find anything in the docs, the emails seem to not be mentioned there, searching for anything with "rejected" in the forum did not yield any helpful result, because they are always about App entries being rejected etc. Did someone experience something similar yet? What's the reason, I'm getting these emails? I get them every time I go through the "Sign in with Apple" flow on my website again.
0
0
288
Aug ’25
App Groups: macOS vs iOS: Working Towards Harmony
I regularly see folks confused by the difference in behaviour of app groups between macOS and iOS. There have been substantial changes in this space recently. While much of this is now covered in the official docs (r. 92322409), I’ve updated this post to go into all the gory details. If you have questions or comments, start a new thread with the details. Put it in the App & System Services > Core OS topic area and tag it with Code Signing and Entitlements. Oh, and if your question is about app group containers, also include Files and Storage. Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com" App Groups: macOS vs iOS: Working Towards Harmony There are two styles of app group ID: iOS-style app group IDs start with group., for example, group.eskimo1.test. macOS-style app group IDs start with your Team ID, for example, SKMME9E2Y8.eskimo1.test. This difference has been the source of numerous weird problems over the years. Starting in Feb 2025, iOS-style app group IDs are fully supported on macOS for all product types [1]. If you’re writing new code that uses app groups, use an iOS-style app group ID. If you have existing code that uses a macOS-style app group ID, consider how you might transition to the iOS style. IMPORTANT The Feb 2025 changes aren’t tied to an OS release but rather to a Developer website update. For more on this, see Feb 2025 Changes, below. [1] If your product is a standalone executable, like a daemon or agent, wrap it in an app-like structure, as explained in Signing a daemon with a restricted entitlement. iOS-Style App Group IDs An iOS-style app group ID has the following features: It starts with the group. prefix, for example, group.eskimo1.test. You allocate it on the Developer website. This assigns the app group ID to your team. You then claim access to it by listing it in the App Groups entitlement (com.apple.security.application-groups) entitlement. That claim must be authorised by a provisioning profile [1]. The Developer website will only let you include your team’s app group IDs in your profile. For more background on provisioning profiles, see TN3125 Inside Code Signing: Provisioning Profiles. iOS-style app group IDs originated on iOS with iOS 3.0. They’ve always been supported on iOS’s child platforms (iPadOS, tvOS, visionOS, and watchOS). On the Mac: They’ve been supported by Mac Catalyst since that technology was introduced. Likewise for iOS Apps on Mac. Starting in Feb 2025, they’re supported for other Mac products. [1] Strictly speaking macOS does not require that, but if your claim is not authorised by a profile then you might run into other problems. See Entitlements-Validated Flag, below. macOS-Style App Group IDs A macOS-style app group ID has the following features: It should start with your Team ID [1], for example, SKMME9E2Y8.eskimo1.test. It can’t be explicitly allocated on the Developer website. Code that isn’t sandboxed doesn’t need to claim the app group ID in the App Groups entitlement. [2] To use an app group, claim the app group ID in the App Groups entitlement. The App Groups entitlement is not restricted on macOS, meaning that this claim doesn’t need to be authorised by a provisioning profile [3]. However, if you claim an app group ID that’s not authorised in some way, you might run into problems. More on that later in this post. If you submit an app to the Mac App Store, the submission process checks that your app group IDs make sense, that is, they either start with your Team ID (macOS style) or are assigned to your team (iOS style). [1] This is “should” because, historically, macOS has not actually required it. However, that’s now changing, with things like app group container protection. [2] This was true prior to macOS 15. It may still technically be true in macOS 15 and later, but the most important thing, access to the app group container, requires the entitlement because of app group container protection. [3] Technically it’s a validation-required entitlement, something that we’ll come back to in the Entitlements-Validated Flag section. Feb 2025 Changes On 21 Feb 2025 we rolled out a change to the Developer website that completes the support for iOS-style app group IDs on the Mac. Specifically, it’s now possible to create a Mac provisioning profile that authorises the use of an iOS-style app group ID. Note This change doesn’t affect Mac Catalyst or iOS Apps on Mac, which have always been able to use iOS-style app group IDs on the Mac. Prior to this change it was possible to use an iOS-style app group ID on the Mac but that might result in some weird behaviour. Later sections of this post describe some of those problems. Of course, that information is now only of historical interest because, if you’re using an iOS-style app group, you can and should authorise that use with a provisioning profile. We also started seeding Xcode 16.3, which has since been release. This is aware of the Developer website change, and its Signing & Capabilities editor actively encourages you to use iOS-style app groups IDs in all products. Note This Xcode behaviour is the only option for iOS and its child platforms. With Xcode 16.3, it’s now the default for macOS as well. If you have existing project, enable this behaviour using the Register App Groups build setting. Finally, we updated a number of app group documentation pages, including App Groups entitlement and Configuring app groups. Crossing the Streams In some circumstances you might need to have a single app that accesses both an iOS- and a macOS-style app group. For example: You have a macOS app. You want to migrate to an iOS-style app group ID, perhaps because you want to share an app group container with a Mac Catalyst app. But you also need to access existing content in a container identified by a macOS-style app group ID. Historically this caused problems (FB16664827) but, as of Jun 2025, this is fully supported (r. 148552377). When the Developer website generates a Mac provisioning profile for an App ID with the App Groups capability, it automatically adds TEAM_ID.* to the list of app group IDs authorised by that profile (where TEAM_ID is your Team ID). This allows the app to claim access to every iOS-style app group ID associated with the App ID and any macOS-style app group IDs for that team. This helps in two circumstances: It avoids any Mac App Store Connect submission problems, because App Store Connect can see that the app’s profile authorises its use of all the it app group IDs it claims access to. Outside of App Store — for example, when you directly distribute an app using Developer ID signing — you no longer have to rely on macOS granting implicit access to macOS-style app group IDs. Rather, such access is explicitly authorised by your profile. That ensures that your entitlements remain validated, as discussed in the Entitlements-Validated Flag, below. A Historical Interlude These different styles of app group IDs have historical roots: On iOS, third-party apps have always used provisioning profiles, and thus the App Groups entitlement is restricted just like any other entitlement. On macOS, support for app groups was introduced before macOS had general support for provisioning profiles [1], and thus the App Groups entitlement is unrestricted. The unrestricted nature of this entitlement poses two problems. The first is accidental collisions. How do you prevent folks from accidentally using an app group ID that’s in use by some other developer? On iOS this is easy: The Developer website assigns each app group ID to a specific team, which guarantees uniqueness. macOS achieved a similar result by using the Team ID as a prefix. The second problem is malicious reuse. How do you prevent a Mac app from accessing the app group containers of some other team? Again, this isn’t an issue on iOS because the App Groups entitlement is restricted. On macOS the solution was for the Mac App Store to prevent you from publishing an app that used an app group ID that’s used by another team. However, this only works for Mac App Store apps. Directly distributed apps were free to access app group containers of any other app. That was considered acceptable back when the Mac App Store was first introduced. That’s no longer the case, which is why macOS 15 introduced app group container protection. See App Group Container Protection, below. [1] I’m specifically talking about provisioning profiles for directly distributed apps, that is, apps using Developer ID signing. Entitlements-Validated Flag The fact that the App Groups entitlement is unrestricted on macOS is, when you think about it, a little odd. The purpose of entitlements is to gate access to functionality. If an entitlement isn’t restricted, it’s not much of a gate! For most unrestricted entitlements that’s not a problem. Specifically, for both the App Sandbox and Hardened Runtime entitlements, those are things you opt in to, so macOS is happy to accept the entitlement at face value. After all, if you want to cheat you can just not opt in [1]. However, this isn’t the case for the App Groups entitlement, which actually gates access to functionality. Dealing with this requires macOS to walk a fine line between security and compatibility. Part of that solution is the entitlements-validated flag. When a process runs an executable, macOS checks its entitlements. There are two categories: Restricted entitlements must be authorised by a provisioning profile. If your process runs an executable that claims a restricted entitlement that’s not authorised by a profile, the system traps. Unrestricted entitlements don’t have to be authorised by a provisioning profile; they can be used by any code at any time. However, the App Groups entitlement is a special type of unrestricted entitlement called a validation-required entitlement. If a process runs an executable that claims a validation-required entitlement and that claim is not authorised by a profile, the system allows the process to continue running but clears its entitlements-validated flag. Some subsystems gate functionality on the entitlements-validated flag. For example, the data protection keychain uses entitlements as part of its access control model, but refuses to honour those entitlements if the entitlement-validated flag has been cleared. Note If you’re curious about this flag, use the procinfo subcommand of launchctl to view it. For example: % sudo launchctl procinfo `pgrep Test20230126` … code signing info = valid … entitlements validated … If the flag has been cleared, this line will be missing from the code signing info section. Historically this was a serious problem because it prevented you from creating an app that uses both app groups and the data protection keychain [2] (r. 104859788). Fortunately that’s no longer an issue because the Developer website now lets you include the App Groups entitlement in macOS provisioning profiles. [1] From the perspective of macOS checking entitlements at runtime. There are other checks: The App Sandbox is mandatory for Mac App Store apps, but that’s checked when you upload the app to App Store Connect. Directly distributed apps must be notarised to pass Gatekeeper, and the notary service requires that all executables enable the hardened runtime. [2] See TN3137 On Mac keychain APIs and implementations for more about the data protection keychain. App Groups and the Keychain The differences described above explain a historical oddity associated with keychain access. The Sharing access to keychain items among a collection of apps article says: Application groups When you collect related apps into an application group using the App Groups entitlement, they share access to a group container, and gain the ability to message each other in certain ways. You can use app group names as keychain access group names, without adding them to the Keychain Access Groups entitlement. On iOS this makes a lot of sense: The App Groups entitlement is a restricted entitlement on iOS. The Developer website assigns each iOS-style app group ID to a specific team, which guarantees uniqueness. The required group. prefix means that these keychain access groups can’t collide with other keychain access groups, which all start with an App ID prefix (there’s also Apple-only keychain access groups that start with other prefixes, like apple). However, this didn’t work on macOS [1] because the App Groups entitlement is unrestricted there. However, with the Feb 2025 changes it should now be possible to use an iOS-style app group ID as a keychain access group on macOS. Note I say “should” because I’ve not actually tried it (-: Keep in mind that standard keychain access groups are protected the same way on all platforms, using the restricted Keychain Access Groups entitlement (keychain-access-groups). [1] Except for Mac Catalyst apps and iOS Apps on Mac. Not Entirely Unsatisfied When you launch a Mac app that uses app groups you might see this log entry: type: error time: 10:41:35.858009+0000 process: taskgated-helper subsystem: com.apple.ManagedClient category: ProvisioningProfiles message: com.example.apple-samplecode.Test92322409: Unsatisfied entitlements: com.apple.security.application-groups Note The exact format of that log entry, and the circumstances under which it’s generated, varies by platform. On macOS 13.0.1 I was able to generate it by running a sandboxed app that claims a macOS-style app group ID in the App Groups entitlement and also claims some other restricted entitlement. This looks kinda worrying and can be the source of problems. It means that the App Groups entitlement claims an entitlement that’s not authorised by a provisioning profile. On iOS this would trap, but on macOS the system allows the process to continue running. It does, however, clear the entitlements-validate flag. See Entitlements-Validated Flag for an in-depth discussion of this. The easiest way to avoid this problem is to authorise your app group ID claims with a provisioning profile. If there’s some reason you can’t do that, watch out for potential problems with: The data protection keychain — See the discussion of that in the Entitlements-Validated Flag and App Groups and the Keychain sections, both above. App group container protection — See App Group Container Protection, below. App Group Container Protection macOS 15 introduced app group container protection. To access an app group container without user intervention: Claim access to the app group by listing its ID in the App Groups entitlement. Locate the container by calling the containerURL(forSecurityApplicationGroupIdentifier:) method. Ensure that at least one of the following criteria are met: Your app is deployed via the Mac App Store (A). Or via TestFlight when running on macOS 15.1 or later (B). Or the app group ID starts with your app’s Team ID (C). Or your app’s claim to the app group is authorised by a provisioning profile embedded in the app (D) [1]. If your app doesn’t follow these rules, the system prompts the user to approve its access to the container. If granted, that consent applies only for the duration of that app instance. For more on this, see: The System Integrity Protection section of the macOS Sequoia 15 Release Notes The System Integrity Protection section of the macOS Sequoia 15.1 Release Notes WWDC 2024 Session 10123 What’s new in privacy, starting at 12:23 The above criteria mean that you rarely run into the app group authorisation prompt. If you encounter a case where that happens, feel free to start a thread here on DevForums. See the top of this post for info on the topic and tags to use. Note Prior to the Feb 2025 change, things generally worked out fine when you app was deployed but you might’ve run into problems during development. That’s no longer the case. [1] This is what allows Mac Catalyst and iOS Apps on Mac to work. Revision History 2025-08-12 Added a reference to the Register App Groups build setting. 2025-07-28 Updated the Crossing the Streams section for the Jun 2025 change. Made other minor editorial changes. 2025-04-16 Rewrote the document now that iOS-style app group IDs are fully supported on the Mac. Changed the title from App Groups: macOS vs iOS: Fight! to App Groups: macOS vs iOS: Working Towards Harmony 2025-02-25 Fixed the Xcode version number mentioned in yesterday’s update. 2025-02-24 Added a quick update about the iOS-style app group IDs on macOS issue. 2024-11-05 Further clarified app group container protection. Reworked some other sections to account for this new reality. 2024-10-29 Clarified the points in App Group Container Protection. 2024-10-23 Fleshed out the discussion of app group container protection on macOS 15. 2024-09-04 Added information about app group container protection on macOS 15. 2023-01-31 Renamed the Not Entirely Unsatisfactory section to Not Entirely Unsatisfied. Updated it to describe the real impact of that log message. 2022-12-12 First posted.
0
0
5.5k
Aug ’25
App transfer- get transfer {"error":"invalid_request"}
Migrating APP and users, obtaining the user's transfer_sub, an exception occurred: {"error":"invalid_request"} `POST /auth/usermigrationinfo HTTP/1.1 Host: appleid.apple.com Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded Authorization: Bearer {access_token} sub={sub}&target={recipient_team_id}&client_id={client_id}&client_secret={client_secret} The specific request is as follows: 15:56:20.858 AppleService - --> POST https://appleid.apple.com/auth/usermigrationinfo 15:56:20.858 AppleService - Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded 15:56:20.858 AppleService - Content-Length: 395 15:56:20.858 AppleService - Authorization: Bearer a56a8828048af48c0871e73b55d8910aa.0.rzvs.96uUcy1KBqo34Kj8qrPb4w 15:56:20.858 AppleService - 15:56:20.858 AppleService - sub=001315.1535dbadc15b472987acdf634719a06a.0600&target=WLN67KBBV8&client_id=com.hawatalk.live&client_secret=eyJraWQiOiIzODg5U1ZXNDM5IiwiYWxnIjoiRVMyNTYifQ.eyJpc3MiOiJRMzlUU1BHMjk3IiwiaWF0IjoxNzU1MDcxNzc5LCJleHAiOjE3NTUwNzUzNzksImF1ZCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXBwbGVpZC5hcHBsZS5jb20iLCJzdWIiOiJjb20uaGF3YXRhbGsubGl2ZSJ9.8i9RYIcepuIiEqOMu1OOAlmmjnB84AJueel21gNapiNa9pr3498Zkj8J5MUIzvvnvsvUJkKQjp_VvnsG_IIrTA 15:56:20.859 AppleService - --> END POST (395-byte body) 15:56:21.675 AppleService - <-- 400 Bad Request https://appleid.apple.com/auth/usermigrationinfo(816ms) 15:56:21.675 AppleService - Server: Apple 15:56:21.675 AppleService - Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2025 07:56:22 GMT 15:56:21.675 AppleService - Content-Type: application/json;charset=UTF-8 15:56:21.675 AppleService - Content-Length: 27 15:56:21.675 AppleService - Connection: keep-alive 15:56:21.675 AppleService - Pragma: no-cache 15:56:21.675 AppleService - Cache-Control: no-store 15:56:21.676 AppleService - 15:56:21.676 AppleService - {"error":"invalid_request"} 15:56:21.676 AppleService - <-- END HTTP (27-byte body) ` Current Team ID: Q39TSPG297 Recipient Team ID: WLN67KBBV8 CLIENT_ID: com.hawatalk.live
0
0
192
Aug ’25
iPad App Suggestions - Api Security
Hi , I have a requirement like, Develop an app for iPad and app uses .net core apis. App will be in kiosk mode, and app doesn't have any type of authentication even OTP also. As the apis will be publishing to all over internet, how can we achieve security to apis? Kindly provide suggestions for this implementation
1
0
222
Sep ’25
Issues with Password based Platform SSO
We are using Apple's PSSO to federate device login to out own IdP. We have developed our own extension app and deployed it using MDM. Things works fine but there are 2 issues that we are trying to get to the root cause - On some devices after restarting we see an error message on the logic screen saying "The registration for this device is invalid and must be repaired" And other error message is "SmartCard configuration is invalid for this account" For the 1st we have figured out that this happens when the registration doesn't happen fully and the key is not tied to the user so when the disk needs to be decrypted at the FileVault screen the issue is raised. For the "SmartCard configuration is invalid for this account" issue also one aspect is invalid registration but there has been other instances as well where the devices were registered completely but then also the the above error was raised. We verified the registration being completed by checking if the SmartCard is visible in the System Report containing the key. Has anyone seen the above issues and any possible resolution around it?
Replies
1
Boosts
0
Views
212
Activity
Oct ’25
Unexpectedly invalidated Biometrics in iOS 18.3.2 or later
There is a sudden surge of users in our apps with invalidated biometrics. Even though the issue is being handled correctly and the user has another way to login, some of the users forgot their passwords and they can not login. Is there any known issue with Biometrics in iOS 18.3.2 or later? There is a (possible) related discussion here: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/256011565
Replies
1
Boosts
0
Views
118
Activity
Apr ’25
Is there a way to hide the 'Save to another device' option during iOS WebAuthn registration?
Hello, I am currently implementing a biometric authentication registration flow using WebAuthn. I am using ASAuthorizationPlatformPublicKeyCredentialRegistrationRequest, and I would like to know if there is a way to hide the "Save to another device" option that appears during the registration process. Specifically, I want to guide users to save the passkey only locally on their device, without prompting them to save it to iCloud Keychain or another device. If there is a way to hide this option or if there is a recommended approach to achieve this, I would greatly appreciate your guidance. Also, if this is not possible due to iOS version or API limitations, I would be grateful if you could share any best practices for limiting user options in this scenario. If anyone has experienced a similar issue, your advice would be very helpful. Thank you in advance.
Replies
1
Boosts
0
Views
1.1k
Activity
Oct ’25
Sign In by Apple on Firebase - 503 Service Temporarily Unavailable
Hello everyone, I'm encountering a persistent 503 Server Temporarily Not Available error when trying to implement "Sign in with Apple" for my web application. I've already performed a full review of my configuration and I'm confident it's set up correctly, which makes this server-side error particularly confusing. Problem Description: Our web application uses Firebase Authentication to handle the "Sign in with Apple" flow. When a user clicks the sign-in button, they are correctly redirected to the appleid.apple.com authorization page. However, instead of seeing the login prompt, the page immediately displays a 503 Server Temporarily Not Available error. This is the redirect URL being generated (with the state parameter truncated for security): https://appleid.apple.com/auth/authorize?response_type=code&client_id=XXXXXX&redirect_uri=https%3A%2F%2FXXXXXX.firebaseapp.com%2F__%2Fauth%2Fhandler&state=AMbdmDk...&scope=email%20name&response_mode=form_post Troubleshooting Steps Performed: Initially, I was receiving an invalid_client error, which prompted me to meticulously verify every part of my setup. I have confirmed the following: App ID Configuration: The "Sign in with Apple" capability is enabled for our primary App ID. Services ID Configuration: We have a Services ID configured specifically for this. The "Sign in with Apple" feature is enabled on this Services ID. The domain is registered and verified under "Domains and Subdomains". Firebase Settings Match Apple Settings: The Services ID from Apple is used as the Client ID in our Firebase configuration. The Team ID is correct. We have generated a private key, and both the Key ID and the .p8 file have been correctly uploaded to Firebase. The key is not revoked in the Apple Developer portal. Since the redirect to Apple is happening with the correct client_id and redirect_uri, and the error is a 5xx server error (not a 4xx client error like invalid_client), I believe our configuration is correct and the issue might be on Apple's end. This has been happening consistently for some time. My Questions: What could be causing a persistent 503 Server Temporarily Not Available error on the /auth/authorize endpoint when all client-side configurations appear to be correct? What is the formal process for opening a technical support ticket (TSI) directly with Apple Developer Support for an issue like this? Thank you for any insights or help you can provide.
Replies
0
Boosts
0
Views
639
Activity
Sep ’25
Control over "\(your_app) wants to open \(another_app)" Dialog
I can't find any information about why this is happening, nor can I reproduce the 'successful' state on this device. My team needs to understand this behavior, so any insight would be greatly appreciated! The expected behavior: If I delete both apps and reinstall them, attempting to open the second app from my app should trigger the system confirmation dialog. The specifics: I'm using the MSAL library. It navigates the user to the Microsoft Authenticator app and then returns to my app. However, even after resetting the phone and reinstalling both apps, the dialog never shows up (it just opens the app directly). Does anyone know the logic behind how iOS handles these prompts or why it might be persistent even after a reset? Thanks in advance!
Replies
0
Boosts
0
Views
161
Activity
Jan ’26
Outlook for Mac add-in - Passkeys
hello, My organization has an outlook add-in that requires auth into our platform. As Microsoft forces Auth on MacOS to use WKWebView https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dev/add-ins/concepts/browsers-used-by-office-web-add-ins, we are running into a situation that we cannot use passkeys as an auth method as we are unable to trigger WebAuthN flows. We’ve raised this in Microsoft side but they have deferred to Apple given WKWebView is Safari based. This is a big blocker for us to achieve a full passwordless future. Has anyone come across this situation? Thank you.
Replies
0
Boosts
0
Views
358
Activity
Aug ’25
App Attest – DCAppAttestService.isSupported == false on some devices (~0.23%)
Hi Apple team, For our iPhone app (App Store build), a small subset of devices report DCAppAttestService.isSupported == false, preventing App Attest from being enabled. Approx. impact: 0.23% (352/153,791) iOS observed: Broadly 15.x–18.7 (also saw a few anomalous entries ios/26.0, likely client logging noise) Device models: Multiple generations (iPhone8–iPhone17); a few iPad7 entries present although the app targets iPhone Questions In iPhone main app context, what conditions can make isSupported return false on iOS 14+? Are there known device/iOS cases where temporary false can occur (SEP/TrustChain related)? Any recommended remediation (e.g., DFU restore)? Could you share logging guidance (Console.app subsystem/keywords) to investigate such cases? What fallback policy do you recommend when isSupported == false (e.g., SE-backed signature + DeviceCheck + risk rules), and any limitations? We can provide sysdiagnose/Console logs and more case details upon request. Thank you, —
Replies
3
Boosts
0
Views
241
Activity
Oct ’25
Clarification on Apple Sign-In Integration Across Multiple Applications
Dear Apple Support Team, I hope this message finds you well. Our tech team is currently working on integrating the Apple Sign-In feature, and we have a specific query where we would appreciate your guidance. Background Context: We have several applications across different brands and are aiming to implement a unified sign-up and sign-in experience. Currently, we are utilizing a shared website to enable single sign-in functionality across all these applications. Our Query: If we embed the same website in all of these applications and implement the Apple Sign-In within this website—using a dedicated Service ID that is configured with the App Store name and icon—will users consistently see the Apple Sign-In pop-up with the Service ID’s name and icon, regardless of which base application (e.g., App A, App B, etc.) the website is accessed from? We would like to ensure a seamless and consistent user experience and want to confirm that the branding within the Apple Sign-In prompt will reflect the Service ID’s configuration, rather than that of the hosting app. Looking forward to your guidance on this matter.
Replies
0
Boosts
0
Views
90
Activity
Apr ’25
Empty userID for cross-platform attestation with Android
I've come across strange behavior with the userID property on the returned credential from a passkey attestation. When performing a cross-device passkey assertion between iOS and Android by scanning the generated QR code on my iPhone with an Android device the returned credential object contains an empty userID. This does not happen when performing an on device or cross-device assertion using two iPhones. Is this expected behavior, or is there something I'm missing here? I couldn't find any more information on this in the documentation. iOS Version: 26.0.1, Android Version: 13
Replies
0
Boosts
0
Views
445
Activity
Oct ’25
The login button that was originally supposed to show the Apple ID sign-in option inexplicably displayed the DiDi app icon instead.
"Our app has absolutely no integration with DiDi login. We only integrate WeChat, QQ, carrier, and Apple ID login, and all related login entry icons are local resources. On an iPhone 16 Pro Max device with iOS system version 18.7, there was one isolated incident where the Apple ID login entry icon mysteriously changed to the DiDi app icon. What could be the possible iOS system-level causes for this?"
Replies
0
Boosts
0
Views
93
Activity
Sep ’25
Webview In-App Browser Microsoft Login Redirection Not Working
Hello, We received a rejection on one of our IOS applications because we were doing Microsoft MSAL login through the user's browser. The representative recommended that we use Webview to do in-app logins. However when we tried to handle the custom app uri redirection (looking like myapp://auth/), Webview does not seem to send the user back to the application. Does anyone have a fix for this? Thanks!
Replies
0
Boosts
0
Views
335
Activity
Sep ’25
account.apple.com not showing in-app sign-in modal
Hi, preivously on appleid.apple.com, navigating to this page on safari would show the in-app modal to continue with Apple. Now with account.apple.com, this is not the case. We are not seeing the in-app modal to continue with Apple
Replies
0
Boosts
0
Views
155
Activity
Jun ’25
Apple Sign-In: "invalid-credential" error despite correct configuration - Firebase Auth iOS
Problem Summary I'm experiencing a persistent invalid-credential error with Apple Sign-In on iOS despite having verified every aspect of the configuration over the past 6 months. The error occurs at the Firebase Authentication level after successfully receiving credentials from Apple. Error Message: Firebase auth error: invalid-credential - Invalid OAuth response from apple.com. Environment Platform: iOS (Flutter app) Firebase Auth: v5.7.0 Sign in with Apple: v6.1.2 Xcode: Latest version with capability enabled iOS Target: 13.0+ Bundle ID: com.harmonics.orakl What Actually Happens ✅ Apple Sign-In popup appears ✅ User can authenticate with Apple ID ✅ Apple returns credentials with identityToken ❌ Firebase rejects with invalid-credential error The error occurs at Firebase level, not Apple level. What I've Tried Created a brand new Apple Key (previous key was 6 months old) Tested with both App ID and Service ID in Firebase Completely reinstalled CocoaPods dependencies Verified nonce handling is correct (hashed to Apple, raw to Firebase) Activated Firebase Hosting and attempted to deploy .well-known file Checked Cloud Logging (no detailed error messages found) Disabled and re-enabled Apple Sign-In provider in Firebase Verified Return URL matches exactly Waited and retried multiple times over 6 months Questions Is the .well-known/apple-developer-domain-association.txt file required? If yes, how should it be generated? Firebase Hosting doesn't auto-generate it. Could there be a server-side caching/blacklist issue with my domain or Service ID after multiple failed attempts? Should the Apple Key be linked to the Service ID instead of the App ID? The key shows as linked to Z3NNDZVWMZ.com.harmonics.orakl (the App ID). Is there any way to get more detailed error logs from Firebase about why it's rejecting the Apple OAuth response? Could using a custom domain instead of .firebaseapp.com resolve the issue? Additional Context Google Sign-In works perfectly on the same app The configuration has been reviewed by multiple developers Error persists across different devices and iOS versions No errors in Xcode console except the Firebase rejection Any help would be greatly appreciated. I've exhausted all standard troubleshooting steps and documentation. Project Details: Bundle ID: com.harmonics.orakl Firebase Project: harmonics-app Team ID: Z3N....... code : // 1. Generate raw nonce final String rawNonce = _generateRandomNonce(); // 2. Hash with SHA-256 final String hashedNonce = _sha256Hash(rawNonce); // 3. Send HASHED nonce to Apple ✅ final appleCredential = await SignInWithApple.getAppleIDCredential( scopes: [AppleIDAuthorizationScopes.email, AppleIDAuthorizationScopes.fullName], nonce: hashedNonce, // Correct: hashed nonce to Apple ); // 4. Create Firebase credential with RAW nonce ✅ final oauthCredential = OAuthProvider("apple.com").credential( idToken: appleCredential.identityToken!, rawNonce: rawNonce, // Correct: raw nonce to Firebase ); // 5. Sign in with Firebase - ERROR OCCURS HERE ❌ await FirebaseAuth.instance.signInWithCredential(oauthCredential);
Replies
0
Boosts
0
Views
94
Activity
Oct ’25
Errors with Attestation on App
We recently deployed Attestation on our application, and for a majority of the 40,000 users it works well. We have about six customers who are failing attestation. In digging through debug logs, we're seeing this error "iOS assertion verification failed. Unauthorized access attempted." We're assuming that the UUID is blocked somehow on Apple side but we're stumped as to why. We had a customer come in and we could look at the phone, and best we can tell it's just a generic phone with no jailbroken or any malicious apps. How can we determine if the UUID is blocked?
Replies
3
Boosts
0
Views
220
Activity
May ’25
Certificates, Identifiers, and Provisioning Profiles
Confirmation on "Sign in with Apple JS" Web Implementation Compatibility Hello Developers We are trying to implement "Sign in with Apple JS" on our e-commerce website, which is built on a SaaS platform called Ticimax in Turkey. Our platform provider (Ticimax) claims that a web-based implementation of "Sign in with Apple" is not currently possible. They state this is due to "Apple's browser security policies" that prevent consistent and secure support across all major browsers, particularly Safari with its privacy features. Could you please confirm if there are any fundamental security policies or technical restrictions imposed by Apple that would prevent a standard, secure implementation of "Sign in with Apple JS" on a typical e-commerce website? We know many global websites use this feature successfully. We need to know if our provider's claim has a technical basis from Apple's perspective, or if this is a standard implementation challenge that developers are expected to handle (e.g., using pop-ups instead of redirects to comply with ITP). Any official clarification or documentation you can provide on this matter would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Replies
0
Boosts
0
Views
226
Activity
Aug ’25
APP ID's indentifier not updating
When implementing Sign In with Apple I created an App ID and a Service ID for my app. I didn't configure the Server-to-Server Notification URL properly there and token revocation didn't work. Later on I updated the url config and the name of the identifiers. However, when I Sign in with Apple in my app I still see the old identifier name in my iPhone Settings->Apple Account->Sign in with Apple. I would assume that if the name doesn't update, the configuration doesn't update either. I'm using automatic Xcode signing, I have deleted all the profiles locally, cleaned project, bumped versions, waited for a week, nothing worked. Token revocation for account deletion doesn't work properly I would assume because of the initial misconfiguration. I want to mention that this is working fine for my development build (another bundleID, AppID, ServiceID) What am I missing here?
Replies
0
Boosts
0
Views
129
Activity
Jun ’25
Received email that my Sign in with Apple account was rejected
I set up "Sign in with Apple" via REST API according to the documentation. I can log in on my website and everything looks fine for the user. But I receive an email, that my "Sign in with Apple" account has been rejected by my own website. It states, I will have to re-submit my name and email address the next time I log in to this website. I don't see any error messages, no log entries, no HTTP errors anywhere. I also can't find anything in the docs, the emails seem to not be mentioned there, searching for anything with "rejected" in the forum did not yield any helpful result, because they are always about App entries being rejected etc. Did someone experience something similar yet? What's the reason, I'm getting these emails? I get them every time I go through the "Sign in with Apple" flow on my website again.
Replies
0
Boosts
0
Views
288
Activity
Aug ’25
App Groups: macOS vs iOS: Working Towards Harmony
I regularly see folks confused by the difference in behaviour of app groups between macOS and iOS. There have been substantial changes in this space recently. While much of this is now covered in the official docs (r. 92322409), I’ve updated this post to go into all the gory details. If you have questions or comments, start a new thread with the details. Put it in the App & System Services > Core OS topic area and tag it with Code Signing and Entitlements. Oh, and if your question is about app group containers, also include Files and Storage. Share and Enjoy — Quinn “The Eskimo!” @ Developer Technical Support @ Apple let myEmail = "eskimo" + "1" + "@" + "apple.com" App Groups: macOS vs iOS: Working Towards Harmony There are two styles of app group ID: iOS-style app group IDs start with group., for example, group.eskimo1.test. macOS-style app group IDs start with your Team ID, for example, SKMME9E2Y8.eskimo1.test. This difference has been the source of numerous weird problems over the years. Starting in Feb 2025, iOS-style app group IDs are fully supported on macOS for all product types [1]. If you’re writing new code that uses app groups, use an iOS-style app group ID. If you have existing code that uses a macOS-style app group ID, consider how you might transition to the iOS style. IMPORTANT The Feb 2025 changes aren’t tied to an OS release but rather to a Developer website update. For more on this, see Feb 2025 Changes, below. [1] If your product is a standalone executable, like a daemon or agent, wrap it in an app-like structure, as explained in Signing a daemon with a restricted entitlement. iOS-Style App Group IDs An iOS-style app group ID has the following features: It starts with the group. prefix, for example, group.eskimo1.test. You allocate it on the Developer website. This assigns the app group ID to your team. You then claim access to it by listing it in the App Groups entitlement (com.apple.security.application-groups) entitlement. That claim must be authorised by a provisioning profile [1]. The Developer website will only let you include your team’s app group IDs in your profile. For more background on provisioning profiles, see TN3125 Inside Code Signing: Provisioning Profiles. iOS-style app group IDs originated on iOS with iOS 3.0. They’ve always been supported on iOS’s child platforms (iPadOS, tvOS, visionOS, and watchOS). On the Mac: They’ve been supported by Mac Catalyst since that technology was introduced. Likewise for iOS Apps on Mac. Starting in Feb 2025, they’re supported for other Mac products. [1] Strictly speaking macOS does not require that, but if your claim is not authorised by a profile then you might run into other problems. See Entitlements-Validated Flag, below. macOS-Style App Group IDs A macOS-style app group ID has the following features: It should start with your Team ID [1], for example, SKMME9E2Y8.eskimo1.test. It can’t be explicitly allocated on the Developer website. Code that isn’t sandboxed doesn’t need to claim the app group ID in the App Groups entitlement. [2] To use an app group, claim the app group ID in the App Groups entitlement. The App Groups entitlement is not restricted on macOS, meaning that this claim doesn’t need to be authorised by a provisioning profile [3]. However, if you claim an app group ID that’s not authorised in some way, you might run into problems. More on that later in this post. If you submit an app to the Mac App Store, the submission process checks that your app group IDs make sense, that is, they either start with your Team ID (macOS style) or are assigned to your team (iOS style). [1] This is “should” because, historically, macOS has not actually required it. However, that’s now changing, with things like app group container protection. [2] This was true prior to macOS 15. It may still technically be true in macOS 15 and later, but the most important thing, access to the app group container, requires the entitlement because of app group container protection. [3] Technically it’s a validation-required entitlement, something that we’ll come back to in the Entitlements-Validated Flag section. Feb 2025 Changes On 21 Feb 2025 we rolled out a change to the Developer website that completes the support for iOS-style app group IDs on the Mac. Specifically, it’s now possible to create a Mac provisioning profile that authorises the use of an iOS-style app group ID. Note This change doesn’t affect Mac Catalyst or iOS Apps on Mac, which have always been able to use iOS-style app group IDs on the Mac. Prior to this change it was possible to use an iOS-style app group ID on the Mac but that might result in some weird behaviour. Later sections of this post describe some of those problems. Of course, that information is now only of historical interest because, if you’re using an iOS-style app group, you can and should authorise that use with a provisioning profile. We also started seeding Xcode 16.3, which has since been release. This is aware of the Developer website change, and its Signing & Capabilities editor actively encourages you to use iOS-style app groups IDs in all products. Note This Xcode behaviour is the only option for iOS and its child platforms. With Xcode 16.3, it’s now the default for macOS as well. If you have existing project, enable this behaviour using the Register App Groups build setting. Finally, we updated a number of app group documentation pages, including App Groups entitlement and Configuring app groups. Crossing the Streams In some circumstances you might need to have a single app that accesses both an iOS- and a macOS-style app group. For example: You have a macOS app. You want to migrate to an iOS-style app group ID, perhaps because you want to share an app group container with a Mac Catalyst app. But you also need to access existing content in a container identified by a macOS-style app group ID. Historically this caused problems (FB16664827) but, as of Jun 2025, this is fully supported (r. 148552377). When the Developer website generates a Mac provisioning profile for an App ID with the App Groups capability, it automatically adds TEAM_ID.* to the list of app group IDs authorised by that profile (where TEAM_ID is your Team ID). This allows the app to claim access to every iOS-style app group ID associated with the App ID and any macOS-style app group IDs for that team. This helps in two circumstances: It avoids any Mac App Store Connect submission problems, because App Store Connect can see that the app’s profile authorises its use of all the it app group IDs it claims access to. Outside of App Store — for example, when you directly distribute an app using Developer ID signing — you no longer have to rely on macOS granting implicit access to macOS-style app group IDs. Rather, such access is explicitly authorised by your profile. That ensures that your entitlements remain validated, as discussed in the Entitlements-Validated Flag, below. A Historical Interlude These different styles of app group IDs have historical roots: On iOS, third-party apps have always used provisioning profiles, and thus the App Groups entitlement is restricted just like any other entitlement. On macOS, support for app groups was introduced before macOS had general support for provisioning profiles [1], and thus the App Groups entitlement is unrestricted. The unrestricted nature of this entitlement poses two problems. The first is accidental collisions. How do you prevent folks from accidentally using an app group ID that’s in use by some other developer? On iOS this is easy: The Developer website assigns each app group ID to a specific team, which guarantees uniqueness. macOS achieved a similar result by using the Team ID as a prefix. The second problem is malicious reuse. How do you prevent a Mac app from accessing the app group containers of some other team? Again, this isn’t an issue on iOS because the App Groups entitlement is restricted. On macOS the solution was for the Mac App Store to prevent you from publishing an app that used an app group ID that’s used by another team. However, this only works for Mac App Store apps. Directly distributed apps were free to access app group containers of any other app. That was considered acceptable back when the Mac App Store was first introduced. That’s no longer the case, which is why macOS 15 introduced app group container protection. See App Group Container Protection, below. [1] I’m specifically talking about provisioning profiles for directly distributed apps, that is, apps using Developer ID signing. Entitlements-Validated Flag The fact that the App Groups entitlement is unrestricted on macOS is, when you think about it, a little odd. The purpose of entitlements is to gate access to functionality. If an entitlement isn’t restricted, it’s not much of a gate! For most unrestricted entitlements that’s not a problem. Specifically, for both the App Sandbox and Hardened Runtime entitlements, those are things you opt in to, so macOS is happy to accept the entitlement at face value. After all, if you want to cheat you can just not opt in [1]. However, this isn’t the case for the App Groups entitlement, which actually gates access to functionality. Dealing with this requires macOS to walk a fine line between security and compatibility. Part of that solution is the entitlements-validated flag. When a process runs an executable, macOS checks its entitlements. There are two categories: Restricted entitlements must be authorised by a provisioning profile. If your process runs an executable that claims a restricted entitlement that’s not authorised by a profile, the system traps. Unrestricted entitlements don’t have to be authorised by a provisioning profile; they can be used by any code at any time. However, the App Groups entitlement is a special type of unrestricted entitlement called a validation-required entitlement. If a process runs an executable that claims a validation-required entitlement and that claim is not authorised by a profile, the system allows the process to continue running but clears its entitlements-validated flag. Some subsystems gate functionality on the entitlements-validated flag. For example, the data protection keychain uses entitlements as part of its access control model, but refuses to honour those entitlements if the entitlement-validated flag has been cleared. Note If you’re curious about this flag, use the procinfo subcommand of launchctl to view it. For example: % sudo launchctl procinfo `pgrep Test20230126` … code signing info = valid … entitlements validated … If the flag has been cleared, this line will be missing from the code signing info section. Historically this was a serious problem because it prevented you from creating an app that uses both app groups and the data protection keychain [2] (r. 104859788). Fortunately that’s no longer an issue because the Developer website now lets you include the App Groups entitlement in macOS provisioning profiles. [1] From the perspective of macOS checking entitlements at runtime. There are other checks: The App Sandbox is mandatory for Mac App Store apps, but that’s checked when you upload the app to App Store Connect. Directly distributed apps must be notarised to pass Gatekeeper, and the notary service requires that all executables enable the hardened runtime. [2] See TN3137 On Mac keychain APIs and implementations for more about the data protection keychain. App Groups and the Keychain The differences described above explain a historical oddity associated with keychain access. The Sharing access to keychain items among a collection of apps article says: Application groups When you collect related apps into an application group using the App Groups entitlement, they share access to a group container, and gain the ability to message each other in certain ways. You can use app group names as keychain access group names, without adding them to the Keychain Access Groups entitlement. On iOS this makes a lot of sense: The App Groups entitlement is a restricted entitlement on iOS. The Developer website assigns each iOS-style app group ID to a specific team, which guarantees uniqueness. The required group. prefix means that these keychain access groups can’t collide with other keychain access groups, which all start with an App ID prefix (there’s also Apple-only keychain access groups that start with other prefixes, like apple). However, this didn’t work on macOS [1] because the App Groups entitlement is unrestricted there. However, with the Feb 2025 changes it should now be possible to use an iOS-style app group ID as a keychain access group on macOS. Note I say “should” because I’ve not actually tried it (-: Keep in mind that standard keychain access groups are protected the same way on all platforms, using the restricted Keychain Access Groups entitlement (keychain-access-groups). [1] Except for Mac Catalyst apps and iOS Apps on Mac. Not Entirely Unsatisfied When you launch a Mac app that uses app groups you might see this log entry: type: error time: 10:41:35.858009+0000 process: taskgated-helper subsystem: com.apple.ManagedClient category: ProvisioningProfiles message: com.example.apple-samplecode.Test92322409: Unsatisfied entitlements: com.apple.security.application-groups Note The exact format of that log entry, and the circumstances under which it’s generated, varies by platform. On macOS 13.0.1 I was able to generate it by running a sandboxed app that claims a macOS-style app group ID in the App Groups entitlement and also claims some other restricted entitlement. This looks kinda worrying and can be the source of problems. It means that the App Groups entitlement claims an entitlement that’s not authorised by a provisioning profile. On iOS this would trap, but on macOS the system allows the process to continue running. It does, however, clear the entitlements-validate flag. See Entitlements-Validated Flag for an in-depth discussion of this. The easiest way to avoid this problem is to authorise your app group ID claims with a provisioning profile. If there’s some reason you can’t do that, watch out for potential problems with: The data protection keychain — See the discussion of that in the Entitlements-Validated Flag and App Groups and the Keychain sections, both above. App group container protection — See App Group Container Protection, below. App Group Container Protection macOS 15 introduced app group container protection. To access an app group container without user intervention: Claim access to the app group by listing its ID in the App Groups entitlement. Locate the container by calling the containerURL(forSecurityApplicationGroupIdentifier:) method. Ensure that at least one of the following criteria are met: Your app is deployed via the Mac App Store (A). Or via TestFlight when running on macOS 15.1 or later (B). Or the app group ID starts with your app’s Team ID (C). Or your app’s claim to the app group is authorised by a provisioning profile embedded in the app (D) [1]. If your app doesn’t follow these rules, the system prompts the user to approve its access to the container. If granted, that consent applies only for the duration of that app instance. For more on this, see: The System Integrity Protection section of the macOS Sequoia 15 Release Notes The System Integrity Protection section of the macOS Sequoia 15.1 Release Notes WWDC 2024 Session 10123 What’s new in privacy, starting at 12:23 The above criteria mean that you rarely run into the app group authorisation prompt. If you encounter a case where that happens, feel free to start a thread here on DevForums. See the top of this post for info on the topic and tags to use. Note Prior to the Feb 2025 change, things generally worked out fine when you app was deployed but you might’ve run into problems during development. That’s no longer the case. [1] This is what allows Mac Catalyst and iOS Apps on Mac to work. Revision History 2025-08-12 Added a reference to the Register App Groups build setting. 2025-07-28 Updated the Crossing the Streams section for the Jun 2025 change. Made other minor editorial changes. 2025-04-16 Rewrote the document now that iOS-style app group IDs are fully supported on the Mac. Changed the title from App Groups: macOS vs iOS: Fight! to App Groups: macOS vs iOS: Working Towards Harmony 2025-02-25 Fixed the Xcode version number mentioned in yesterday’s update. 2025-02-24 Added a quick update about the iOS-style app group IDs on macOS issue. 2024-11-05 Further clarified app group container protection. Reworked some other sections to account for this new reality. 2024-10-29 Clarified the points in App Group Container Protection. 2024-10-23 Fleshed out the discussion of app group container protection on macOS 15. 2024-09-04 Added information about app group container protection on macOS 15. 2023-01-31 Renamed the Not Entirely Unsatisfactory section to Not Entirely Unsatisfied. Updated it to describe the real impact of that log message. 2022-12-12 First posted.
Replies
0
Boosts
0
Views
5.5k
Activity
Aug ’25
App transfer- get transfer {"error":"invalid_request"}
Migrating APP and users, obtaining the user's transfer_sub, an exception occurred: {"error":"invalid_request"} `POST /auth/usermigrationinfo HTTP/1.1 Host: appleid.apple.com Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded Authorization: Bearer {access_token} sub={sub}&target={recipient_team_id}&client_id={client_id}&client_secret={client_secret} The specific request is as follows: 15:56:20.858 AppleService - --> POST https://appleid.apple.com/auth/usermigrationinfo 15:56:20.858 AppleService - Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded 15:56:20.858 AppleService - Content-Length: 395 15:56:20.858 AppleService - Authorization: Bearer a56a8828048af48c0871e73b55d8910aa.0.rzvs.96uUcy1KBqo34Kj8qrPb4w 15:56:20.858 AppleService - 15:56:20.858 AppleService - sub=001315.1535dbadc15b472987acdf634719a06a.0600&target=WLN67KBBV8&client_id=com.hawatalk.live&client_secret=eyJraWQiOiIzODg5U1ZXNDM5IiwiYWxnIjoiRVMyNTYifQ.eyJpc3MiOiJRMzlUU1BHMjk3IiwiaWF0IjoxNzU1MDcxNzc5LCJleHAiOjE3NTUwNzUzNzksImF1ZCI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXBwbGVpZC5hcHBsZS5jb20iLCJzdWIiOiJjb20uaGF3YXRhbGsubGl2ZSJ9.8i9RYIcepuIiEqOMu1OOAlmmjnB84AJueel21gNapiNa9pr3498Zkj8J5MUIzvvnvsvUJkKQjp_VvnsG_IIrTA 15:56:20.859 AppleService - --> END POST (395-byte body) 15:56:21.675 AppleService - <-- 400 Bad Request https://appleid.apple.com/auth/usermigrationinfo(816ms) 15:56:21.675 AppleService - Server: Apple 15:56:21.675 AppleService - Date: Wed, 13 Aug 2025 07:56:22 GMT 15:56:21.675 AppleService - Content-Type: application/json;charset=UTF-8 15:56:21.675 AppleService - Content-Length: 27 15:56:21.675 AppleService - Connection: keep-alive 15:56:21.675 AppleService - Pragma: no-cache 15:56:21.675 AppleService - Cache-Control: no-store 15:56:21.676 AppleService - 15:56:21.676 AppleService - {"error":"invalid_request"} 15:56:21.676 AppleService - <-- END HTTP (27-byte body) ` Current Team ID: Q39TSPG297 Recipient Team ID: WLN67KBBV8 CLIENT_ID: com.hawatalk.live
Replies
0
Boosts
0
Views
192
Activity
Aug ’25
iPad App Suggestions - Api Security
Hi , I have a requirement like, Develop an app for iPad and app uses .net core apis. App will be in kiosk mode, and app doesn't have any type of authentication even OTP also. As the apis will be publishing to all over internet, how can we achieve security to apis? Kindly provide suggestions for this implementation
Replies
1
Boosts
0
Views
222
Activity
Sep ’25