Explore best practices for creating inclusive apps for users of Apple accessibility features and users from diverse backgrounds.

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SwiftUI safe area stays offset after keyboard dismissal with “Reduce Motion” + “Prefer Cross-Fade” enabled (iOS 26)
I’m seeing a layout issue in SwiftUI on iOS 26 that only reproduces with specific Accessibility Motion settings. Steps to reproduce 1. Open Settings → Accessibility → Motion. 2. Enable Reduce Motion and Prefer Cross-Fade Transitions. 3. Launch an app with a SwiftUI TextField. 4. Tap the field to show the keyboard. 5. Dismiss the keyboard (tap outside, swipe down, etc.). Expected: After the keyboard is dismissed, the view’s bottom safe area / layout should return to normal. Actual: The view continues to reserve space equal to the keyboard height — as if the keyboard were still visible. UI anchored to the safe area remains shifted upward until the view is reloaded.
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Oct ’25
Critical Bug: Children Can Disable Screen Time Apps Like Choreio Without Parental ApprovalI
Dear Apple Support, I am reporting a critical issue affecting parental control apps like my app, Choreio, which is live on the App Store. When Screen Time settings are configured to require a parent’s password for changes, parents must log in on their child’s device to make any adjustments. This restriction is expected to extend to apps using the Screen Time API, such as Choreio. However, I’ve discovered a significant bug: children can bypass this restriction by simply toggling off Choreio in the Screen Time settings—without needing the parent’s password. This effectively disables the app and defeats its purpose as a parental control tool. Please address this issue as soon as possible to ensure the intended functionality of parental controls. Let me know if you need any additional information to assist with resolving this. Thank you for your attention to this matter. Best regards, Jeff Houston STEPS TO REPRODUCE Here are the steps to reproduce the issue clearly: Install Choreio from the App Store on the child’s phone. Enable parental controls in Screen Time and set it to require the parent’s password for any changes to Screen Time settings. Go to the Screen Time settings on the child’s phone. Observe that the child can simply toggle off Choreio, effectively deactivating the app, without needing the parent’s password. Expected behavior: Toggling off Choreio should require the parent’s password, just like it does for other Screen Time settings. Let me know if additional details are needed!
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Feb ’25
NSAlert button background/contrast
If I use NSAlert the buttons look like this: The Cancel button has a gray background. We got complaints about the bad contrast and people pointed out that the alerts from System Settings look like this: Here the Cancel button has a white background. Unfortunately I did not find out how to make the buttons in my own alerts look like those in System Settings. Setting the button's bezel color to white did not work. Any help would be highly appreciated. Thanks. Best regards, Marc
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Feb ’25
I cannot pair my PHONAK hearing aids
I cannot pair my PHONAK hearing aids after I upgraded to iOS 18.3 under hearing devices, it just keeps on switching will not find anything. I’ve undelete them and reinstall them four times. Uninstalled the app. Under Bluetooth, it finds it and has it. But under hearing devices where I can control everything it will not. Once I add the hearing aids, my phone goes completely silent. I do not know if anyone calls or texts me
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512
Jan ’25
VoiceOver navigation in carousels
Hi all, I’ve got a usability question about accessibility navigation. My app has a lot of carousels (horizontally scrolling lists of content with far more elements than can fit on the screen). Often, these are just images, but sometimes, they’re cards with multiple subelements. In our previous implementation, each card was a single accessibility element, and we exposed the subelements as accessibility custom actions. Despite this, users frequently mentioned navigating with VoiceOver as a pain point. It takes a long time to navigate through and navigate past these carousels. To solve this, I converted my carousels into a single adjustable element, so users can navigate through it with one swipe, and they can still access the elements by adjusting the values up and down. I got this advice from this 2018 WWDC talk. Is this still the recommended advice? Or is there a new, preferred way to do this? Additionally, I had to get a little creative with the second carousel, the one with multiple subelements. Some of these were interactive (imagine a card with a description, an upvote button, and a downvote button). Adjustable elements override the accessibility custom actions VoiceOver gesture, so I can’t expose the individual buttons as actions. Instead, I made each subelement in each card in the carousel one of the adjustable values. Swiping up would go from description 1 to upvote button 1 to downvote button 1 to description 2, etc. Double tapping with VoiceOver would perform whatever action the carousel is currently on. So if I adjust the value to the element at index 2 (say, downvote 1), double tapping would trigger the downvote button’s action. Does this make sense? Is there a better way to do this? This seemed to be the best compromise between screenreader navigation speed, exposing all actions, and the existing UI.
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Jun ’25
Already Enrolled, but Now Asked to Re-Enroll – Certificates Revoked, No Response
Our company enrolled in the Apple Developer Program as an organization in July 2024. Everything was fine for several months, but in early January 2025, our developer noticed that the certificates were missing. When we logged into our developer account, we were shocked to see a page prompting us to “Enroll Today”—as if we had never joined in the first place. Clicking the enrollment button led us to an error page stating we cannot enroll. We immediately reached out to Apple Developer Support via email, but despite multiple attempts, we received no response. Strangely, our apps remain live on the App Store, App Store Connect functions as usual, and we continue receiving payments every month. However, we are completely blocked from developing and releasing updates. Today, I managed to reach Apple by phone. After being transferred to a senior representative, I was told they couldn’t tell me why this was happening. They only confirmed that a request had been made and that I should “wait.” That’s it—no explanation, no timeline, nothing. While it’s somewhat reassuring that they acknowledge the issue, I’ve already seen other developers with the same problem go unanswered for months. My suspicion? This account might be linked to an individual developer account from way back in 2015 when Apple’s registration process was far less strict. Could that be the issue? No idea—because Apple won’t say a word. Meanwhile, both of our apps have been exposed to several bugs, and customers are waiting for updates. If there’s still no response from Apple, I have no choice but to register a new account—purely to continue supporting our users. CASE ID: 102508598957
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Mar ’25
VoiceOver cursor focus tracking
In some places of our app we make use of NSAccessibilityElement subclasses to vend some extra items to accessibility clients. We need to know which item has the VoiceOver focus so we can keep track of it. setAccessibilityFocused: does not get called when accessibility clients focus NSAccessibilityElements. This method is only called when accessibility clients focus view-based accessibility elements (i.e. when a NSView subclass gets focused). At the same time we need to programmatically move VoiceOver focus to those items when something happens. Those accessibility elements inherit from NSObject so we can't make them first responder. Is this the expected behavior? What are our options in terms of reacting to VoiceOver cursor moving around? What are our options in terms of programmatically moving the VoiceOver cursor to a different element? Here's a sample project that demonstrates the first part of the issue: https://github.com/vendruscolo/apple-rdars/tree/master/DTS12368714%20-%20NSAccessibilityElement%20focus%20tracking If you run the app, a window will show up. It contains a button and a red square. If you enable VoiceOver you'll be able to move the cursor over the red square, and a message will be logged. You'll also notice there's an extra element after the red square. That element is available to VoiceOver, however when it gets focuses, no message gets logged.
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Mar ’25
Live Captions only partially works - help?
Hope it's okay to post here - I haven't gotten resolution anywhere else. Apple's iOs Live Captions is supposed to translate speech into written text either on the phone (works like a charm!) or via microphone (think meeting in a conference room). Microphone doesn't work anywhere, anytime on a new iPhone 14 purchased November 2024. Anyone out there want to fix this and help a lot of people who have trouble hearing? I'm part of an entire generation that didn't know we were supposed to protect our hearing at concerts and clubs and worse, thought it was cool to snag a spot by the speakers...
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Mar ’25
iOS18.3.1+ widget: Local color picture load widget crashes
Environment:xcode 16.2 WidgetKit: Image(uiImage: UIImage(named: "jp_jump")!).resizable().scaledToFit().frame(width: 58, height: 16).padding(EdgeInsets(top: 0, leading: 16, bottom: 0, trailing: 0)) ”jp_jump“: Local color picture load widget crashes info: Thread 4: EXC_RESOURCE (RESOURCE_TYPE_MEMORY: high watermark memory limit exceeded) (limit=30 MB)
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Mar ’25
How to use core spotlight ?
Watched videos, blog post and downloaded their projects and there the core spot lights works accordingly. I copied code to an empty project and did the same as what they did but still is not working os: macOS and iOS on coredataobject I settled up a attribute to index for spotlight and in object it self I putted the attribute name in display name for spotlight. static let shared = PersistenceController() var spotlightDelegate: NSCoreDataCoreSpotlightDelegate? @MainActor static let preview: PersistenceController = { let result = PersistenceController(inMemory: true) let viewContext = result.container.viewContext for _ in 0..<10 { let newItem = Item(context: viewContext) newItem.timestamp = Date() } do { try viewContext.save() } catch { let nsError = error as NSError fatalError("Unresolved error \(nsError), \(nsError.userInfo)") } return result }() let container: NSPersistentContainer init(inMemory: Bool = false) { container = NSPersistentContainer(name: "SpotLightSearchTest") if inMemory { container.persistentStoreDescriptions.first!.url = URL(fileURLWithPath: "/dev/null") } container.loadPersistentStores(completionHandler: { [weak self] (storeDescription, error) in if let error = error as NSError? { fatalError("Unresolved error \(error), \(error.userInfo)") } if let description = self?.container.persistentStoreDescriptions.first { description.setOption(true as NSNumber, forKey: NSPersistentHistoryTrackingKey) description.type = NSSQLiteStoreType if let coordinator = self?.container.persistentStoreCoordinator { self?.spotlightDelegate = NSCoreDataCoreSpotlightDelegate( forStoreWith: description, coordinator: coordinator ) self?.spotlightDelegate?.startSpotlightIndexing() } } }) container.viewContext.automaticallyMergesChangesFromParent = true } } in my @main view struct SpotLightSearchTestApp: App { let persistenceController = PersistenceController.shared var body: some Scene { WindowGroup { ContentView() .environment(\.managedObjectContext, persistenceController.container.viewContext) .onContinueUserActivity(CSSearchableItemActionType) {_ in print("") } } } } onContinueUserActivity(CSSearchableItemActionType) {_ in print("") } never gets triggered. Sow What am I missing that they dont explain in the blog post or videos ?
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Mar ’25
Too many verification codes have been sent.
Hello, I have the following problem. I’m developing a NoCode app using the FlutterFlow platform and have been working on it for over a year. This time, after publishing a new version of the app through FlutterFlow, I tried logging into Apple Store Connect, but I got an error saying that I had made too many login attempts and needed to try again later. However, I hadn’t attempted to log in before that at all. No matter how long I wait—24 hours, 48 hours—the same error keeps appearing, meaning I still can’t access my account. Apple Support hasn’t responded for 4 days, and in total, I’ve been locked out of my account for over 9 days. Please help me understand what might be causing this issue. Apple Store Connect refuses to send me an SMS with the login code.
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VoiceOver incorrect focus on modal alert
When my macOS Cocoa app displays a modal alert with beginSheetModal(for:completionHandler:), VoiceOver sometimes seems to focus on an "illegal" upper level, where any attempts at navigation will give the unhelpful response "Alert, dialog", until you "drill down" with VO + shift + down or switch apps. After that, things will work as expected. Is this a known bug? Does it happen to anybody else, or am I doing something wrong?
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Apr ’25
accessibilityElements excludes the unlisted subviews – How to Fix?
I have a parent view containing 10 subviews. To control the VoiceOver navigation order, I set only a few elements in accessibilityElements. However, the remaining elements are not being focused or are completely inaccessible. Is this the expected behavior? If I only specify a subset of elements in accessibilityElements, does it exclude the rest? What’s the best way to ensure all elements remain accessible while customising the order?
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Apr ’25
iOS 26 Voice Over is reporting an extra tab
Feedback number: FB20451665 When building with Xcode 26, Voice Over is reporting an extra tab when swiping through tabs. Please see the sample project below: /* This is a Sample project to show that I believe there is a Voice Over bug in iOS 26. When swiping through tabs with Voice Over active, there always appears to be an extra tab. Here I have 5 tabs, when on tab one VO reads out tab 1 of 6, then tab 2 of 6, all the way to the last tab, when voice over reads out tab 5 of 6. Never tab 6 of 6. Is there a possibility that voice over is picking up the underlying `more` tab and reading that out? This has also been reportedly found in the Files app here: https://www.applevis.com/comment/195441#comment-195441 */ struct ContentView: View { var body: some View { TabView { /// Activating this has Voice over telling us there are 6 Tabs. Tab(RootTab.home.title, systemImage: "circle.fill") { Text("This is the \(RootTab.home.title.capitalized) screen") } .accessibilityLabel("\(RootTab.home.title.capitalized) tab") .accessibilityHint("Double tap to open the \(RootTab.home.title.capitalized) tab") Tab(RootTab.diary.title, systemImage: "circle.fill") { Text("This is the \(RootTab.diary.title.capitalized) screen") } .accessibilityLabel("\(RootTab.diary.title.capitalized) tab") .accessibilityHint("Double tap to open the \(RootTab.diary.title.capitalized) tab") Tab(RootTab.meals.title, systemImage: "circle.fill") { Text("This is the \(RootTab.meals.title.capitalized) screen") } .accessibilityLabel("\(RootTab.meals.title.capitalized) tab") .accessibilityHint("Double tap to open the \(RootTab.meals.title.capitalized) tab") Tab(RootTab.knowledge.title, systemImage: "circle.fill") { Text("This is the \(RootTab.knowledge.title.capitalized) screen") } .accessibilityLabel("\(RootTab.knowledge.title.capitalized) tab") .accessibilityHint("Double tap to open the \(RootTab.knowledge.title.capitalized) tab") Tab(RootTab.profile.title, systemImage: "circle.fill") { Text("This is the \(RootTab.profile.title.capitalized) screen") } .accessibilityLabel("\(RootTab.profile.title.capitalized) tab") .accessibilityHint("Double tap to open the \(RootTab.profile.title.capitalized) tab") /// Activating this also has Voice over telling us there are 6 Tabs. // ForEach(RootTab.allCases, id: \.self) { tab in // // Text("This is the \(tab.title.capitalized) screen") // .tabItem { // Label(tab.title.capitalized, systemImage: "circle.fill") // } // .accessibilityLabel("\(tab.title.capitalized) tab") // .accessibilityHint("Double tap to open the \(tab.title.capitalized) tab") // } } } enum RootTab: CaseIterable { case home case diary case meals case knowledge case profile var title: String { switch self { case .home: "home" case .diary: "diary" case .meals: "meals" case .knowledge: "knowledge" case .profile: "profile" } } } } I'm curious if anyone else can see this issue, or if anyone knows of a workaround for it.
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2k
Oct ’25
WKWebView not scrollable with a physical keyboard
Hello all. Currently I am trying to get WKWebView to scroll with a physical keyboard and it just will not work. I tried allowsKeyboardScrolling( ) and it did not work. UIWebView works but its no longer supported. Trying to get full keyboard access to work to make our app more accessible but WKWebView does not want to play nice. Has anyone else had issues trying to use WKWebView with an external keyboard, and if so did you find any solutions? Greatly appreciated!
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Feb ’25
Tahoe Launchpad
I wrote this in the regular forums and they deleted it and told me to write it here because it was dealing with unreleased software. I read that Launchpad is disappearing in Tahoe and I have real concerns about that. For me, that is an accessibility issue. I have both memory problems and scanning problems. So having my apps organized into categories is extremely important to me. Just today I needed to find an app that I didn't remember the name of and I rarely use, but when I need it, it is important to me. Just to see if I could find it without launchpad, I scanned my applications folder and I couldn't find it. I went to launchpad and to the category I knew it was in and it was right there, easy for me to find. Please don't take away our organization options.
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2.2k
Sep ’25
How to Receive Callbacks for UIAccessibilityAction Methods Like accessibilityPerformMagicTap()?
I’ve tried implementing the accessibilityPerformMagicTap() method in a specific UIViewController, its view, and even in AppDelegate, but I am not receiving any callbacks. I directly overrode this method in the mentioned areas, but it never gets triggered when performing a magic tap. How can I properly observe and handle the accessibilityPerformMagicTap() action?
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473
Mar ’25
Attempting to go directly to a help book page results in the main help book page being displayed instead
There is an issue with Help Books that started with the release of macOS 14.4. The issue is that when an app attempts to go directly to a Help Book page, the help viewer opens to the Help Book's main index page, rather than the specific page requested. As I investigated the issue I found that the requested page was actually part of help viewer's navigation history, and all I had to do was to click the Back navigation arrow and the requested page would be displayed. So it seems like the requested page is momentarily visited but is then (for whatever reason) quickly replaced by the main index page. Our app uses the AHGotoPage() API for directly accessing our Help Book's pages. This is the same mechanism/code that our app has used for more than a decade and has never caused us any issues. Everything works fine on macOS 14.3.0 and earlier. I've scoured the documentation and can't find any newer APIs for accessing Help pages. I've also tried various other things (e.g. reworking the code, creating new indexes for the app's Help, etc.), but none of it seems to make a difference. As far as I can tell, the issue seems to stem from some change made to the OS. So my questions are: Is this a known bug? And if so, is there any ETA on a fix? Is there something different we should be doing for newer versions of the OS (create indexes differently, use a different API, etc.)?
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1.9k
Oct ’25