Hi Apple Developer Forums, I’m developing an iOS camera app that processes RAW captures using Core Image. I’m seeing a large “first use” performance penalty specifically when creating the CIImage from CIRAWFilter.outputImage. What’s slow (important detail) I’m measuring the time for: let rawFilter = CIRAWFilter(imageData: rawData, identifierHint: hint) let ciImage = rawFilter.outputImage This is not CIContext.render(...) / createCGImage(...). It’s just the time to access outputImage (i.e., building the Core Image graph / RAW pipeline setup). Observed behavior First time accessing CIRAWFilter.outputImage: ~3 seconds Second time (same app session, similar RAW): ~3 milliseconds So something heavy is happening only on first use (decoder initialization, pipeline setup, shader/library compilation, caching, etc.). Using Metal System Trace, I also noticed that during the slow first call there are many “Create MTLLibrary” events, while the second call doesn’t show this pattern. Warm-up attempts using bundled DNG I tried to “warm up” early (e.g., on camera screen entry) by loading a bundled DNG and then accessing CIRAWFilter.outputImage by taking a photo: Warm-up with a ~247 KB DNG → first real RAW outputImage cost drops to ~1.42s Warm-up with a ~25 MB DNG → first real RAW outputImage cost drops to ~843ms This helps, but it’s still far from the steady-state ~3ms. Warm-up by capturing a real RAW (works, but concerns) The only method that fully eliminates the delay is to trigger a real RAW capture programmatically before the user’s first photo, then use that captured rawData to warm up the CIRAWFilter.outputImage path. This brings the first user-facing capture close to the steady-state timing. However: In some regions, the camera shutter sound cannot be suppressed, so “hidden warm-up capture” is unacceptable UX. I’m also unsure whether triggering a real capture without an explicit user action could raise compliance/privacy concerns, even if the image is immediately discarded and never saved/uploaded. Questions Is the large first-time cost of CIRAWFilter.outputImage expected (RAW pipeline initialization / shader compilation)? Is there an Apple-recommended way to pre-initialize the Core Image RAW pipeline / Metal resources so the first outputImage is fast, without taking a real photo? Are there any best practices (e.g. CIContext creation timing, prepareRender(...), specific options) that reliably reduce this first-use overhead for CIRAWFilter? Attachments Figure 1: First RAW capture with no warm-up (~3s outputImage time) Figure 2: First RAW capture after warm-up with bundled DNG (improved but still hundreds of ms) Thanks for any guidance or experience sharing!

Some users reported that their images are not loading correctly in our app. After a lot of debugging we identified the following: This only happens when the app is build for Mac Catalyst. Not on iOS, iPadOS, or “real” macOS (AppKit). The images in question have unusual color spaces. We observed the issue for uRGB and eciRGB v2. Those images are rendered correctly in Photos and Preview on all platforms. When displaying the image inside of a UIImageView or in a SwiftUI Image, they render correctly. The issue only occurs when loading the image via Core Image. When comparing the different Core Image render graphs between AppKit (working) and Catalyst (faulty) builds, they look identical—except for the result. Mac (AppKit): Catalyst: Something seems to be off when Core Image tries to load an image with foreign color space in Catalyst. We identified a workaround: By using a CGImageDestination to transcode the image using the kCGImageDestinationOptimizeColorForSharing option, Image I/O will convert the image to sRGB (or similar) and Core Image is able to load the image correctly. However, one potentially loses fidelity this way. Or might there be a better workaround?

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

I'm using this library: https://github.com/Yummypets/YPImagePicker to capture photos. I've modified it slightly, and I'm using an older version. When testing on my iPhone 16e, ios 26, whenever I take a photo, I get the following two error messages: <<<< FigXPCUtilities >>>> signalled err=-17281 at <>:302 <<<< FigCaptureSourceRemote >>>> Fig assert: "err == 0 " at bail (FigCaptureSourceRemote.m:569) - (err=-17281) These error messages appear, but as far as I can tell, the photo comes through OK, and I can save the data no problem. I've even removed all my handling code to see if it was something I was doing. I don't really want to ship with these errors showing, but I also have no idea what can be causing this error to appear. chatgpt was not helpful diagnosing this. Does anyone know what can cause this error Is there a way I can see the source code to figure out if there's something I'm doing wrong here? It really seems like this is an internal apple error, or else I would have expected more details on the error relating to the code I've written. Any clues would be appreciated!

Hello everyone, I'm working on a feature where I need to capture the highest possible quality photo (e.g., 24MP on supported devices) and upload it to our server. I don't need the photos to appear in user's main Photos app so I thought I could store the photos in app's private directory using FileManager until they are uploaded. This wouldn't require requesting Photo Library permission, maximizing user privacy. The documentation on AVCapturePhotoOutput states that "the 24MP setting (5712, 4284) is only serviced as 24MP when opted-in to autoDeferredPhotoDeliveryEnabled" /** @property maxPhotoDimensions @abstract Indicates the maximum resolution of the requested photo. @discussion Set this property to enable requesting of images up to as large as the specified dimensions. Images returned by AVCapturePhotoOutput may be smaller than these dimensions but will never be larger. Once set, images can be requested with any valid maximum photo dimensions by setting AVCapturePhotoSettings.maxPhotoDimensions on a per photo basis. The dimensions set must match one of the dimensions returned by AVCaptureDeviceFormat.supportedMaxPhotoDimensions for the current active format. Changing this property may trigger a lengthy reconfiguration of the capture render pipeline so it is recommended that this is set before calling -[AVCaptureSession startRunning]. Note: When supported, the 24MP setting (5712, 4284) is only serviced as 24MP when opted-in to autoDeferredPhotoDeliveryEnabled. */ @available(iOS 16.0, *) open var maxPhotoDimensions: CMVideoDimensions (btw. this note is not present in the docs https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfoundation/avcapturephotooutput/maxphotodimensions) Enabling autoDeferredPhotoDeliveryEnabled means that for a 24MP capture, the system will call the photoOutput(_:didFinishCapturingDeferredPhotoProxy:error:) delegate method, providing a proxy object instead of the final image data. According to the WWDC23 session "Create a more responsive camera experience," this AVCaptureDeferredPhotoProxy must be saved to the PHPhotoLibrary using a PHAssetCreationRequest with the resource type .photoProxy. The system then handles the final processing in the background within the library. To use deferred photo processing, you'll need to have write permission to the photo library to store the proxy photo, and read permission if your app needs to show the final photo or wants to modify it in any way. https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2023/10105/?time=799 This seems to create a hard dependency on the Photo Library for accessing 24MP images. My question is: Is there any way to receive the final, processed 24MP image data directly in the app after a deferred capture, without using PHPhotoLibrary as the processing intermediary? For example, is there a delegate callback or a mechanism I'm missing that provides the final data for a deferred photo, allowing an app to handle it in-memory or in its own private sandbox, completely bypassing the user's Photo Library? Our goal is to follow Apple's privacy-first principles by avoiding requesting a PHPhotoLibrary authorization when our app's core function doesn't require access to the user's photo collection. Thank you for your time and any clarification you can provide.

Where can I find the documentation of the Genlock feature of the iPhone 17 Pro? How does it work and how can I use it in my app?

iPhone7 : iOS 14.0 Beta 5 Xcode-beta Mac OS : 10.15.5 (19F101) crash info : ** Terminating app due to uncaught exception 'NSInvalidArgumentException', reason: '-[PHPhotoLibrary presentLimitedLibraryPickerFromViewController:]: unrecognized selector sent to instance xxxxxx' terminating with uncaught exception of type NSException my code: (void)viewDidAppear:(BOOL)animated {   [super viewDidAppear:animated];   if (@available(iOS 14, *)) {     [[PHPhotoLibrary sharedPhotoLibrary] presentLimitedLibraryPickerFromViewController:self];   } }

So I've spent the last five years optimizing my video AI system so that it runs with less than 5% CPU while processing a 30fps video feed on a Macbook Pro M2, and everything is great, until Sonoma comes out, and I find myself consuming 40% CPU for the exact same workload. So I fire up Instruments, and the "heaviest stack trace" (see screenshot) turns out to be Espresso doing some completely unasked-for and absolutely useless processing on my video frames. I turn off Reactions, but nothing helps - the CPU consumptions stays at 40%. "Reactions" is nothing but a useless toy to please some WWDC keynote fanboys, I don't want it anywhere near my app or my users, and I especially do not want to take the blame for it pissing away the user's CPU cycles and battery. Now, how do I make it go away, for ever? Best regards Jacob

I'm creating an app that uses AVCaptureSession to pass camera input to AVCaptureMetadataOutput type set [metaout setMetadataObjectTypes:@[AVMetadataObjectTypeFace]] and scan Face. After updating to OS 26 Beta2 and iOS 26 Beta2, an issue has occurred where the delegate method of AVCaptureMetadataOutputObjectsDelegate is not called on some devices. The following devices are experiencing this issue. iPad (9th Gen) iPad air (4th Gen) iPhone 15 This issue has not occur on any other devices I have. I tried running the AVFoundation sample code on the Apple Developer site on the above device. The same problem still occurs. [https://developer.apple.com/documentation/avfoundation/capture_setup/avcambarcode_detecting_barcodes_and_faces] Are any additional settings required after OS 26 beta and iOS 26 beta? Or is there some problem on the OS side?

Issue: In iOS 26 (tested on Developer Beta), AVCaptureMetadataOutputObjectsDelegate no longer receives callbacks when using .face detection. metadataOutput.metadataObjectTypes = [.face]

Opening this question after discussing the issue in the AVCapture lab, hopefully so we can track down this issue. We've been noticing some crashes in App Store Connect caused by layoutSublayers being called on a background thread. After debugging the issue a bit we found that all calls which modified the AVCaptureSession or preview layer were indeed done on the main thread. It would be useful to see what results in AVCaptureVideoPreviewLayer.updateFormatDescription being called. I've attached the crashlog below. Crash log.ips - https://developer.apple.com/forums/content/attachment/800b0dba-3477-4c5a-b56c-f4cc393b384f

We observed that the PHPicker is unable to load RAW images captured on an iPhone in some scenarios. And it is also somehow related to iCloud. Here is the setup: The PHPickerViewController is configured with preferredAssetRepresentationMode = .current to avoid transcoding. The image is loaded from the item provider like this: if itemProvider.hasItemConformingToTypeIdentifier(kUTTypeImage) { itemProvider.loadFileRepresentation(forTypeIdentifier: kUTTypeImage) { url, error in // work } } This usually works, also for RAW images. However, when trying to load a RAW image that has just been captured with the iPhone, the loading fails with the following errors on the console: [claims] 43A5D3B2-84CD-488D-B9E4-19F9ED5F39EB grantAccessClaim reply is an error: Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4097 "Couldn’t communicate with a helper application." UserInfo={NSUnderlyingError=0x2804a8e70 {Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4097 "connection from pid 19420 on anonymousListener or serviceListener" UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=connection from pid 19420 on anonymousListener or serviceListener}}} Error copying file type public.image. Error: Error Domain=NSItemProviderErrorDomain Code=-1000 "Cannot load representation of type public.image" UserInfo={NSLocalizedDescription=Cannot load representation of type public.image, NSUnderlyingError=0x280480540 {Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4097 "Couldn’t communicate with a helper application." UserInfo={NSUnderlyingError=0x2804a8e70 {Error Domain=NSCocoaErrorDomain Code=4097 "connection from pid 19420 on anonymousListener or serviceListener" UserInfo={NSDebugDescription=connection from pid 19420 on anonymousListener or serviceListener}}}}} We observed that on some devices, loading the image will actually work after a short time (~30 sec), but on others it will always fail. We think it is related to iCloud Photos: On the device that has iCloud Photos sync enabled, the picker is able to load the image right after it was synced to the cloud. On devices that don't sync the image, loading always fails. It seems that the sync process is doing some processing (?) of the image that will later enable the picker to load it successfully, but that's just guessing. Additional observations: This seems to only occur for images that were taken with the stock Camera app. When using Halide to capture RAW (either ProRAW or RAW), the Picker is able to load the image. When trying to load the image as kUTTypeRawImage instead of kUTTypeImage, it also fails. The picker also can't load RAW images that were AirDroped from another device, unless it synced to iCloud first. This is reproducable using the Selecting Photos and Videos in iOS sample code project. We observed this happening in other apps that use the PHPicker, not just ours. Is this a bug, or is there something that we are missing?

In the latest production release of our iOS app (deployed via the App Store), we’ve observed a significant increase in AVCaptureSessionWasInterrupted notifications where the interruption reason has a rawValue of 4. The session does not automatically recover, even after returning from background or deleting/reinstalling the app. An employee ran into this and was able to get a recording. We see the below error when attempting to take photos. "Error Domain=AVFoundationErrorDomain Code=-11803 \"Cannot Record\" UserInfo={AVErrorRecordingFailureDomainKey=3, NSLocalizedDescription=Cannot Record, NSLocalizedRecoverySuggestion=Try recording again.}", } This interruption causes the camera preview to remain black, and any attempt to capture an image results in a failure with the following error: Some questions from our team: What common system conditions or foreground app behaviors can cause .videoDeviceNotAvailableWithMultipleForegroundApps (reason 4) to become persistent? Our teams under is under the impression the interruption reason 4 is mostly associated with iPad and PiP, but neither of these are true in the logs we see. Is manual recovery of the session required? Is there a recommended strategy to detect that the session is unrecoverable and gracefully notify the user or rebuild the session? Is there an instrument(s) in XCode you would recommend when trying to evaluate the increase in reason 4? Best, Ben