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What is the best way to design a UITabBarController (or Sidebar) combined with a UISplitViewController on iPadOS 18 and later, while avoiding memory management issues?
I'm developing an iPadOS 18+ application that uses a UITabBarController, styled as a sidebar, to serve as the primary navigation interface. This setup includes 20 different tabs, each representing a distinct section of the app. For the user experience, each tab needs to present a master-detail interface, implemented using a UISplitViewController. The goal is to allow users to navigate between tabs via the sidebar, and within each tab, access related content through the split view's list-detail pattern. The Problem: Currently, my implementation involves instantiating a separate UISplitViewController for each tab, resulting in 20 unique split view instances embedded inside the UITabBarController. While this works functionally, it leads to significant memory usage, especially after the user opens each tab at least once. The accumulation of all these instantiated view controllers in memory eventually causes performance degradation or even memory warnings/crashes on lower-end iPads. The Question: What is the best approach to implement this type of architecture without running into memory management issues? Specifically: Is there a way to reuse or lazily load the UISplitViewController instances only when needed? Can we unload or release split view controllers that haven't been used for a while to reduce memory pressure? Would a custom container controller be more appropriate than using UITabBarController in this case? Are there iPadOS 18+ best practices or newer APIs that support this kind of complex multi-tab, multi-split-view structure efficiently? Any advice on how to optimize memory usage while preserving the sidebar navigation and split view layout would be highly appreciated.
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200
May ’25
Apple Music fullscreen artist not showing
In Apple Music I opened fullscreen for a song and I accidentally clicked some keys and the name and artist name of the song I was playing disappeared, and I can't figure out how to get it back, it temporarily comes back when I hover over the top bar but I can not get it to stay there permanently.
Topic: Design SubTopic: General Tags:
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72
Jun ’25
tvOS alternative app icons
Does anyone know if alternate app icons are actually supposed to work for Apple TV projects? We tried to set this up, and while it works in Debug, we run into validation errors when uploading the app to App Store Connect. Is this feature officially supported on tvOS, or is it iOS-only?
Topic: Design SubTopic: General
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About tvOS Material (design resource)
I noticed a discrepancy between the Material specifications for tvOS on the Developer page and the naming in the Design Resources (Sketch files). Which one should we consider authoritative? Apple developer design web page:https://developer.apple.com/design/human-interface-guidelines/materials design resource(sketch)
Topic: Design SubTopic: General
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76
Apr ’25
Macos26 Tahoé is Hell with "Relocated Items"
I just discover that feature (a folder lost in the middle of others desktop folder ). so with each updates: -/usr/local is emptied -somes apps in the Application folder, are deleted, even paid apps .. -i lost : Docker, python 3.13, latexlive2025, Apache NetBeans, java install, Affinity Publisher 2, all my 3D slicers ... github desktop, Epic Games Launcher, ........ 296go of apps Franckly : c'est la merde !!! I am using a MacBook Pro 16" 2019 any way to stop this behavior ? thank you !!!
Topic: Design SubTopic: General
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680
Sep ’25
Liquid Glass Navigation Bar
The system provided liquid glass background looks terrible with my companies navigation bar background color. The navigation background color is not up for discussion and cannot be changed. The clear liquid glass style looks great and I can apply that to buttons I add to the navigation bar, but that doesn't effect the system provided back button. I would prefer to maintain the default back button functionality. Please make it possible to set the liquid glass style that the system provides for navigation bar items.
Topic: Design SubTopic: General
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988
Oct ’25
Gray Shades That Adapt to Dark Mode
Hi, Normally we need many shades of gray in any App and Apple system have only 3 , Primery, Secondary, and Gray, so to make Gray regress that automatically adapt to Dark Mode we just use opacity on these colors ? there's no system built in Gray degrees ? Kind Regards
Topic: Design SubTopic: General
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90
May ’25
Xcode 26 Issue with functional of bridging header in Xcode project with both objective-c and swift
I'm in the process of add some swift code that is all objective-c. I have trouble with my actual app so I have worked on a prototype. There is what I have done Created a new Xcode project, selecting App and Objc Added a blank Swift file and accepted the generation of the -Bridging-Header. In project build setting, Yes for Defines Modules, Yes for Always Embed Swift Libraries Add appropriate .h file to Bridging header In Build Settings, in Swift Compiler - General, Bridging Header has correct path to the bridging header file Setup the single swift file in this was using @objc like this: @objcmembers class MySwiftClass: NSObject { func myMethod() { let output = ... } } When the project runs I execute in the objc ViewController: MySwiftClass *swiftObject = [[MySwiftClass alloc] init]; and get Use of undeclared identifier 'MySwiftClass'
Topic: Design SubTopic: General
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366
Oct ’25
How does Apple achieve this effect?
Hi everyone, I'm new to building apps on Swift and recently I've been wondering how does Apple get this blur effect behind the control center on Mac OS Tahoe. I think it would be nice to use in an app that I'm making but I can't seem to find it in the docs. Is it available through AppKit? I would appreciate some help on this
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Dec ’25
iOS 26.0.1: Different Liquid Glass Effects
Hello everyone, In the current iOS version, changes in the "liquid glass" light shining effects can repeatedly be observed on older iPhone devices (12/13/14). This change is often seen after the device is rebooted or after a SystemMemoryReset.ips (System Analysis Data). It changes very often... I'm not currently working on apps myself, but perhaps someone has ideas for the upcoming updates involving Liquid Glass. (please also check the screenshots)
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812
Oct ’25
Design Challenges with persistent toast message
I have an ongoing activity in progress. Think of: a delivery in progress house internet reboot in progress some water / electricity / internet / tv outage. (food) order processing I want to show a persistent toast message above the tab bar, across all tabs and screens across the app. It could take 15 minutes until the activity is finished. Obviously there's a challenge of: accessibility content overlaying with each other extra engineering effort. What we've thought of doing is: Option1: show a toast message, but when a modal is presented then it presents on top of the toast message. The toast message no longer updates itself. Once the modal is finished, then the toast message re-appears and continues to update. Option2: keep the toast message across all tabs and modals and work through the challenges mentioned Question: What are some other design approaches that could be taken to persist an ongoing activity (much like 'Live Activity', but just across the app when it's in foreground) or what are some design reasons that the two options considered are bad?
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212
May ’25
macOS Tahoe generates low resolution wallpapers on certain Mac models
Dear Apple, please make sure this bug gets delivered to whoever is responsible. That's all I ask. Please don't let it sit for months unassigned. This is, by far, the worst bug I've ever found with the macOS wallpaper system. FB21532401 If you own a 13" 2020 or newer MacBook pro model, set to the default resolution, and are running macOS Tahoe, macOS will significantly degrade the quality of any image set as wallpaper. When a still image is set as the wallpaper on macOS Tahoe, on some display configurations, the systems downscales the image to an incorrect size, resulting in pixelated wallpaper. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that macOS Wallpaper Agent appears to be using a less than ideal downscaling algorithm, which results in Super Mario Bros’ type pixelation (nearest neighbor) as opposed to any other reasonable modern method (like bicubic.) The issue does not repro on macOS Sequoia. Every model MacBook we’ve tested offers some resolutions with some form of this problem, but the 13” is the only one where it is notably awful. The most evident default case of this is the 13” MacBook Pro models with a 2560x1600 physical display (for example, 2020 MacBook Pro 13” (17,1.)) These models have a physical display resolution of 2560x1600, and a default scaled resolution of 1440x900. The relationship between the physical resolution and scaled resolution is not an even ratio (1:1 or 2:1), which seems to be the common condition under which this issue occurs. Repro steps: Set the systems display resolution to the default resolution - ideally on the model described above (see details on this below) Set a high resolution image (in this example 5120x2880) as the system wallpaper using any method Results: On the model described above, Wallpaper Agent will generate and display a 1440x810 image as the wallpaper. It should be generating and displaying at a minimum of 2560x1600, or more appropriately at 2880x1800 which is the proper 2X resolution. This can be confirmed by viewing the properties of the generated images in the macOS wallpaper cache here: ~/Library/containers/com.apple.wallpaper.agent/Data/Library/Caches/com.apple.wallpaper.caches/extension-com.apple.wallpaper.extension.image On modern Apple systems, the only situation in which the wallpaper should be generated at 1X is when the physical resolution and set resolution are 1:1. In any situation where the physical resolution is larger than the set resolution, the image should be generated at 2X the set resolution. As far as we can tell, this issue impacts any format, and any resolution of image, and occurs independent of the set image resolution.
Topic: Design SubTopic: General
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333
Jan ’26
Icon Composer missing margins
I'm trying out Icon Composer Version 1.0 (27.4). I imported a simple logo and sized it in the outer circle. The icon appears good in the Icon Composer. But when I export the file and use it for my app icon it seems to be missing a margin or padding that other native application icons have. Am i supposed to be adding my own padding to these resulting icons or am I building them incorrectly? Any guidance would be appreciated. Thanks!
Topic: Design SubTopic: General Tags:
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162
Jun ’25
Suggestion: Add App Notification Filter Slider to Notification Center
Add slim horizontal bar at the top of the Notification Center that displays the apps with current notifications, along with a badge showing the number of notifications for each app. Each app icon is clickable, allowing users to filter the Notification Center and view only the notifications from the selected app. The first button in the slider should be “All” to show all notifications, followed by app icons (Excluding notifications summary) This bar Appears only when notifications are from more than one app. Hidden if there’s only one app in Notification Center (no need to filter). Benefits: Better organization: Helps users quickly identify which apps have unread notifications. Reduced distraction: Allows focusing on notifications from one app at a time. Easier navigation: Especially helpful when notifications from multiple apps are mixed together by time. Faster interaction: Saves time by letting users jump directly to the relevant group of grouped or multiple notifications.
Topic: Design SubTopic: General
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76
Jun ’25
Maintain app icon contrast when switching to grayscale mode
Context & Issue I am developing an iOS application. My app icon uses colors that are relatively close to each other. When the user enables Accessibility → Display & Text Size → Color Filters → Grayscale (or similar modes), the icon becomes harder to distinguish because it loses color and contrast is reduced. Goal When iOS switches to grayscale mode, I want the app icon to maintain good contrast between its elements so it remains clearly recognizable. What I’ve tried Redesigned the icon with more contrasting colors. Added strokes/outlines, but it still doesn’t look much better in grayscale. Researched how iOS renders app icons when grayscale is enabled, but couldn’t find a way to override or provide an alternative icon. Specific questions Is there any API or mechanism in iOS that allows providing a different version of the app icon when the user has grayscale mode enabled? If there’s no direct API, are there any best practices for designing iOS app icons to ensure good contrast when converted to grayscale? Do we have to design grayscale version for app icon? Thank you!
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303
Aug ’25
iOS 26 Liquid Glass - Without any Blur - Possible?
let glassView = UIVisualEffectView(effect: UIGlassEffect(style: .clear)) glassView.frame = CGRect(x: 100, y: 200, width: 200, height: 400) self.view.addSubview(glassView) Though UIGlassEffect has two variants: .regular and .clear, even the clear one has some blur on the background. Is there a way to do get absolute no blur? Edges still have the glass effect. Apple does this in two places: Camera app: Text magnifier:
Topic: Design SubTopic: General Tags:
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702
Oct ’25
iOS 26 Modal View Controller with Transparent Background
Prior to iOS 26, this successfully gave me a modal view with a transparent background: let settingsVC = MySettingsViewController() settingsVC.modalPresentationStyle = .automatic //settingsVC.modalPresentationStyle = .overCurrentContext self.present(settingsVC, animated: true, completion: { } MySettingsViewController: self.view.backgroundColor = UIColor(white: 0, alpha: 0.5) Now in iOS 26, modal view is presented in a opaque grey background.
Topic: Design SubTopic: General Tags:
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662
Oct ’25