1w ago

Show me your iOS/macOS bugs

I’m an Apple software QA engineer (yes, we exist) and I’d love to hear about bugs you’ve encountered. I can create bug reports (aka radars) and/or bother the right teams/people to get bugs fixed. To be clear this is not official company business, thoughts/opinions are my own, and I’m doing this in my free time to keep Lemmy awesome and because I love you guys.

Alt/throwaway account for obvious reasons.

Want to try and help as many folks as possible so please feel free to share this thread with any other communities where it is relevant.

In the interest of keeping the scope here narrow, rules for bugs:

iOS/iPadOS and macOS issues only. Please ensure that you are running the latest version of iOS/iPadOS (18.3.2) or macOS (15.3.2)
Please provide detailed step by step instructions on how to reproduce the issue. If I can’t reproduce it on my test devices, then I can’t report it.
Provide as many hardware details as you can (e.g. iPhone/iPad/Mac model, year, device specs)
Can’t help with general UI/UX complaints, use the feedback form for that.
Can’t help with vague power/performance/battery drain issues unless you can provide exact steps to reproduce.
Can’t help with services (e.g. iCloud, App Store, Apple Account).
Can't help with 3rd party software
Can’t guarantee that anything I report will be fixed and due to the nature of how we work I won’t be able to share status updates, but I’ll certainly try my best to move things along internally.
Please don't ask me about upcoming hardware/software; whatever it is, I have no idea what you’re talking about and no it doesn’t exist.

Edit 1: thanks for the reports everyone! Some of these require a little more research/testing so while it might take me a little longer to get back to you, that doesn't mean I haven't seen your message :)

53 comments

PM me your Apple zero-days. /s
- nice try, fbi

I have this notch in my MacBook Pro display, and system tray icons just disappear behind it once I have too many of them. I need a third party app like Ice or Bartender to fix this bug, and honestly, it’s embarrassing for Apple to not have fixed this in so many years.
- yup that's a great callout, thanks!
- The notch is a design crime.

I recognize this is a “feature” but I think it should be treated like a bug, or at least let us turn it off!!
Whatever egghead came up with the “keyboard hot zone” that dynamically (and invisibly) increases the size of the keys based on what it thinks you’ll type deserves to be tarred and feathered. Problem is, it’s always fucking wrong. It happened already typing this text, the above “increases” was first typed as “increased” because it expected “d” and thus made the “d” key zone slightly larger and the “s” zone slightly smaller. I tried typing “NCASE”, like the PC case brand, the other day, and I had to try repeatedly to get the “s” key to pop. I kept hitting the “a” key because it expected “NCAA” and increased that key zone.
Just the iPhone keyboard overall is bad. Inconsistent layouts based on where you’re typing. No number row. No period/comma (unless you’re typing a website). Just why.
- Bruh I never made the connection that this was happening this explains so much
- Glad I’m not alone! The predicting capabilities have become too aggressive.

I suspect that this is a feature, or at least a partner-related market decision, rather than a bug, and I suspect the most you’ll be able to say is “the weather is nice today” or “thank you for sharing this”, buuuut…
DisplayPort 1.2 Multi-Stream Transport: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/253432530?sortBy=rank
With a full implementation of DisplayPort 1.2 MST it should be possible to output to two independent (non-mirrored) monitors over a single USB-C port. This can be via an MST hub/dongle or using monitors that support DisplayPort MST daisy chaining. This is a core part of the spec to the point that my Steam Deck supports this.
macOS, however, will treat MST displays as targets for mirroring instead of separate displays. The only way to have an elegant “one wire” experience with a MacBook is to use a much more expensive Thunderbolt dock or a dock that uses a DisplayLink chipset which requires a driver to be installed (as DisplayLink are a company unrelated to DisplayPort).
It’s worth noting that macOS does support MST in the form of two video streams for one very high-resolution monitor, which is kind of interesting.
I’d love it if we could use MST docks/hubs/splitters with macOS rather than either needing expensive third-party peripherals or plugging multiple wires into our MacBooks. Especially because most office setups I’ve seen recently use MST hubs if they offer dual monitors!
Thanks for reading this far, and more importantly thank you for soliciting feedback in this forum and manner. Best of luck!
- Oh this is why my two monitor dongle only works on Linux.
  I thought it was weird that I couldn't get the second monitor to work without plugging it directly into a Mac, but I put it down to being a cheap dongle.
  
  Yep, that’s the problem 😭 If Apple just finished their driver then it would work.
  I suspect they’re protecting Thunderbolt hub manufacturers and DisplayLink, as Apple don’t sell a daisy-chainable Thunderbolt monitor or their own hub/docking station so I can’t see any other reason not to just implement it.

MacBook laptop, latest MacOS.
When I hop on a zoom call, I always get a pop in the toolbar about filters. There’s an x on the dialog bubble but you can’t x out of it.
When my external monitor shuts off, it cuts my internet connection whether it’s WiFi or plugged in via Ethernet.
- Could you please clarify what you mean by pop in the toolbar about filters? Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but this doesn't sound like a first party dialog. Alternatively if you could share a screenshot that would be helpful.
  Which model of external monitor are you using and how is it connected to your Mac?
  
  No this happens to me too - it's the portrait effects feature for all video apps that use the cam

I have a petty one:
Go to Settings and disable Apple Intelligence
use Siri voice control for a task
the Siri icon thing remains at the bottom of the screen because it’s listening for the next command.
tap elsewhere on the screen
Expected: Siri goes away
Encountered: the tap does nothing - Siri will continue listening until you say “thank you” or turn off the screen.
Workaround: restart the phone and the problem goes away.
- I’d settle for Apple Intelligence not turning itself back on with every iOS update.
  
  yeah that's a good callout, thx!

I have a mac m3 I'm forced to use for work. It is managed by my organization (I'm not sure exactly what that entails).
There is no screensaver that just turns my screen black. I don't want animation, I don't want color, I just want the screen to be blank.
Speaking of, I kept hearing my fan spin up and was wondering why. Flurry screensaver was just taking up like 2.5 CPUs and a couple gigs of ram. No clue why. It was actually supposed to be the photos screensaver, but I'm assuming it was angry that the photos screensaver was pointed at a folder with no photos (nor anything else). This was when the PC was running and in use so the screensaver should not even have been running.
Sometimes, when logging in, the password will just not work. If I click off my user and click on admin or another, it will then work fine. Multiple occurrences, not sure of cause.
- Why do you want a blank screen instead of the display turning off?
  
  I actually never use the laptop's display; it goes to a monitor via HDMI that I switch between sources. It could cut output to the HDMI port and I'd be equally happy

The (picture) convert function in iOS shortcuts ignores HDR. So when I edit my HDR ProRAW photos and then convert them to HEIF to save space after I‘m happy with my edit, the image looks SDR/dull. It’s bad enough the only native way is constructing your own shortcut.. How else are you supposed to use ProRAW without absolutely trashing your storage?
- To add to this, iOS (and macOS) are very sensitive about what a file needs to have to be recognized as HDR. A lot of 3rd party HDR files just won’t render as HDR even though the data is all there.

The monitor calibration tool on macOS does not support HDR properly, resulting in severe miscalibration.
Also while writing this post I realized “miscalibration” is not in iOS’s spellcheck dictionary lol.
Also Apple doesn’t fully support high refresh rate displays. My current display Apple supports as 100Hz when on Linux and Windows I can run it as 120Hz or 144Hz.
(M2 Mac Mini running 15.3.2)
External monitor is connected via thunderbolt to DisplayPort cable. It’s connected to my Windows/Linux computer via DisplayPort cable directly to the GPU.

Firstly, I have to thank you for doing this - you’re awesome.
Given your
Can’t help with general UI/UX complaints
I am unsure you can help, but I’ll drop it in here anyway.
Device: iPhone 14 Pro on iOS 18.4 (released by the time of this comment)
Issue: When screen recording, the Dynamic Island activity shows up in the recording - this is intended. However, if I do something in an app which full-screens the UI (as in the app hides the status bar - for example, I tapped a photo in the Photos app to hide everything but the photo, zooming in also works I think), the island activity disappears, but the black cutout remains in the video until a few seconds later, when it too abruptly and weirdly disappears with some weird flickers and other visual glitches. I can’t word it properly, so here’s a video (idk how to upload it so here’s the first way I found to do this - lmk of any other way to do this): https://streamable.com/ko8gsy
My test case: I am playing music, and the dynamic island shows the now playing activity. I start screen recording in order to demonstrate the issue. I then go into an app which has the capability to hide the status bar (clock, wifi/cellular, battery and the dynamic island activities) - in my case, I choose to tap on a photo in the Photos app to hide all but the photo itself. I zoom into the photo before I do that so that the island isn’t on the black part of the UI (issue would be invisible). After tapping and when the status bar disappears, the activity does so too, but the cutout/“pill” remains until a few moments later, when it glitches out when it abruptly disappears too.
Has been happening since the iOS 18 dev betas in the summer at the least.
Sorry for the incredibly bad wording. Lmk if you need more info

apple notes on ios, ipados when a note is too long, adding more text at the bottom of the note, sometimes causes the cursor/screen to jump up. issue disappears when creating a new note/reducing the oglethorpe of the note. not sure what the limit is when a note is too long, using search function sometimes does not properly jump to the search term and high light. it jumps to some random location that does not have search term when writing a note, switching to another application and back, loses the original cursor position
all still happening on ios 18.2.1. iphone 14 pro, ipad os 17.5.1 ipad mini 6
- oglethorpe?

On my iPhone 15 pro using the windows 11 phone link will cause my phone to stop connecting to other devices.
Basically set up phone link so it can send notifications to the PC, and use it for a bit. After that shut down (or just walk away) from the PC and try to connect to a Bluetooth device (AirPods for example). Most of the time it won’t work. My AirPods for example will get stuck connecting. I haven’t found the exact rhyme or reason of when it does work. But usually when it’s broken turning Bluetooth off and back on again (in system settings) fixes it.

iPhone SE2:
Use until it turns off due to empty battery
Put on charger, wait for it to boot.
Unlock at the earliest opportunity.
Problem: after unlocking, the background disappears (goes black).
Only the home screen though, the lock screen wallpaper works. ‘Fix’ is to change the wallpaper.

The retro Mac screensaver in MacOS crashes like 97% of the time. I have confirmed it's not just for me.
Also: Can you please ask someone to add the OpenDyslexic font to apple books?
- Could you please clarify what you mean by retro Mac screensaver? To my knowledge this isn't the name of any stock screensaver. Also could you please share the specs of your Mac?
  
  The literal name of the screensaver is "Macintosh".
  Specs:
  Cheers!

Oh hey, awesome!
I'll just paste here what I've already written in Feedback Assistant.

System info:
MacBook Air M2, 2022, 8GB RAM, 256GB storage
macOS 15.3.2 (24D81)
iPhone 13 mini, 128GB storage
iOS 18.3.2 (22D82)
I have a couple more watchOS ones, and a couple wonky ones that I either don't know how to reliably reproduce, or can't reproduce anymore right now but also don't know if they're fixed yet. But these should be the bugs I can think of right now that I can reliably reproduce that aren't watchOS. If I find/remember more I'll post them.
This also just made me check and close 2 feedbacks that did get fixed in the meantime :^)

Device: iPhone 15 Pro Max (iOS 18.3.2)
Description: I created a Shortcut called “Brush Teeth” that uses a combination of vibrates, timers, and spoken words to help make sure you’re adequately brushing.
I have the Zarvox (US English) voice selected for all of the spoken words, but oftentimes it will use the default voice for one or two of the steps in the shortcut. Sometimes all the steps use the correct voice, and sometimes a random step (or two) will use the default voice.
The shortcut is as follows:

Vibrate Speak “Go” Wait 30 seconds Vibrate Speak “Switch” Wait 30 seconds Vibrate Speak “Switch” Wait 30 seconds Vibrate Speak “Switch” Wait 30 seconds Vibrate Vibrate Vibrate Speak “All done”

Round 2 :)
This one is very annoying when I have Safari windows already open on my secondary display and trying to create a new Safari window on my primary display because it then needs an extra click to focus the window.
Since this occurs with multiple apps (and also third-party ones like BBEdit), this is very likely not an issue in each of the apps but rather in AppKit or the windowing system.

System info:
MacBook Air M2, 2022, 8GB RAM, 256GB storage
macOS 15.3.2 (24D81)

Hey! Thank you for this post, I guess more engineers lurk on Reddit too as most of the bugs I’ve reported there have been resolved.
I find quite annoying that Type to Siri does not work while on a call and most of the times I’m on the lockscreen. Same with Visual Intelligence, you can’t use it while on a call.

The spotlight search box can be used for (simple) math prompts. My Mac (M1 iMac on 15.3.2) has its language set to Dutch. In Dutch, the official way of formatting decimal numbers is the inverse of the us-English way: groups of numbers are separated by a . and decimals with a , . So, for example: 12.345,67 (12 thousand three-hundred forty-five and 67/100).
When following the official number formatting of the configured language, math in Spotlight works fine. But Dutch people are also human and make small mistakes sometimes, and we also sometimes use a dot to indicate a decimal. But if you do that, spotlight seems to just disregard the decimal and starts showing completely unexpected results:
5,0 + 5,0 = 10 (expected) 5,0 + 5.0 = 55 5.0 + 5.0 = 110
Interestingly, while typing the above on my iPhone 12 w iOS 18.3.2, the autocorrect suggestion given after pressing the =-sign was exactly the same…
Also, this behavior has been around for years, not just the recent MacOS versions. I’m not sure if this also is present when using other languages.
Thanks for your post and work, and say Hi from me to Tim!

A not very important but annoying one - iOS keyboard dictionary for British English contains American words and spellings (e.g. gotten, yogurt etc.)

I know one thing people complained on Reddit before is that the current shortcuts settings doesn’t tell you where the shortcut was duplicated. See this thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/MacOS/s/JjTxfDLjSY

Certain sites like Reddit and YouTube are painfully slow or just don't work sometimes in Safari 18.3.
Also the Music app on macOS is horrible. Very simple things like searching and navigating are buggy and seem like they've never been tested.

I already have tickets for this, but I use the phone as a music player, and when using Siri it’s exceptionally bad at handling albums/bands with other languages, as it tries to convert the foreign words to English, then search. Double metaphone exists, y’all. :)
Could they also add a way to say “play album X”? 50/50 it will play artist X instead of album X. And if I say play album X by artist Y, it’ll either play that artist, that album by that artist, or a different album with the right name.
Thanks for doing all this!

http://openradar.appspot.com/page/1

💙
Founder Supreme, The "Has Apple Ever Responded to Your Feedback?" Support Group

Friend running latest M4 Max Studio. Studio display configured as main monitor connected to 1st TB5 port. Secondary Dell 4k monitor connected to HDMI.
Latest MacOS thinks the HDMI monitor is on, even when it is powered off. This means that a second Firefox window on screen 2 is unreachable without powering on the second monitor. Would be nice to have a feature that would return all open windows to the active screen(s).
Better yet if there was M-TAB or M-` would show the second window and open it on a screen that is actually on.
Big hassle for multi-monitor setups. Thanks for taking the time to do this.

Using a song as an alarm sound only works if it’s locally downloaded in Music and there are some codec and bitrate restrictions as well, but this is never explained anywhere. I’ve had to figure it out by trial and error.
At the very least there should be a warning in the Alarm app when you choose a song as an alarm that isn’t going to work.

Not all Live Photos can be used for Lock Screen. You get an error saying this photo can’t be animated or some shit. Many different hardware versions and latest software.

Sometimes app icons stay in their dark version even though the UI is in light mode. Was still present in iOs 18.3. just updated to 18.4 so don’t know if it has been fixed yet.

Not really a bug, but I hate the blank space at the top of a macbook screen if you set your dock to auto-hide. It’s a waste of screen real estate.
- ?
  I have my dock and top bar set to auto-hide and my windows typically take up the full screen, wasting no space at all.

Bug Report: Missing AppleScript Introduction on First Login
Summary
After logging in for the first time, users do not receive any introduction or guidance on using AppleScript. As a result, one of macOS’s most powerful automation features remains hidden and underutilized.
Steps to Reproduce
Set up a new macOS device or create a new user account.
Complete the initial macOS setup process.
Log in for the first time.
Observe the lack of any AppleScript introduction or onboarding.
Expected Behavior
After logging in for the first time, the user should be presented with an introduction to AppleScript, including a brief explanation of its capabilities and an option to open the Script Editor with example scripts.
Actual Behavior
No introduction, tutorial, or prompt related to AppleScript is displayed. Users remain unaware of its presence unless they actively seek it out.
Environment
macOS Version: All
Device Model: All
User Type: First-time user (new account or fresh macOS installation)
Reproducibility: 100% (occurs on all tested machines)
Additional Information
AppleScript is a core feature of macOS but is not surfaced to users who may benefit from it.
Other macOS features, such as Shortcuts, receive more prominent onboarding.
A simple onboarding dialog or notification could greatly improve discovery and adoption of AppleScript.
Suggested Fix
Introduce a brief AppleScript onboarding experience upon first login, possibly including:
A welcome screen explaining what AppleScript is.
A button to open the Script Editor with example scripts.
A link to documentation or tutorials.
- dressing up your pet feature request up as a bug report isn’t going to work
  
  It's totally gonna work /s
  
  lol he just made up an “expected behavior”.
- Just my personal opinion, I think this is unlikely to happen. Even the official docs for AS are part of the Documentation Archive. You're better off using Shortcuts if you can.

53 comments

Summary

Steps to Reproduce

Expected Behavior

Actual Behavior

Environment

Additional Information

Suggested Fix