Hi, Has anyone been able to protect the audio part of FairPlay protected content from being captured as part of screen recording on Safari/iOS (PWA and/or online web app)? We have tried many things but could not prevent the audio from being recorded. Same app and content on Safari/Mac does not allow audio to be recorded. Any tips?

Hello! My name is Mason Prather. I'm a graduate student at Kennesaw State University and a Research Engineer working in XR environments through my Graduate Research Assistant role. I’m currently building a research prototype that connects a mobile companion application to a VR headset. The mobile application is built in Unity and deployed on iOS, and it streams video frames to a remote Unity client using WebRTC. Environment Device: iPhone 15 OS: iOS 26.3 (tested on physical device, not Simulator) Engine: Unity 2022.3.57f1 Graphics API: Metal Streaming Technology: WebRTC (Unity WebRTC package) Architecture: Mobile Unity app streaming video frames to a remote Unity client Receiver Device: Meta Quest Pro headset (Unity application) Networking: LAN (UDP discovery + TCP signaling) Video Source: Unity RenderTexture Goal The goal of the system is to allow a VR user to view media stored on their phone inside a VR environment. The iOS app: renders or captures media content converts frames into a WebRTC video track streams the video to the headset Current Status Connection setup works correctly. Observed behavior: Signaling connection successful ICE candidate exchange successful PeerConnection state becomes Connected Video track created successfully However, the receiving application displays black frames. iOS App Details The video source originates from a Unity RenderTexture. Inside the phone application: RenderTexture displays correctly Frames appear correct locally But the receiving peer does not display the frames. Relevant Components Unity WebRTC package iOS Metal rendering pipeline Custom TCP signaling LAN discovery via UDP Expected Behavior Rendered frames should transmit via WebRTC and appear on the remote device. Actual Behavior The remote video track is active, but the rendered frames appear black on the receiving client. Questions Are there known issues involving Unity WebRTC + iOS Metal texture capture? Are there specific pixel format requirements when streaming textures from Unity on iOS? Could the issue relate to texture readback limitations or GPU synchronization? I am more than happy to provide screenshots and console logs upon request. If anyone has experience streaming Unity video frames via WebRTC on iOS, I would greatly appreciate any guidance.

Summary On iOS 26, HLS alternate audio track selection behaves inconsistently on both VOD and live streams: the French track falls back to the DEFAULT=YES (English) track after manual selection, and in some cases switching to a non-default track appears to work but it is then impossible to switch back to English. Environment iOS version: 26 Players affected: native Safari on iOS 26 and THEOplayer (issue also reproducible on THEOplayer's own demo page) Stream type: HLS/CMAF with demuxed alternate audio renditions (CMFC container) Affected stream types: both VOD and live streaming Issue NOT present on iOS 17/18 Manifest #EXTM3U #EXT-X-VERSION:4 #EXT-X-INDEPENDENT-SEGMENTS #EXT-X-STREAM-INF:BANDWIDTH=8987973,AVERAGE-BANDWIDTH=8987973,VIDEO-RANGE=SDR,CODECS="avc1.640028",RESOLUTION=1920x1080,FRAME-RATE=29.970,AUDIO="program_audio" video_1080p.m3u8 #EXT-X-MEDIA:TYPE=AUDIO,GROUP-ID="program_audio",LANGUAGE="en",ASSOC-LANGUAGE="en",NAME="English",AUTOSELECT=YES,DEFAULT=YES,CHANNELS="2",URI="audio_ENG.m3u8" #EXT-X-MEDIA:TYPE=AUDIO,GROUP-ID="program_audio",LANGUAGE="de",ASSOC-LANGUAGE="de",NAME="Deutsch",AUTOSELECT=YES,DEFAULT=NO,CHANNELS="2",URI="audio_DEU.m3u8" #EXT-X-MEDIA:TYPE=AUDIO,GROUP-ID="program_audio",LANGUAGE="fr",ASSOC-LANGUAGE="fr",NAME="Francais",AUTOSELECT=YES,DEFAULT=NO,CHANNELS="2",URI="audio_FRA.m3u8" Steps to Reproduce Load the HLS manifest (VOD or live) in Safari on iOS 26, or in any AVFoundation-backed player Start playback — English plays correctly as DEFAULT Manually select "Francais" from the audio track selector Observe that English audio continues playing (French does not play) In a separate scenario: manually select "Deutsch" — German plays correctly Attempt to switch back to English — English does not resume; audio remains on the previously selected track Expected behavior Selecting any track should immediately switch to that language Switching back to English (DEFAULT=YES) should work at any time Behavior should be consistent across VOD and live streams Actual behavior Two distinct anomalies observed, reproducible on both VOD and live streams, in both native Safari and THEOplayer: French-specific fallback: selecting the French track causes playback to fall back to English. This does not happen with German. Cannot return to English: in cases where a non-default track plays correctly, attempting to switch back to the DEFAULT=YES track (English) fails — the previous non-default track continues playing. The fact that the issue reproduces in native Safari confirms this is an AVFoundation/WebKit-level regression, not a third-party player bug. What we have already verified and ruled out LANGUAGE codes are BCP-47 compliant (en, fr, de) ✓ EXT-X-VERSION:4 is present ✓ Audio codec removed from STREAM-INF CODECS (video-only) ✓ ASSOC-LANGUAGE attribute added matching LANGUAGE value ✓ Container metadata verified via ffprobe: mdhd box correctly contains language tags (e.g. "fra") ✓ Audio segment content verified via ffplay: correct audio in each language file ✓ French audio source file contains correct French audio content ✓ Issue reproduces in native Safari on iOS 26, confirming it is not a THEOplayer-specific bug Issue does NOT reproduce on iOS 17/18 with the same manifest and segments Additional notes The VOD stream is packaged with AWS MediaConvert, CMAF output group, SEGMENTED_FILES, AAC-LC codec (mp4a.40.2), 128kbps, 48kHz stereo. English uses AudioTrackType ALTERNATE_AUDIO_AUTO_SELECT_DEFAULT; French and German use ALTERNATE_AUDIO_AUTO_SELECT. The live stream uses AWS MediaPackage with a similar CMAF/HLS output configuration. Please advise whether this is a known regression in AVFoundation on iOS 26 and whether a fix is planned.

Hi, Our client currently has an FPS deployment certificate generated with SDK version 4 that is still actively used in production. They would like to generate an additional certificate using SDK version 26. Before doing so, they just want to confirm: Will the existing SDK 4 certificate remain unaffected and still visible in the Apple Developer portal? Any considerations they should keep in mind? Thanks! :)

Hi, Our client currently has an FPS deployment certificate generated with SDK version 4 that is still actively used in production. They would like to generate an additional certificate using SDK version 26. Before doing so, they just want to confirm: Will the existing SDK 4 certificate remain unaffected and still visible in the Apple Developer portal? Any considerations they should keep in mind? Thanks!

Hello Apple Developer Support, I am reaching out for technical guidance regarding screen capture protection behavior on macOS. We are building a desktop application using Flutter running on macOS, and we have implemented native Swift code inside the macOS Runner in order to protect sensitive content from screen recording and screen sharing. Our current implementation relies on native window-level protection and display state handling from Swift, while the main UI remains rendered by Flutter. The main challenge we are facing is the following: we need to keep a strong native anti-recording protection on macOS the application is heavily used with AirPlay and screen mirroring currently, AirPlay / mirroring is often interpreted by the system similarly to screen capture or screen recording this causes our protected content to be replaced by a gray or blank area even during legitimate AirPlay usage In practice, we would like to allow: AirPlay legitimate external display / mirroring usage while still preventing: screen recording screen sharing unauthorized screen capture We would like to know whether Apple recommends an official supported approach for this use case, preferably using public APIs. More specifically: Is there an officially supported way on macOS to distinguish AirPlay mirroring from screen recording / screen sharing? Is "NSWindow.sharingType" the recommended public API for this scenario? Is there a recommended approach when the UI surface is rendered through Flutter / Metal? Are there any best practices with ScreenCaptureKit for protecting content without affecting AirPlay? We understand that some lower-level APIs may not be officially supported, so we would greatly appreciate guidance toward a public and future-proof implementation path. Thank you very much for your time and support. Best regards, Tony