iOS 15 Communication Notification picture not shown

Question

I've been trying to update my (local & push) notifications to Communication notifications.

When a user receives a communication event from one of their friend, I want the displayed notification to include the friend's profile picture. Just like the new iMessage app does.

After watching the dedicated WWDC2021 session, I added a Siri Intent to my SwiftUI app:

// I correctly added the StartCallIntent to both my app's Info.plist and the Siri Intent extension.
<array>
    <string>INStartCallIntent</string>
</array>

and tried to update my notification flow with the following:

let image = INImage(imageData: friend.profilePicture.cellImage.pngData()!)
let intentFriend = INPerson(
  personHandle: INPersonHandle(value: friend.phoneNumber, type: .phoneNumber),
  nameComponents: friend.nameComponents,
  displayName: friend.localName,
  image: image,
  contactIdentifier: nil,
  customIdentifier: nil,
  isMe: false,
  suggestionType: .instantMessageAddress
)

let incomingCommunicationIntent = INStartCallIntent(
  callRecordFilter: nil,
  callRecordToCallBack: nil,
  audioRoute: .unknown,
  destinationType: .normal,
  contacts: [intentFriend],
  callCapability: .audioCall
)

let interaction = INInteraction(intent: incomingCommunicationIntent, response: nil)
interaction.direction = .incoming
interaction.donate(completion: nil)

do {
  let result = try notification.updating(from: incomingCommunicationIntent)
  return result
} catch let error {
  print("-- \(error)")
  // TODO: Handle error here
}

return notification

The returned UNNotificationContent is then handled to be displayed either as a push notification or a local one.

While the above code doesn't crash and seems to /work/, the notification doesn't look any different. Looking with a debugger, the _UNNotificationCommunicationContext is initialized, but:

• _displayName is nil
• _recipients is empty (as expected)
• _contentURL is nil
• _attachments is empty
• sender is set to a UNNotificationContact on which
  • handle & displayName are correctly set
  • _handleType seems correctly set too

In the app's logs, I can see:

[Intents] -[INCache cacheableObjectForIdentifier:] Unable to find cacheable object with identifier EDB29166-E46A-CF23-AB27-8B61F763A039 in cache.
[Intents] -[INCache cacheableObjectForIdentifier:] Unable to find cacheable object with identifier intents-remote-image-proxy:?proxyIdentifier=EDB29166-E46A-CF23-AB27-8B61F763A039.png&storageServiceIdentifier=com.apple.Intents.INImageServiceConnection in cache.

What am I missing to correctly display the friend's profile picture?

Thank you

Answer 1

Unfortunately Apple did not do a great job at documenting communication notifications, their WWDC video leaves a ton of very important details out, but there are a few things:

1. In your Notification Service Extension's Info.plist you need to add this: NSExtension -> NSExtensionAttributes (dict) -> IntentsSupported (array) -> INSendMessageIntent or INStartCallIntent.

2. Make sure you enabled the "Communication Notifications" capability on your main app target.

3. Finally, your code looks right but you need to add this (note: I have only tested this for INSendMessageIntent)

// Swift
incomingCommunicationIntent.setImage(image, forParameterNamed: \.sender)

// Objective-C
[incomingCommunicationIntent setImage:image forParameterNamed:"sender"];

Answer 2

For those who's confused like I was, the INSendMessageIntent key has to be added under NSUserActivityTypes in the plist file in the main target, like this:

<key>NSUserActivityTypes</key>
<array>
  <string>INSendMessageIntent</string>
</array>