iOS 14: Images in local notifications are fuzzy

My app generates local notifications, with attached circular images that provide a graphic state indicator.

For the indicator: I use a short, wide image (aspect ratio 1:6), with the circular indicator in the middle. This technique allows the the circular image to appear properly when the notification arrives, and prevents the image from being scaled to an unwanted, unnecessarily large size when the notification is opened.

With iOS 14, the images on the arriving notifications are unacceptably fuzzy (blurred, pixelated), but remain crystal clear when the notification is opened.

On prior versions of iOS, the images were always crystal clear, when arriving in notification center, as well as when opened.

This is obviously a change from iOS 13 to 14. Any workarounds? Anyone else experiencing this?

Replies

We are also experiencing this with remote notifications with typical 16:9 images. It's mostly un-noticeable with regular notification thumbnails, but we use the UNNotificationAttachmentOptionsThumbnailClippingRectKey with a CGRect that is different for each notification. The result is some notifications with extremely fuzzy or blurry thumbnail images on iOS 14, but the same notification thumbnail with the same cropping is clear on iOS 13, 12, etc. Long-pressing to expand the notification shows a clear image on any iOS version.

This has been driving me a little crazy, but Unless there's some kind of build setting I don't know about, this seems to be a change in iOS 14 that is beyond my control. The difference is clear regardless of the original image size/resolution.