UIPasteboard returning null from Today extension

Hello all,


It seems that in iOS 9/Xcode 7 beta 5, I am unable to access

[UIPasteboard generalPasteboard] string];

from my Today widget extension as every time no matter the contents, it returns (NULL). I looked through the release notes and I did not see anything regarding this.


Any ideas?

Replies

My app, which is a password manager, needs to check the pasteboard's contents while in background to clear it after a while, so as to limit the users's password exposure.


The main app, while on background, is also getting nil from the

[[UIPasteboard generalPasteboard] string]

call. When it comes back to the foreground, it gets the correct data.


Because of that, I suspect this is a new and undocumented security/privacy feature and that there will be no "fixing".


Can someone (Apple) confirm that?

I also think that this is one of the new privacy/security features of iOS 9. In general I think it is a good idea to prevent that Apps in the background can no longer inspect the pasteboard. A user who needs to paste a password fom one app to the other does not want that other Apps in the background can see this password.


But there's one problem with the current implementation in iOS 9: The pasteboard is even blocked before the App is actually in the background. Even in the "applicationWillResignActive:" delegate of UIApplication the pasteboard already returns nil. This makes it difficult for Apps to do last-minute stuff with the pasteboard before they are going to the background.