Apple folds bug reporting into Feedback Assistant, discontinues Bug Reporter

In a major change to its bug reporting system, Apple on Monday announced the deprecation of its standalone Bug Reporter service, the capabilities of which are now folded into the Feedback Assistant app for iOS and Mac.

Detailed in Apple's Bug Reporting webpage, the switch to Feedback Assistant enables developers to file bug reports, request APIs and more directly on iPhone, iPad, Mac or through the web.

In addition to generating a unique Feedback ID for tracking filed bugs, Feedback Assistant features automatic on-device diagnostics, more detailed bug forms, more status options and remote bug filing for Apple TV, HomePod and Apple Watch.

The Feedback Assistant app comes preloaded and is available from the home screen on current beta versions of iOS 13 and iPadOS, Apple says. On prior iOS versions, starting with iOS 12.4, users can enable the app by installing a beta profile.

On Mac, Feedback Assistant can be found in /System/Library/CoreServices/Applications, though developers can more easily access the app through Spotlight or the URL scheme applefeedback://. Additionally, the app is automatically added to the Dock and aliased in Utilities when enrolling a macOS system in beta builds with the Beta Access Utility, the website says.

With Feedback Assistant now the default method of bug reporting, Bug Reporter has been discontinued. Developers who filed reports through Bug Reporter can view and track those filings, including original text and attached files, by using the bug's Problem ID.

Apple notes developer data has been stripped from certain bug reports as of late fall 2018 to comply with the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).