Testing web pages with Xcode's iOS Simulator

index.md

Finding the Simulator

You can test with the iOS Simulator that comes with Xcode. Navigate to the Xcode app in the Finder, right click and select "Show Package Contents":

Then navigate to Contents > Applications, and open the shortcut to "iPhone Simulator" (it may be called "iOS Simulator" depending on which version of Xcode you're running):

Viewing & Testing

When you're in the simulator, click open Safari, click on the URL bar, and you can paste the testing URL using ^⌘V (Edit > Paste Text), then hit enter.

You can test different devices and orientations using the Hardware menu:

Debugging

You can use Safari's inspector to debug web pages running in the simulator. Just open Safari (in OS X) alongside the simulator running Safari in iOS, and go to Develop > iPhone Simulator > [your device/tab]:

The latest version of Xcode does not have the simulator there:

@brandondrew:

1. Open Xcode
2. in appbar, right-click over Xcode
3. Open Dev Tool, Simulator
4. Change device in Menu:Hardware/Device/iOS ./etc

You can open the simulator from the normal cmd-e search dialogue now.

This was very helpful, thank you!

@tomByrer Thank you!

The simulator app location has changed to /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Applications/Simulator.app

@tomByrer thanks!

Copying the simulator app to the apps folder did not work but you can create an alias and move it there.

In XCode 11.5 the simulator is on /Contents/Developer/Applications/Simulator.app