A single keyboard and mouse or trackpad now work seamlessly between your Mac and iPad — they’ll even connect to more than one Mac or iPad. Move your cursor from your Mac to your iPad, type on your Mac and watch the words show up on your iPad, or even drag and drop content from one Mac to another. OnWorks Pear OS online, a MAC OS emulator with an online ease-of-use distribution that has a custom user interface with a Mac OS X-style dockbar, and out-of-the-box support for many popular multimedia codecs. As you can see in OnWorks with Pear OS the developers of this OS have done a wonderful job in imitating Mac OS X and iOS.
Important:The information in this document is deprecated in Xcode 9. For Xcode 9 and later, see Simulator Help by choosing Help > Simulator Help in Simulator.
Simulator runs devices from different platforms including iPhone, iPad, iWatch, and Apple TV. Interacting with Simulator differs from interacting with an actual device. This chapter covers ways of interacting that are common to all platforms. Other interactions, such as manipulating the user interface, differ between touch-based devices and Apple TV and are covered in different chapters.
In this chapter you learn how to:
Use the Mac keyboard for input in multiple languages
Take a screenshot of the simulated device
Change the scale of the simulated device
For information on specific ways of interacting with iOS and watchOS devices, see Interacting with iOS and watchOS.
For information on interacting with tvOS, see Interacting with tvOS.
Using the Mac Keyboard for Input
Mac Os Emulator For Windows
Simulator can use the keyboard on your Mac as input to the simulated device. For you to most accurately simulate a device in Simulator, the simulator uses iOS keyboard layouts, as opposed to OS X keyboard layouts. If you have chosen Hardware > Keyboard > iOS Uses Same Keyboard Layout As OS X, Simulator automatically selects the keyboard that most closely matches the keyboard layout of your Mac. For most cases, leave this option selected. However, if you do feel a need to disable it—allowing you to select completely different keyboard layouts for your Mac and Simulator—choose Hardware > Keyboard > iOS Uses Same Keyboard Layout As OS X. Choose the same menu item again to enable the option.
Note: For the simulator to automatically switch keyboard layouts when the Mac layout is changed, both Connect Hardware Keyboard and iOS Uses Same Layout As OS X must be selected.
To add a keyboard layout on your Mac
Open System Preferences, and choose the Keyboard preference.
Select the Input Sources pane.
Press the Add button (+) to show the keyboard layout chooser.
Choose the desired keyboard, and press Add. The new keyboard layout is added to the list of available layouts.
This screenshot shows the keyboard layout chooser with the Swiss German layout selected:
To select a keyboard layout on your Mac
Select the desired keyboard from the Input menu. An example menu is shown below.
If the Input menu item is not in the Mac menu bar, use the following steps to add it:
Open System Preferences and choose the Keyboard preference.
Select the Input Sources pane.
Select “Show Input menu in menu bar,” as shown here:
Installing Apps
When you build your app for Simulator, Xcode automatically installs it in the selected simulation environment. Each simulation environment emulates a different device. Installing your app in one environment does not install it in any other. It is also possible to have different versions of your app in different environments.
You can also install an app by dragging any previously built app bundle into the simulator window.
Note: You cannot install apps from the App Store in simulation environments.
Mac Ios Simulator Xcode
Taking a Screenshot with Simulator
In Simulator you can copy a screenshot of the iOS device simulator to your Mac Clipboard or save a screenshot to the desktop. To capture any simulated external display save the screenshot as a file.
To take a screenshot of the iOS, watchOS, or tvOS device and save it to your Mac Clipboard, choose Edit > Copy Screen.
To save a screenshot of the iOS, watchOS, or tvOS device and of the external display as files, choose File > Save Screen Shot. A screenshot of each open simulated device is saved to the desktop of your Mac.
Taking a Screenshot or Recording a Video Using the Command Line
You can take a screenshot or record a video of the simulator window using the xcrun
command-line utility.
Launch your app in Simulator.
Launch Terminal (located in
/Applications/Utilities
), and enter the appropriate command:To take a screenshot, use the
screenshot
operation:xcrun simctl io booted screenshot
You can specify an optional filename at the end of the command.
To record a video, use the
recordVideo
operation:xcrun simctl io booted recordVideo <filename>.<extension>
To stop recording, press Control-C in Terminal.
Note: You must specify a filename for
recordVideo
.
The default location for the created file is the current directory.
For more information on
simctl
, run this command in Terminal:xcrun simctl help
For more information on the
io
subcommand ofsimctl
, run this command:xcrun simctl io help
Viewing the Simulated Device’s Screen
Even though Simulator runs on all Mac computers, its appearance may differ depending on the model. If the resolution of the simulated device is too large for the simulator window to fit on your screen, scale Simulator by choosing Window > Scale > percentage of choice.
Copyright © 2018 Apple Inc. All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Updated: 2018-02-15
7 Best iOS Emulators for MAC in 2020
Do you want to run iOS applications on MAC? This can be done using iOS Emulators. If you don’t own an iPhone but want to try an interesting application available only for iOS then you can use iOS Emulators to run that app on you MAC. Before knowing more about iOS Emulators, let me tell you about emulators. Emulators are a great way to strike out in the world of iOS. Generally, an emulator refers to a hardware or software that enables one system to operate or behave like another system. Emulators can be used for MAC. Emulators are an imperative tool for developers. They help the developers to know how their app will look and behave or respond. These are the programs that help to create a virtual iOS on the operating system to run a particular program. It’s important to note that emulators only create a virtual environment for software but the hardware remains the same. Sometimes it may happen that various apps require a specifichardware; such apps may not work properly. For example, if an application requires touch feature and your MAC doesn’t have it, then that particular app will not work on your MAC. Emulators also need a good quality RAM (minimum 4 GB RAM). One must keep in mind that more the RAM is smoother will the emulator work. An iOS Emulator refers to the software that runs on MAC and allows the users to create a virtual environment for mobile operating systems. By using an iOS Emulator, the user can install and run all the apps and games as can be done on an iPhone. App or game developers use iOS Emulators to properly scale or test their applications. Various iOS Emulators for MAC available in the market are listed below.
- Smartface Smartface is an iOS Emulator which is mostly used by app developers. App developers use it to test their apps for various iPhones and iPads. The emulator is paid and starts at $99. It also avails the users with a free version to test it. It is an ideal emulator for testing cross-platform iOS apps. It also functions as an Android and iOS debugger.
-iPadian iPadian is yet another unanimous iPhone emulator that offer a UI similar to iOS. It costs around $20 and requires Adobe Air for proper functioning. It consumes low resources and can be used to play dozens of iOS games and run various iOS apps. It is not a full-fledged emulator. It provides the user with the list of apps that he/she can induce on the desktop to see how it will appear on iPad. It is user friendly, smooth and clutter-free. It has been a choice of professionals for long and comes with a customizable interface and includes a facebook notification widget as well. One thing to note is that it does not allow access to the official Appstore. The user can run the apps specifically designed for iPadian simulator.
- Appetize.io Appetize.io is a powerful emulator and an alternative to App.io. It is used for developing and testing iOS apps. It is a cloud-based iOS emulator and eliminates the need for downloading additional software. A user can use Appetize.io completely free for about 100 minutes per month. After exceeding the limit of 100 min/month, the user will be charged $0.05 per minute.Appetize.io runs iOS and Android apps within a web browser on any computer. It has an easy access to network traffic, debug logs and video recordings. It closely resembles an iPhone which helpthe users to easily develop, test and update the apps.
-Air iPhone This iOS emulator has a UI that resembles iOS 6 and can be used for playing games and using iOS applications. This iOS Emulator requires anAdobe AIR framework to work correctly. Developers use this emulator for testing the layout before finally compiling the application. It is Simple and has an intuitive UI.
- iPhone Stimulator This software allows users to use and interact with iOS apps and games. The UI of this simulator is identical to that of original iOS, but the UX is different. Consequently, it’s a simulator and not an emulator. You can use this iOS simulator for playing iOS games. iPhone Simulator offers a realistic simulation. It also enables access to the clock, calculator, notepad and iOS system preferences. iPhone Simulator is mainly used for games and other smaller apps, due to the lack of cutting-edge features. The lack of bugs in the emulation is also impressive and helps deliver a near-native iPhone gaming experience. Another additional benefit is that it’s free.
- Ripple Emulator Ripple emulator helps you emulate an iPad on PC for testing purposes and is an easy option since it is not software-based, requiring a Google Chrome extension. It can be used for developing and testing apps while online on your PC. However, there is a drawback of Ripple; it is still in the beta stage presently. You are likely to encounter bugs. Ripple Emulator is available as a browser extension. So, you can install it in your Chrome browser and setup everything easily. Overall, it works fine and you can test or run iOS apps and games. While Appetize.io is a browser-based iPhone emulator for PCs, Ripple does its job in the form of a Chrome extension. It’s popular for testing cross-platform mobile and HTML5 applications without going through a complicated setup process. Targeted towards platforms like PhoneGap and Webworks, Ripple aims to help developers by providing features like HTML DOM Inspection, Automated Testing, JS Debugging, and more. In real-time, one can run the apps on different screen resolutions and devices. This iOS emulator for your computer doesn’t need to be restarted if you choose a new device, which makes the experience pretty convenient.
- Xamarin TestFlight Emulator Xamarin TestFlight is the next iPhone emulator. It is the official Apple emulator that is created for testing the apps developed for iOS. It is worth noting, that Xamarin TestFlight is not meant for beginners, there’s some learning curve to use this emulator to its full potential. You can upload your app and check its compatibility on different iOS devices.Furthermore, Xamarin TestFlight can only run applications that are developed for iOS 8 or later. These were all the best iOS Emulators for MAC. User can choose from the above according to their needs and satisfaction. Most of emulators are focused on app development and testing but some are also based on playing games and running various iOS apps. Depending on the need, the user can choose any of these emulators.