Appium : Step by step Native IOS App Automation - Part 3(iOS Simulator)

In this Part 3 , we are talking about iOS Simulator command line commands.

How this will be helpful in automation:

This will helpful in checking/verifying your iOS app whether it’s working fine without Appium or any other automation tool in picture. Once you find your app works well then you can go for automation with Appium, this is just to save your time from unnecessary troubleshooting.

Here we start with some useful and important commands

1. To get the list of Simulators available in your system , you can type below command

-> Open Terminal and type below command

                        $ xcrun instruments -s

2. To launch Simulator using command line , you can type below command and provide same of simulator as you got from step 1 above

-> Open Terminal and type below command

$ xcrun instruments -w "iPhone 6 (9.2)”   // replace with your Simulator name

3. To install app on Simulator using command line once Simulator is up and running, you can type below command

-> Open Terminal and type below command

                        $ xcrun simctl install booted <app path>

                  e.g $ xcrun simctl install booted /Users/macuser/Desktop/UIKitCatalog.app

4. To launch an installed app on your simulator , type below command(you can also click/tap the app and launch in simulator using mouse )

-> Open Terminal and type below command

                        $ xcrun simctl launch booted <app identifier>  

// To get an app identifier or Bundle Identifier you can get it from info.plist file

     e.g $ xcrun simctl launch booted com.example.apple-samplecode.UIKitCatalog

if you are interested to learn more about all available subcommands you can get by running

          $ xcrun simctl

Hope this helps to get acquainted yourself with basic as well as important iOS simulator commands.click here for Part 2

In Part 4 , we will see the sample demo program of iOS Native App automation using Appium. Stay tuned.

Appium : Step by step Native IOS App Automation - Part 2 (Xcode)

In this Part 2, we are learning about Xcode usage like - building a project, running an application on iOS Simulator.

As you know Xcode is IDE provided for Apple software development. Once you build your project, you can deploy your app on Simulator. 

Now we start with creating a project in Xcode. Since we will be working with Sample IOS Application (UICatalog) which can be downloaded from link provided in Part 1

1. Once you download UICatalog Sample Code, go to the folder and click on UIKitCatalog.xcodeproj

2. It will open in Xcode and looks like this

3.Now on Xcode click on: Product -> Build for -> Testing and you will observe build Succeeded message

4. Again go to Product menu and click on Run, you will see iOS Simulator booting up.

 (Make sure to choose installed simulator on your Mac OS using - Product->Destination->IOS Simulator on Xcode)

5. You can see UIKitCatalog app installed on your iOS Simulator 

If you want to add more devices (iOS simulators), you can go to 

  On Xcode :  Window ->Devices , it will open a Devices Windows

You can go to bottom-left and click on + sign and add your simulator.

Hope this helps, click here for Part 1

Please stay tuned for Part 3, where you will learn running iOS simulator using command line etc.

Appium : Step by step Native IOS App Automation - Part 1 (pre-requisites)

Appium is an open-source mobile automation framework which supports automation on both iOS and Android platforms. It has become one of the most popular choice among mobile app automators.

In this post, I will walk you through the step-by-step setup guideline which are necessary before starting iOS automation. 

To setup iOS automation below are the pre-requisites:

1. Mac OSx machine 

    - supports OS X 10.7+ onwards

2. Xcode - (for supported version, visit http://appium.io)

   You have to download Xcode + Command Line Tools.

   - download Xcode from Apple App Store.

  - download Command Line tools follow the steps mentioned below

        -> Open Terminal and type below command  

                    $ xcode-select --install 

-> You will get software update pop-up, click on Install button.

3. Appium

 - download Appium app from http://appium.io

4. JAVA

   - download and install JAVA.

   - Once installed, configure environment variable in Mac OS as mentioned in steps below.

Step-1 Open Terminal and type below commands

                        $ open -e .bash_profile

Step-2 Save the below line

                         $ export JAVA_HOME=$(/usr/libexec/java_home)

Step-3 Refresh the file using below command

                         $ source .bash_profile

Step-4 Check if the JAVA_HOME is set properly

                         $ echo $JAVA_HOME

5. Eclipse / or any other IDE of your choice

 - download IDE of your choice, I will be showing demo using Eclipse IDE.

6. Install Homebrew (http://brew.sh)

   This is required to install software on Mac machine

          -> Open Terminal and type below command

                      $ ruby -e "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Homebrew/install/master/install)"

7. Install idevicceinstaller

         -> Open Terminal and type below command

                     $ brew install --HEAD ideviceinstaller

8. Download Sample iOS App project ( UICatalog) from below link:

https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/samplecode/UICatalog/History/History.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/DTS40007710-RevisionHistory-DontLinkElementID_1

Please stay tuned for Part-2which continues with some basic knowledge and troubleshooting steps required for iOS automation like building a project in Xcode, installing .app on iOS simulator etc.

Automation : How to connect remote computer using PSTools on Windows machine

This is the common case where you want to trigger your scripts from remote machine. By using the term Remote machine i meant, suppose you develop your scripts on your development environment and keep your final scripts on some other machine which you use for test script execution purpose or let me put in other words if you want to run any script or any command from one machine to another remote machine using command line tool, here is the way which is available in Windows.

1. You need to download PSTools .

2. UnZip it and place it in any folder of your choice .

3. Open Command Prompt/ CMD and navigate to folder where you place the PSTools

4. Now type below command to connect to remote machine using IP address.

C:\project\PSTools> psexec \\10.20.30.13 -u phodu -p password -s cmd /c "D:\scriptRun.bat"

**Make sure scriptRun.bat is present in D: drive of remote computer.

-u = Specifies optional user name for login to remote computer.

-p   =  Specifies optional password for user name.

-s   =  Run the remote process in the System account.

Full documentation of parameters used above is @ link

In case you can't see the interactive Command prompt in remote machine then use -i parameter. Using this you can see cmd opens/launching in remote computer.

C:\project\PSTools> psexec \\10.20.30.13 -i 1 -u phodu -p password -s cmd /c "D:\scriptRun.bat"

Also, if you are unable to connect to Remote computer or you are getting access denied , then make sure to add / correct these steps :

1. Make sure that you are providing valid credentials to connect.

2. Check whether your remote computer is pinging by typing command in CMD like

   c:\> ping <ipAddress of remote computer>

3. Check firewall is OFF in remote computer.

4. Add below registry entry into your remote computer.

 Navigate to below path :

  Add REG_DWORD - LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy

The above steps can be consolidated in a .bat file as below.


1. Open notepad


2. Copy below line of code in it
    cd /D C:/project/PSTools

       psexec \\10.20.30.13 -i 1 -u phodu -p password -s cmd /c "D:\scriptRun.bat"

      exit

3. Save it as "run.bat".

Download the .bat file @ link

Let me know if you have any comments or need any help.