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.