osx lion - How to run iOS simulator without starting Xcode? - Stack Overflow
How can I run iPhone-only apps on a MacBook using an iPhone emulator? - LambdaTest Community
flutter - iOS Simulator is not running - Stack Overflow
How can you run iPhone apps on a MacBook when Xcode’s simulator doesn’t include the App Store? - LambdaTest Community
Videos
Hi, like the title says. I want to run some apps for iPhone on my mac, but they’re only available for iPhone and iPad. I tried installing Xcode and running a simulator, but that one doesn’t have an app store. What are my options?
Edit: it is an M2-macbook pro.
Assuming you have Xcode installed in /Applications, then you can do this from the command line to start the iPhone Simulator:
$ open /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/Applications/iPhone\ Simulator.app
(Xcode 6+):
$ open /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Applications/iOS Simulator.app
You could create a symbolic-link from your Desktop to make this easier:
$ ln -s /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/Applications/iPhone\ Simulator.app ~/Desktop
(Xcode 6+):
$ ln -s /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Applications/iOS Simulator.app ~/Desktop
As pointed out by @JackHahoney, you could also add an alias to your ~/.bash_profile:
$ alias simulator='open /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/Applications/iPhone\ Simulator.app'
(Xcode 6+):
$ alias simulator='open /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Applications/iOS\ Simulator.app'
(Xcode 7+):
$ alias simulator='open /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Applications/Simulator.app'
Which would mean you could start the iPhone Simulator from the command line with one easy-to-remember word:
$ simulator
The easiest way without fiddling with command line:
- launch Xcode once.
- run ios simulator
- drag the ios simulator icon to dock it.
Next time you want to use it, just click on the ios simulator icon in the dock.
Ok so I fixed my problem. Here is how I did it:
If you are trying to start a new simulator and there are no options for OS Version, then it means that there are no simulator runtimes installed. Here are the steps I took:
Open Xcode.
On the menu bar, click on "Window"
Click "Devices and Simulators"
In the Devices and Simulators Window click on the "Simulators" tab. At this point, you won't see anything in the tab.
At the bottom left corner press the
+icon. This will open a window to create a new simulatorin the window, click the dropdown menu next to "OS Version". Then, select the option "Download more simulator runtimes...".
From here, you can download which platforms you want to simulate (Which in my case is IOS).
Hope this helps anyone who are experiencing the same issues I had!
Close xcode and all running simulators
Run command in terminal-
rm -r ~/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Caches
Open simulator again
All current Mac models are capable of running the iOS simulator (and yes, you need Xcode for that, but you'll need Xcode anyway for development).
Apple has a website for developers at https://developer.apple.com, where you should be able to find more or less anything required to get started.
The iOS Simulator is only distributed as part of Xcode. The minimal Mac (any recent model) that supports Xcode will also support the Simulator. Multiple instances of the Simulator can be run from the macOS/OSX command line (not from Xcode).
When I ran a small app on the iOS Simulator instance, it showed less than 3 GB of virtual memory and maybe 100 to 200 MB of real memory in use.