iOS: Deploy and run app on device through command-line without jailbreaking

Question

I'm looking for a way to automate dev-test cycles for iOS and most popular ways seemed to be jailbreak then ssh. This includes two steps:

Deploy my app using command line from Mac/PC to the device.
Run the app on the device from Mac/PC command line.

However, since iOS6 and iPhone5 the official jailbreaking had been flaky which made me want to find an alternative solution not based on jailbreak.

I've seen fruitstrap and this post.

However, the former is no longer maintained and the latter seems to be far from official or stable. So here I am again, any idea is appreciated!

score 5 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:01

5

You can run instruments on the command line to launch your app (and run your automated tests) in the simulator. From what I understand this works with a real device as well.

See this question for more information:

UIAutomation through command line on a real device

edited May 23 '17 at 12:01

Community

1
1

answered Mar 23 '13 at 02:27

Bill Agee

3,606
20
17

1

With IOS 10 and Xcode 8 UIAutomation has been just dropped, so you cannot start an app with the Automation.tracetemplate anymore. However one can run an app with just another tracetemplate such as the Leaks.tracetemplate (given that you can user other methods for QA testing than the JS methods from UIAutomation) – Leo Aug 26 '16 at 16:35

score 3 · Answer 2 · answered Jan 14 '14 at 14:51

3

ios-deploy from PhoneGap is a fork of fruitstrap, so it may be something worth looking into.

answered Jan 14 '14 at 14:51

Ryan Wersal

3,210
1
20
29

score 1 · Answer 3 · edited Jul 02 '13 at 18:59

1

Bill's link answered the "build and run" part of my question.

I'll answer the deploy part: The only working method I found was to use the ruby gem transporter_chief.rb over an IPA app:

./transporter_chief.rb my.ipa

http://gamua.com/blog/2012/03/how-to-deploy-ios-apps-to-the-iphone-via-the-command-line/

edited Jul 02 '13 at 18:59

rotoglup

5,223
25
37

answered May 02 '13 at 16:12

kakyo

10,460
14
76
140

transporter_chief uses fruitstrap underneath. For this readon ios-deploy is the best answer I think. – Panayotis May 03 '14 at 12:47

iOS: Deploy and run app on device through command-line without jailbreaking

3 Answers3

Linked