Wednesday, July 1, 2020

Sim Genie 1.0

Curtis Herbert:

Sim Genie is a Mac app that is built for those of us that spend our days in Xcode. Apple has been adding a lot of hidden capabilities to the Xcode simulator, but they haven’t been making those capabilities particularly easy-to-use or discoverable.

So I got to thinking: the simulator can do a lot of things now a days, and I’d save a lot of time and avoid many annoyances if those things were more easily exposed. What would an app look like that really took a serious go at making a proper product out of the simulator? One that didn’t just focus on the raw capabilities of the simulator, but the workflows that could be built around it?

[…]

I’m charging a one-time fee for the app, there is no recurring revenue here unless I go the 2.0 upgrade-pricing route.

[…]

Sim Genie has to use the Xcode command line tools, and some other terminal goodies, to work. And that kinda stuff ain’t exactly sandbox-friendly.

Sim Genie:

Grab marketing-ready screen recordings right from the simulator.

[…]

Apply status bars without adding custom code, or needing real hardware.

[…]

Debug how your app responds to push notifications earlier in development, without deploying to device or setting up a push server.

Make sure your deep links aren’t breaking the app’s state; trigger them at any time to ensure your app responds nicely.

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No offense to Curtis, but… at least four levels of menus (status item, device, app, Grant/Revoke/Reset Permissions)? Looks awkward to use.

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