Xcode

Xcode is a toolkit for MacOS made by Apple for Apple development.

It's best installed through their App Store page.

From there, you can install the Command Line Tools by:

1. Open Xcode.
2. Navigate to Preferences → Locations → Command Line Tools
3. Select the most recent or otherwise relevant version.

After installation, to actually enable the Command Line Tools:

sudo xcode-select --reset

If you are on Apple Chip, you'll need to install Rosetta or else things will start breaking:

softwareupdate --install-rosetta --agree-to-license

After this, if you are missing xcrun or simctl, run the first launch experience with:

xcodebuild -runFirstLaunch

Platforms

Platforms in XCode refers to Apple operating systems that you can develop software for.

To install a new platform (like a new iOS version):

1. Open Xcode.
2. Navigate to Xcode → Settings → Components (used to be under Platforms)
3. Recent platforms are available in the list automatically and are installable with the Get button. Older platforms are available by clicking the + button.

Managing platforms from the command line

To download all platforms:

xcodebuild -downloadAllPlatforms

To download a single platform (like if your iOS version is outdated)

xcodebuild -downloadPlatform iOS

Manually installing a platform

If all else fails, you can install platforms direct from DMG files downloadable from a browser.

Navigate to the Apple Developer downloads page.

From there you can download whichever runtime you need, then to add it after download:

xcrun simctl runtime add "/path/to/platform.dmg"

Simulators

Simulators are available for all Apple devices, and simulate hardware as best they can. They are not perfect, and are not performant or have feature parity against real devices.

# List available simulators
xcrun simctl list devices

To add a new simulator, say for iPhone 13, the steps are:

1. Open XCode.
2. Navigate to Window → Devices and Simulators → Simulators → +.
3. Select the device type, in this case iPhone 13.

Runtimes

# Update the local iOS SDK version
xcodebuild -downloadPlatform iOS

# Get runtimes
xcrun simctl runtime list

# Get runtime IDs
xcrun simctl runtime list --json | jq ".[] | .identifier" --raw-output

# Get iPhone devicetypes
xcrun simctl list devicetypes --json |\
	jq -c '.[].[] | select(.productFamily | contains("iPhone")) | .name'

Push notifications

Send a push notification to a running simulator:

xcrun simctl push booted com.example.MyApp payload.json

See Become a Simulator expert