ADB equivalent for iOS device

Question

I was looking some instrument like Android ADB in order to debug iOS devices. I've found iOS instrument, a tool of the XCode that is able to debug app on mobile iOS devices. This instrument is helpful if you have to test your application or some other open source app.

I need to test the iOS device, more than my apps, so I was looking for something like Android ADB for iOS devices.

Is there something like it?

Answer 1

To get the list of attached iOS devices, use the command xcrun instruments -s devices.

Answer 2

As of 2021, there is a tool from facebook that does this sort device automation.

The project is called "iOS Development Bridge" or idb.

idb is a flexible command line interface for automating iOS simulators and devices

• Github repository
• Website

For a bit of history, it is a replacement from similar archive project called WebDriverAgent.

From the original question:

I would like to know if it's possible execute a touch on the iOS device, such as input events like "tap", "swipe", "drag", "flick" in similar manner of adb shell for android devices. For example, I would like to execute a touch on any icon (such as settings, or some other icon of the main menu) and I am not interesting to debug my apps, but only to emulate an event in order to debug the device.

idb can do exactly this. It allows to interact with the device.

Examples from the docs:

Tap idb ui tap X Y Taps a location on the screen specified in the points coordinate system. The tap duration can be set with --duration

Swipe idb ui swipe X_START Y_START X_END Y_END Swipes from the specified start point to the end. By default this will be done by a touch down at the start point, followed by moving 10 points at a time until the end point is reached. The size of each step can be specified with --delta.