iOS

When we are running automatic tests in the iPhone simulator is desirable to reset the simulator settings between each test execution for avoid that the results or final settings of one test could interfere on the execution of the next test. We can automate that process by running the following AppleScript code


The code is not difficult to understand, first it sets the focus in the iPhone simulator, then it performs a navigation to the "Reset content and Settings" option from the Mac menu bar and clicks it, which displays a confirmation window. Finally it clicks the "Reset" button in that window.

Since the version 4.2 XCode includes the option to test the GPS features of our iOS applications on the iPhone simulator by selecting among a few locations from a defaul list which includes cities as London, New York, Tokio, etc. The procedure is quite simple you only have to pick up one citiy in your XCode project and when you launch your application on the iPhone simulator it will behave as if you were in that city. This is really useful because by example a developer in London can test his application as if he were in Tokio and avoid bad user experience in this location. But another interesting thing we can do is to test how our application will work if a GPS fail happened. Let's see how.

Those predetermined locations are saved on as GPX files. GPX is an open light-weight XML data format for the interchange of GPS data between applications. XCode 4.2 offer us the possibility to add our custom locations by creating new GPX files and including them on your XCode project. The way we can force a GPS fail is just creating a GPX file what includes wrong geographical coordinates. By example



You can get more information about the schema an examples in the web site http://www.topografix.com/gpx.asp