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OpenDeviceHub

Your iOS simulators in windows again, one per device.

Xcode 27 replaced Simulator.app with Device Hub, and a decade of habits did not come across with it. OpenDeviceHub connects to the same simulators Xcode installs and brings back the familiar window, scaling and shortcuts, with a command line tool for driving a device from a script.

A screenshot goes here.

Download for macOS

Signed, notarized, and it updates itself.

Install

Download the DMG from Releases, drag OpenDeviceHub to Applications and launch it. The app is signed with a Developer ID certificate and notarized, so there is no Gatekeeper warning, and it updates itself from the app menu.

The odhub command line tool ships inside the bundle. Choose OpenDeviceHub → Install Command Line Tool and it links odhub into a folder already on your PATH, asking for your password only if every such folder belongs to the system. Remove Command Line Tool takes it away again.

Then, in a new terminal, odhub doctor reports what it found and odhub list shows your simulators.

Features

  • A window per device: several simulators side by side, resizable from any edge or corner, full screen, keep on top, and each window remembers where you put it.
  • Precise scaling: Point Accurate, Pixel Accurate, Physical Size or Fit, with the device body drawn around the screen or hidden.
  • Opens like an app: click the icon for whatever is running, or pick a simulator from the Dock icon or File → Open Simulator. A device booted anywhere else gets a window here too.
  • Familiar shortcuts: the Simulator keys you already know.
  • Input: click to tap and drag, pinch and rotate with the trackpad, type with your Mac keyboard, and swipe up from the bottom edge for home or the app switcher. Send keys to the device or keep them, connect the Mac keyboard as the device's hardware keyboard, and match its language to yours.
  • Device controls: Home, Lock, volume, rotation, Siri, the Action button and light or dark appearance, from the menu or by clicking the buttons on the device body. Restart or erase a device, step its text size, turn on increased contrast, trigger an iCloud sync, and set a location from a scenario or your own coordinates.
  • Create a simulator: name it, pick a device type and an OS version, and it boots and opens. The two lists follow each other, so a device an installed runtime cannot run is never offered.
  • Screenshots and recordings: a capture appears beside the window first, where you can open, copy, save it elsewhere, reveal it in the Finder or throw it away. Left alone it files itself. The folder is yours to choose.
  • The clipboard stays in step: copy on the Mac and it is on the device; copy on the device and it is on the Mac when you switch to another app. Or do it by hand from Edit.
  • Settings: whether closing a window shuts the device down, whether launching opens the simulator you had last, where captures go, and which app opens device links.
  • Drag and drop: drop a file or a link onto a device to open it there.
  • Follows the device: shut a simulator down from anywhere and its window says so and offers to start it again; boot it and the window reattaches on its own.
  • Debug helpers: slow animations, shake, simulated memory warning, the system log and app data in the Finder, and a click to frame latency overlay.
  • A command line tool: odhub drives a simulator from a script: tap, swipe, pinch, type, buttons, rotation. One menu item puts it on your PATH.
Keyboard shortcuts
Keys Does
⌘1 ⌘2 ⌘3 ⌘4 Point Accurate, Pixel Accurate, Physical Size, Fit
⌘B Show device bezel
⌘T Keep on top
⌃⌘F Enter full screen
⌘W Close window
⇧⌘H Home
⌘L Lock
⌘↑ ⌘↓ Volume up, volume down
⌘← ⌘→ Rotate left, rotate right
⌘S Save screenshot
⌘R Record screen
⌘C Copy screenshot
⌘V Paste to device
⇧⌘A Toggle appearance
⌃⌘Z Shake
⇧⌘L Show click to frame latency
Command line

Every command takes a simulator UDID, which odhub list prints. odhub help <command> has the full options.

Command Example
doctor odhub doctor
list odhub list
view odhub view A1B2C3D4 --boot
tap odhub tap A1B2C3D4 --x 0.5 --y 0.5
swipe odhub swipe A1B2C3D4 --from-x 0.5 --from-y 0.8 --to-x 0.5 --to-y 0.2
pinch odhub pinch A1B2C3D4 --from 0.2 --to 0.7
type odhub type A1B2C3D4 "hello"
paste echo hello | odhub paste A1B2C3D4
copy odhub copy A1B2C3D4
button odhub button A1B2C3D4 home
rotate odhub rotate A1B2C3D4 landscapeLeft
home-swipe odhub home-swipe A1B2C3D4
app-switcher odhub app-switcher A1B2C3D4

Current limitations

  • The windows are invisible to accessibility: VoiceOver, window managers and scripting tools see the app and its menus but not its windows.
  • A device taller than your display keeps its bottom edge off screen, where the pointer cannot reach it. Use Fit.
  • The compact layout below 340 points wide is written and unit tested but has never been used by hand.
  • Other Apple platforms: tvOS, watchOS and visionOS simulators are not supported.

Want to help close one of these? Pull requests are welcome. ROADMAP.md is where that list is going: location, push, biometrics, proxy certificates, device management, and the project aware tooling this exists for.

Working with Device Hub

Xcode 27 opens Device Hub itself when you run an app on a simulator, and other tools may launch it too. OpenDeviceHub shows the same devices, so both can be on screen at once. Two of Apple's own settings make them share better.

Quitting Device Hub can shut down the simulators it started, which closes their windows here. To stop that, quit Device Hub and run:

defaults write com.apple.dt.Devices shutdownStartedDevicesOnQuit -bool false

To stop Xcode opening Device Hub at all, quit Xcode and run:

defaults write com.apple.dt.Xcode DVTiPhoneSimulatorAlwaysLaunchInCoreSimulatorSession -bool true

Xcode then boots the simulator without a window of its own and yours is the one you use. With this on, boot the device here before pressing Run, or Xcode may shut it down when you press Stop.

OpenDeviceHub → Settings → Links offers to open devices:// links here instead. That covers links only. Nothing can take over from a tool that launches Device Hub directly, because it is launched by name rather than through the link.

Requirements

macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon, and Xcode 26 or 27 with at least one iOS simulator runtime.

Apple silicon only, and not by preference: the simulator frameworks this app loads from Xcode ship as arm64e with no Intel slice, so an Intel build would launch and then fail at the first framework load.

Building from source

scripts/build.sh              # the executables
scripts/build-app.sh release  # build/OpenDeviceHub.app
swift test --package-path engine

Use scripts/build.sh rather than swift build directly: SwiftPM records the deployment target as the linked SDK version, and AppKit then gives the window its pre macOS 26 appearance. Tests that need a booted simulator are gated behind ODH_INTEGRATION=1 and skip otherwise.

Source builds are signed ad hoc and need no Apple account or certificates. They report version 0.0.0-dev and carry no update channel, so in-app updates stay off unless an update signing key is configured and a source build can never replace itself with a release.

Contributing

Bug reports, feature ideas and pull requests are welcome. A bug report is far more useful with the output of odhub doctor, which names your macOS version, Xcode version, device and runtime.

For a vulnerability, please read SECURITY.md instead of opening an issue. It also describes what the app does to your machine, which is worth knowing given it loads private frameworks out of your Xcode. Maintainers cutting a release want RELEASING.md.

License

MIT. The Indigo touch message layout and hardware button constants are adapted from idb (Meta Platforms, MIT) and the rotation path from Siniulator (MIT); see third-party notices.

Disclaimer

OpenDeviceHub is an independent open source project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by Apple Inc.

It bundles no Apple frameworks, simulator runtimes or device bezel assets. It uses your local Xcode installation and the components installed through it, loaded at runtime.