FBSimulatorServices
Changes state inside a booted iOS Simulator that no simctl verb reaches, by running idb's SimulatorFrameworkBridge helper inside it. It is added onto Simulator from outside FBSimulatorControl: a consumer that uses none of it neither links it nor ships the helper.
It adds these commands to Simulator:
| Command | What it does |
|---|---|
contacts | Replaces the contacts database from a file, or clears it |
photos | Clears the photo library |
health | Grants, revokes, lists and clears an application's HealthKit authorizations |
notification | Sends a push notification, and lists and clears an application's delivered notifications |
privacy | Grants and revokes privacy permissions (TCC), including location |
network | Sets, lists and clears the proxy and DNS configuration |
preferences | Applies settings (SimulatorSetting): appearance, Dynamic Type, accessibility, keyboard, and raw preferences |
orientation | Reads and sets the physical device orientation, confirming that a change took effect |
Each of these runs some or all of its work in the helper; the rest writes the Simulator's data directory or its defaults directly, and writing an orientation goes through the Simulator's HID services. The helper is staged and spawned on demand and talks to the host over a Unix domain socket. The connection is held per Simulator and reused, so a warm call does not pay to start the helper again. FBSimulatorAX reads accessibility through the same helper, and FBSimulatorCodeInjection starts the Simulator-wide REPL through it.
Resources
The helper, SimulatorFrameworkBridge-iOS (and -tvOS for tvOS Simulators), is a resource of this library. It is a Simulator binary signed for the Simulator, and must be shipped as it is, without re-signing. Point BundledResources.hostDirectoryPath at the directory you copy it to, as described in FBSimulatorControl's resources section. Contacts, Health and delivered notifications are not available on tvOS, whose SDK lacks those frameworks.