Simulator builds for iOS

Go to ~/Library/Developer/CoreSimulator/Devices/

You will find directories with alphanumeric names

then click on the one of the directories and make following selection

Data/Containers/Bundle/Application/

Again you will find directories with alphanumeric names if you click on that you will find

Simulator build over there

You can copy this .app over and and install it using following command on a running simulator

xcrun simctl install booted *.app

Note:

Installing iOS device build on simulator will not work out.

• iPhone simulator uses i386 architecture
• iPad simulator builds uses x86_34 architecture
• iOS device build uses ARM based architecture

iOS simulator has so many drawbacks

Simulator uses lower level OSx frameworks not actual iOS frameworks so results can be different sometimes
GPU based UI rendering is different etc..

iOS simulator is good for functional testing and general and UI based alignment verifications

install ios app in simulator

We can't directly install any iOS app on simulator.

But If you have a app bundle for simulator which was built by someone else (or archived), you can install it using simctl

xcrun simctl install booted /path/to/your.app