Unable to launch Safari on iOS using Appium

Question

I am automating some tests a real device (iOS) using Appium and Cucumber. My idea is to do the following steps:

• Open the app
• Do some tasks
• Launch Safari
• Navigate to a website, lets say google.com for example

My approach is the following:

• I create the Driver with my app capabilities
• Do what I need
• Clear the Driver
• Create a new driver with Safari capabilities
• Navigate to www.google.com

The code looks something like this:

Appium::Driver.new(app_capabilities, true)
# do what I need on the app
driver.driver_quit

Appium::Driver.new(browser_capabilities, true)
# do what I need on the browser
driver.driver_quit

The problem I am having is that Safari doesn't launch. Although if I use only one Driver with the browser capabilities it does launch.

Anyone has any idea this is happening? Or maybe a better strategy?

I'm writing ruby but I don't mind code in other languages.

Answer 1

You can just get chrome to run as if it's on the iPhone , this is easier than driving the browser on the phone. http://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/chromedriver/mobile-emulation

This might not be suitable for everything but it's fine for reasonably simple usages and works for other devices not just iPhones.