Overview
- Anthropic announced Tuesday that Claude Code Desktop can now open and drive Apple’s iOS Simulator in a public beta, letting the AI build, run, observe, interact with, and iterate on apps inside a live simulator pane.
- The simulator pane talks directly to Apple’s iOS Simulator so Claude can control a simulated device without using macOS Accessibility or Screen Recording permissions.
- The feature runs only on a local Mac with Xcode and the iOS platform installed and is not available to cloud or SSH sessions, with each Claude session getting its own simulator and up to four panes allowed at once.
- Screenshots captured from simulated devices are transmitted to Anthropic and retained according to the company’s conversation retention policies, and Anthropic warns users not to sign into real accounts on devices the AI controls.
- The capability is rolling out in Claude Code Desktop’s Pro, Max, and Team public beta and could speed iteration for iOS developers by letting the AI test UI flows live while developers watch and continue to use the simulator.