Capture iOS Simulator video for App Preview

Question

Okay, so we can now submit video previews of our apps on the App Store. According to Apple we should do so with an iOS8 device and OSX 10.10. The problem is you have to have all the different devices (4", 4.7", 5.5" and iPad).

Is there an alternative to this?

I am thinking of capturing a video of the simulator. The problem is the device screen is bigger than my FullHD monitor when shown in 100% resolution. Any solution that can capture a video right from the simulator in full resolution?

Edit: Since a lot of people are answering questions I'm not asking let me say: - Recording one device size and scaling it is not what I'm asking; - How to record any app preview is not what I'm asking; - How you do your previews is not what I'm asking;

What I am asking is can you record a video from the simulator in 100% resolution if it doesn't fit on the screen?

Answer 1

For Xcode 8.2 or later

You can take videos and screenshots of Simulator using the xcrun simctl, a command-line utility to control the Simulator

1. Run your app on the simulator

2. Open a terminal

3. Run the command

   • To take a screenshot

     xcrun simctl io booted screenshot <filename>.<file extension>

     For example:

     xcrun simctl io booted screenshot myScreenshot.png

   • To take a video

     xcrun simctl io booted recordVideo <filename>.<file extension>

     For example:

     xcrun simctl io booted recordVideo appVideo.mov

4. Press ctrl + C to stop recording the video.

The default location for the created file is the current directory.

Xcode 11.2 and later gives extra options.

From Xcode 11.2 Beta Release Notes

simctl video recording now produces smaller video files, supports HEIC compression, and takes advantage of hardware encoding support where available. In addition, the ability to record video on iOS 13, tvOS 13, and watchOS 6 devices has been restored.

You could use additional flags:

xcrun simctl io --help
Set up a device IO operation.
Usage: simctl io <device> <operation> <arguments>

...

    recordVideo [--codec=<codec>] [--display=<display>] [--mask=<policy>] [--force] <file or url>
        Records the display to a QuickTime movie at the specified file or url.
        --codec      Specifies the codec type: "h264" or "hevc". Default is "hevc".

        --display    iOS: supports "internal" or "external". Default is "internal".
                     tvOS: supports only "external"
                     watchOS: supports only "internal"

        --mask       For non-rectangular displays, handle the mask by policy:
                     ignored: The mask is ignored and the unmasked framebuffer is saved.
                     alpha: Not supported, but retained for compatibility; the mask is rendered black.
                     black: The mask is rendered black.

        --force      Force the output file to be written to, even if the file already exists.

    screenshot [--type=<type>] [--display=<display>] [--mask=<policy>] <file or url>
        Saves a screenshot as a PNG to the specified file or url(use "-" for stdout).
        --type       Can be "png", "tiff", "bmp", "gif", "jpeg". Default is png.

        --display    iOS: supports "internal" or "external". Default is "internal".
                     tvOS: supports only "external"
                     watchOS: supports only "internal"

                     You may also specify a port by UUID
        --mask       For non-rectangular displays, handle the mask by policy:
                     ignored: The mask is ignored and the unmasked framebuffer is saved.
                     alpha: The mask is used as premultiplied alpha.
                     black: The mask is rendered black.

Now you can take a screenshot in jpeg, with mask (for non-rectangular displays) and some other flags:

xcrun simctl io booted screenshot --type=jpeg --mask=black screenshot.jpeg