Guide
Your first phone
The setup itself is short. Most of the time goes on two things: Xcode, and the phone's own permission prompts.
Use a phone you are willing to hand over
An enrolled phone gets driven: apps open, the screen is tapped, TikTok gets scrolled. Nothing about that is destructive, but it is not a phone you want to also be using. An old handset from a drawer is the right starting point.
Not your daily phone
Automation aiming a tap a few pixels off can navigate somewhere you did not intend on a live account. Test on a device and an account you do not mind disturbing.
Prepare the phone
Turn off auto-lock
Settings → Display & Brightness → Auto-Lock → Never. A locked screen is the single most common reason a run does nothing.
Sign in to the apps you want driven
Do this by hand, now. Tasks assume they land in an app that is already signed in, and a login wall mid-run just fails the job.
Trust the Mac
Plug in with a data cable and tap Trust, then enter the passcode. A charge-only cable never shows the prompt, which is confusing enough to be worth ruling out first.
Enable Developer Mode
Settings → Privacy & Security → Developer Mode. The toggle only appears after a Mac with Xcode has connected once. The phone restarts and asks again on the way back up.
Then the Mac
Install the agent with the command from Machines, enrol the phone under Devices, and wait for the first harness build. That build takes a few minutes and only happens once per phone.
Finish with a Health check. It is the shortest way to prove the whole chain works: the Mac sees the phone, the harness is installed, and a swipe actually moves the screen.
What usually goes wrong
- Xcode is not selected. The installer catches this and prints the exact command to fix it.
- The phone is locked. Health check reports that touch is not reaching the device.
- Nothing happens after a week. A free Apple ID expires after seven days. See signing.