ionic/cordova emulate vs. Xcode 7

After the App Store automatically updated Xcode to version 7 (without me actually wanting this for now, but hey …) running ionic emulate ios -c -l would not do much anymore:

• The app would launch but get stuck at the loading screen
• No console.log() calls would be logged

Fixing it manually

To fix this, update the platforms/ios/projectname/projectname-Info.plist file with the following settings:

<key>NSAppTransportSecurity</key>
<dict>
  <key>NSAllowsArbitraryLoads</key>
  <true/>
</dict>

Add the snippet above at the end of the file, right before the closing </dict></plist>

Do note that you’ll have to (re)do this every time you run ionic platform add ios (which can happen when working in a team with multiple people)

Fixing it automatically

Alternatively you can use a before_emulate hook to have this change applied automatically before starting the iPhone Simulator.

1. Put the contents below in ./hooks/before_emulate/010_ios_allowarbitraryloads.sh
2. Make the script executable (chmod 755 ./hooks/before_emulate/010_ios_allowarbitraryloads.sh)

Every time you (or one of your teammates) runs ionic emulate ios it will check if the change in platforms/ios/projectname/projectname-Info.plist has already been made or not. If not, the settings are added.

#!/bin/bash

# Allow iPhone Simulator to make Arbitrary Loads
# @ref https://www.bram.us/2015/09/29/ionic-emulate-vs-xcode-7/

XCODEVERSION=`xcodebuild -version | grep Xcode | sed 's/Xcode //g'`
XCODEMAINVERSION=`echo $XCODEVERSION | cut -d "." -f 1`
PROJECTNAME=`xmllint --format --xpath "//*[local-name()='widget']/*[local-name()='name'][1]/text()" config.xml`

if [[ "$CORDOVA_PLATFORMS" == "ios" ]]
then

	if [[ "$XCODEMAINVERSION" > 6 ]]
	then

		echo "iPhone Simulator (XCode $XCODEVERSION) is being used. We might need to adjust $PROJECTNAME-Info.plist to allow Arbitrary Loads!"

		PLISTBUDDY="/usr/libexec/PlistBuddy"
		TARGET="platforms/ios/$PROJECTNAME/$PROJECTNAME-Info.plist"
		HASSETTING=`$PLISTBUDDY -c "print :NSAppTransportSecurity:NSAllowsArbitraryLoads" "$TARGET" 2>&1`

		if [[ "$HASSETTING" == "true" ]]
		then

			echo " - NSAllowsArbitraryLoads already enabled. Not adjusting $PROJECTNAME-Info.plist"

		else

			echo " - NSAllowsArbitraryLoads not enabled. Adjusting $PROJECTNAME-Info.plist"

			$PLISTBUDDY -c "Add :NSAppTransportSecurity dict" "$TARGET"
			$PLISTBUDDY -c "Add :NSAppTransportSecurity:NSAllowsArbitraryLoads bool YES" "$TARGET"

		fi

	fi

fi