Automate launching Safari from a iOS mobile app using appium

Question

I am doing some automation with Appium on a iOS mobile app.

I need to:

• open the app
• do some tasks
• open safari

I looked around how to do it but I've been reading that it's impossible due to a limitation in apple's framework, it doesn't allow you to sent commands to more than one app per session.

Does anyone know a way around this? Or if what I read is just not 100% true.

Answer 1

it doesn't allow you to sent commands to more than one app per session

Thats true, but you can run 2 sessions in a single test:

1. create instance of appium driver with app-based capabilities
2. do what you need in the app
3. quit driver
4. create instance of appium driver with browser-based capabilities
5. do what you need in the safari
6. quit driver

In a quick way it may look like:

@Test
public void testBothAppAndSafari() throws MalformedURLException {
    URL appiumServerUrl = new URL("<your appium server host>");
    DesiredCapabilities appCaps = new DesiredCapabilities();
    // put required native app capabilities in appCaps
    DesiredCapabilities safariCaps = new DesiredCapabilities();
    // put required safari capabilities in safariCaps

    IOSDriver driver = new IOSDriver(appiumServerUrl, appCaps);
    driver.findElement(<locator for element in native app>).click();
    // do whatever you want with mobile app
    driver.quit();

    driver = new IOSDriver(appiumServerUrl, safariCaps);
    driver.findElement(<locator for element in web>).click();
    // do whatever you want in safari
    driver.quit();
}