How to Fix: Cannot create a new Simulator on Xcode running on macOS Sonoma

I use the Xcode Simulator for testing and debugging the website I create on iOS since I don’t have an iPhone. It is basically the full iOS running inside a window on your Mac.

Since upgrading to macOS Sonoma I was not able to launch or create a new Simulator however. When trying to create a new Simulator I wasn’t able to click into the “OS Version” field – it just wouldn’t do anything:

How to Fix Not Being Able to Pick an OS Version

When I opened the main Xcode app and selected the “iOS” tab on top, it showed the notice “iOS 17.0 Not installed”. So just click on “GET” and download the new OS, which might take a little while:

After having downloaded the iOS version and reopening the Simulator app I could pick the “OS version” again and was able to use my old Simulators and also create a new Simulator device without a problem:

So here is this website running inside a virtual iPhone 15’s Safari. You can use almost all features of Safari and see the whole browser ui which is handy for better testing of responsive websites:

Bonus Tip: Add more OS versions inside XCode / Simulator

I also learned along the way that inside Xcode’s settings you can head over to the “Platforms” tab to see all installed Platforms and download new ones:

Order your Google Chrome profiles the way you want

I use profiles inside Google Chrome a lot. The helpful function makes it easy to separate Google accounts or website logins and is also handy when wanting to remember 2FA (Two-Factor Authentication) codes in the browser for longer time.

There are several of these profiles that I only access maybe twice a year e.g. when accessing Google services with a specific account.

🫤 Chrome’s default: profiles are ordered randomly or chronologically

I have 20+ profiles set up. On opening Chrome it displays the “profile picker” window. By default these are ordered by an obscure method – maybe by date added or so. This means that the profiles I actually want to use most often (maybe 3-5 profiles) are harder to find and I might need to scroll down every time I want to use them.

From the interface there doesn’t seem to be a way to manually reorder these profiles.

✨ The solution: Nicely order your Google Chrome profiles

Turns out you can actually order your profiles in your preferred custom way:

1. Open Chrome so the profile picker window appears:

2. Edit your profile by clicking the three-dots menu and selecting “Edit”:

3. Change the name of your Chrome profile. You could either prefix it with an Emoji or with a number to order them precisely.

My first impressions of macOS Big Sur

I quickly upgraded to the newly released Mac operating System macOS Big Sur and liked my experience in the first few days. I think it’s great that we get a refreshing look all over.

  • The plain desktop on macOS Big Sur
  • Adding widgets on macOS Big Sur
    Adding / editing widgets
  • Apple Notes on macOS Big Sur
    Apple Notes now has a plain white background
  • Finder has a clean new look
  • How a typical alert box looks like
  • Audio controls
  • Thr new Control Center
  • Wifi controls
  • System preferences with new icons. Don’t like all of them (Network for example)
  • Displays system preferences
  • Bluetooth controls
  • Notifications on top with the new widgets

Overall it looks like the updates take some inspiration in mobile UI design with a bit more spacious, rounded elements. Still they feel very good to use with the mouse.

While the installation stalled for around two hours at the 100% progress bar it luckily still finished afterwards. I did not experience any technical or compatbility issues with the OS or third-party apps at all so far otherwise.

Update

The Verge just published their review of macOS Big Sur. It provides more insight into the update and also the changes that landed in Safari 14.