App Store Tip: Acquiring Screenshots for Devices You Don’t Have in Your Drawer…

Recently when uploading an update of my app to App Store via iTunes Connect, and I was faced with a bit of a dilemma. iTunes Connect needed screenshots from a wider variety of devices than I was originally expecting, and more devices than I possessed. 

The directions referenced this article, which actually is super helpful as a reference for what dimensions of screenshots you will need to upload. Unfortunately, the only physical devices that I have are an iPhone 5c and an iPhone 6 Plus, leaving out the currently-most-important device, the iPhone 6.

So I began musing about this… “Could I use the Simulator?” I thought.

I thought that if I needed to take a screenshot in the Simulator, using the old Shift-Cmd-4 trick would be problematic because the dimensions would be off. Then there would be the inevitable headache of launching Photoshop to get a correctly-sized screenshot, etc., etc….

Thankfully I had the presence of mind to Google this, and StackOverflow came to the rescue!

The key is the fact that the Simulator has a special menu item under the File menu! Contained in that menu, there is one item: Save Screen Shot (Cmd-S).

This will take a properly-sized screenshot for the device being currently used (iPhone 6/6s, iPhone 6/6s Plus, even iPhone 4s…), and you can then use that for your screenshots in iTunes Connect right away! No resizing or editing required!

Here’s an example of the screenshot:

4.7-inch-A

Sure it doesn’t have my carrier information on it but it’s a great capture and satisfies the iTunes Connect/App Store requirements, and that’s what was blocking me from uploading my app! Done!