What you need
Two of these surprise people, and both are cheaper to know now.
The Mac#
| macOS | 14 or later |
| Processor | Apple silicon |
| Xcode | Installed from the Mac App Store, opened once |
| Power | Mains, and awake |
Install full Xcode and open it once before preparing your Devices.
Enable Keep awake in tame's settings while work runs. Keep a laptop's lid open.
The iPhones#
Use dedicated phones. A Device that can lock cannot be automated, so the phone runs with no passcode, which is not a setting for a phone that holds your own life.
| iOS | 16 or later, for Developer Mode |
| Passcode | None |
| Connection | USB, data cable |
Older iPhones are fine. tame reads the screen and taps it, so an iPhone 11 works as well as the newest one.
Cables, and a hub#
Data cables, not charge-only. They look identical, and a phone that does not appear at all is usually the cable. This is the most common first hour problem.
More than two or three phones needs a powered hub. Phones on an unpowered hub disconnect under load, which presents as Devices dropping at random rather than as a power problem.
An Apple account#
| Free Apple ID | Paid Developer Program | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | Nothing | About 99 USD a year |
| Certificate lasts | 7 days | A year |
| Phones you may register | 3 | Many |
| Ongoing work | A button per phone, weekly | None |
Free works and tame scripts it: re-signing is two button presses, not a command line. But it is every phone, every week, forever, and the three phone cap is a wall rather than a chore.
Running more than one or two phones? The membership pays for itself in the first month in time alone.
Full detail on Install the automation runtime.
A plan#
No free tier. The ladder starts at Solo: one Device, eight Accounts. See Plans and limits.
What you do not need#
- Your Platform passwords. You log in on the phone. There is nowhere in tame to type one.
- A jailbreak.
Get the boring part out of the way
Create a Workspace now and your activation code is waiting when the cables arrive.