How to inspect element on iPhone

A research around the smartphone market share shows that Apple iPhones still remain among the top choice of smartphones across the world. As you are developing mobile applications for the iOS ecosystem, it is essential that you test your applications before it reaches your users.

It is critical that you leverage the Inspect element tool provided by Safari browsers to help you understand why things appear or behave a certain way on a webpage, troubleshoot issues, and even make temporary fixes on your iPhone.

Some of the benefits include identifying visual issues such as non-functioning buttons, styling issues such as incorrect headings or overlapping text, or other minor issues that your HTML code introduces.

Different Ways to Inspect Element on iPhone Devices

Listed below are the different ways to inspect elements on any iPhone devices

1. Using Safari developer tools to inspect elements on an actual device
2. Using iPhone Devices on BrowserStack
3. Debug using the Web Inspector feature
4. Adobe Edge Inspect

Method 1: Using Safari developer tools to inspect elements on an actual device

Apple provides a very intuitive feature that enables web developers to debug and inspect web elements on actual iPads and iPhones. One just needs to connect their iPhone and enable the Web Inspector to get started.

One just needs to enable the “Show Develop menu in the menu bar”. The steps to do so are as follows:

Step 1: Open Safari browser

Step 2: Click on Safari > Preferences > Advanced

Step 3: Tick the checkbox Show Develop menu in the menu bar

Once done, the Develop menu will be enabled in the top-bar. Click on the Develop menu and it will show the connected iPhone in the options along with the web-page that is active on the connected device.

Click on that page and it will open the Web Inspector window for the same page.

When you interact with any element in the web inspector, it immediately highlights that particular element on the iPhone in real-time. This helps developers identify exactly what they are inspecting as they continue to interact with the elements providing an interactive test experience.

Method 2: Using iPhone Devices on BrowserStack

BrowserStack is a cloud-based platform that allows web-developers to test their web apps instantly for cross browser compatibility across a range of devices. Its real device cloud enables developers or QAs to instantly run manual tests on real mobile and desktop devices. For extensive testing, QAs can also use its Cloud Selenium Grid for automated cross browser testing on multiple real devices.

Developers also get instant access to Dev tools on both platforms (Android and iOS) during live testing. This allows developers to eliminate their testing pain points as they can instantly test websites across a variety of iOS devices like iPhone 15, iPhone 14, iPhone 13, etc. on desired browsers.

In this example, we will open the browserstack.com website, access the developer tools to inspect elements, and change the name of a button temporarily. The Safari Web Inspector is currently only available in iOS 13 and above.

To inspect elements on iPhone 15, do the following:

Step 1: Sign up for Free on BrowserStack Live.

Step 2: Click iOS > iPhone 15 with the Safari browser.
Wait for the device to be booted.

Step 3: In the browser on the device, enter www.browserstack.com.

Step 4: Inspect specific elements to access the HTML code and debug in real time.

• Hover on App & Browser Testing Made Easy, right-click, and then click Safari Web Inspector.

• In the Elements tab, edit the text and replace with Let’s start testing.
• Click anywhere on the Live dashboard to apply the changes.
  You can see the following change applied.
  

It is important to note that these changes are not permanent and just apply to the current session. Using this feature helps you simulate situations that you might encounter as part of your testing.

Method 3: Debug using the Web Inspector feature on iPhones or iPads

Apple has a web inspector feature that allows developers and testers to debug their web pages from their mobile phones. Before, we see how to inspect elements on iPhone using this option, let us take a look at the requirements. To perform this,you will need two things.

1. Your deployment machine
2. The device on which you want to test the webpage or app.

Getting all the devices on which you want to inspect and test is quite a difficult task. This is as good as maintaining an in house device library. But, the problem with maintaining one is the high setup and maintenance cost that it comes with. You will have to ensure that the devices are updated, and well maintained. And, even if you were to do that, you will be able to test one version of the browser. What would you do if you want to test an older version?

These are a few fallbacks with this method. However, BrowserStack overcomes all these issues by providing you with a real device cloud, that allows you to access any device and version that you want.

That said, we have listed the detailed steps to debug using the web inspector feature on iPhones or iPads in this article. Please head over to the above link to know more.

Talk to an Expert

Method 4: Inspect using Adobe Edge

Adobe Edge Inspect is one of the easy methods to inspect elements on any iPhone device. Adobe has discontinued this feature, but you can find the source for this on the internet. Therefore using this poses a security threat and should be used with discretion. The user using this would be liable for any data leak or security concerns.

Adobe Edge Inspect does not require a mac operating system and can be accessed from windows as well. As it supports synchronized browsing the web page that you open will be synced with all the devices that are connected to the system.

Now let us see how to use Adobe Edge Inspect:

1. Download their software on the deployment system and ensure that all the devices that you want to test are connected to the same wifi. The sync happens by establishing the connection via wifi.
2.  Next, open the website. You will notice that the website opens up on all the devices that are connected to the deployment machine. There will be a debug sign next to the device name.
3. Select the debug sign for the device you want to inspect.
   You will now have access to the developer tools and can start inspecting.

Given all the four options and the concerns associated with it, it is best to choose BrowserStack to inspect elements on your iPhone.

Sign up and start testing for free

Why Inspect Elements on iOS using Real Device Cloud?

All of these approaches give you the platform to check how your applications function on Safari and the experiences that your users will get. Though each uses the same Safari developer tools, the option to use a real device cloud such as BrowserStack, gives you an edge. 

With BrowserStack, you can combine the inherent inspect elements feature offered by Safari with the range of Browserstack features such as, access to real devices, testing your mobile application in staging, test for media capabilities, scenarios related to sim cards, location tests, accessibility testing, and much more.

Conclusion

It’s very important for web developers and QAs to be aware of techniques that can help them resolve critical UI bugs occurring on specific devices. The methods explained above will help them trace bugs quickly and ensure the faster release of optimized websites.

BrowserStack provides access to more than 3500+ browser combinations, a real device cloud that can empower your developers to test your applications expansively. You can see how your applications perform on popular devices and browser combinations.