What is Alpha?

Alpha is the idea of a next generation debugging framework for iOS applications. It combines multiple debugging tools built on top of a simple, unified API. It lives entirely in your application sandbox and collects information during your application lifetime. The integration can be done in less than a minute and requires no code changes.

Features:

Features are separated into plugins, which can be enabled or disabled, depending on application requirements.

  • Application – displays a list of all installed applications on the device.
  • Bootstrap – checks for KZBootstrap environments and allows modifying them in real-time (deprecated).
  • Console – displays console logs (logged by NSLog) inside the application.
  • Event – logs and displays application wide events such as background state transitions and view controller appearances.
  • File – allows browsing the sandboxed file system and previewing common file types, such as images, videos and text.
  • Global – information plugin displays linked frameworks, libraries and classes.
  • Heap – allows inspection of active object instances on ther heap and helps with debugging memory errors.
  • Interface – plugin is a specific plugin and is required to display Alpha menu interface and actions.
  • Keychain – browse items in keychain added by the application.
  • Network – logs network connections made using NSURLSession and NSURLConnection API’s.
  • Notification – displays scheduled and fired local notifications, received push notifications and notification permissions.
  • Object – allows for inspection of any class or object in the application, including NSUserDefaults, arrays and dictionaries.
  • Permission – displays current permissions and adds the ability to request specific permission.
  • Remote – plugin allows connecting to Alpha from another device (needs Bonjour running on target).
  • Screenshot – plugin allows taking screenshots of the application with a single action.
  • Server – contains a simple Bonjour server allowing Alpha to work over local Wi-Fi network.
  • State – allows inspecting the device state and settings, such as locale, time and available memory.
  • Touch – plugin displays touches on screen when activated and their force touch.
  • View – allows view hierarchy manipulation and inspection in real-time.

Overview

  • Pricing: Free
  • Resource Link: https://github.com/Legoless/Alpha
  • Resource Maker on Twitter: Dal Rupnik
  • Mobile Platform Destination: iOS Apps
  • Mobile Platform Support: Native iOS
  • Programming Languages: Objective-C
  • iOS Versions Supported: iOS 8.0+, iOS 9.0+, iOS 10.0+, iOS 11.0+, iOS 12.0+