I’m writing the labs for the iPhone course I’m teaching next week and the machines on campus use an older version of Xcode. Since I’m on a newer version, when I take a screenshot of the simulator it’s of an iPhone 4. I need to make sure that the students see in the labs exactly what’s on the screen.

After spending some time trying to install older versions of Xcode, I’ve figured out a really easy way to make the new simulator (the iPhone 4) look like the old simulator (the iPhone 3G/3GS/1st gen). Grab a copy of the old simulator; I sftp’d into the school machines and downloaded a zipped copy of the app bundle. In Finder, right-click and “Show Package Contents” and in the Contents/Resources folder, you’ll find a file named “frame.png”. Replace the one in your simulator (/Developer/Platforms/iPhoneSimulator.platform/Developer/Applications) with the old one, backing up the original first. Next time you load the simulator, voila! I’m actually surprised it worked, considering the dimensions could have been different. Maybe Apple … gasp! hardcoded screen dimensions?