Overview

Mobile MCP is an open-source MCP server that gives AI agents direct control over local iOS and Android devices. It runs on your machine and connects to simulators, emulators, and real devices over USB. There is nothing to sign up for and no cloud dependency.

Run it without installing:

npx @mobilenext/mobile-mcp@latest

When to use Mobile MCP

Mobile MCP and Mobile Next Cloud MCP solve different problems.

	Mobile MCP	Mobile Next Cloud MCP
Device location	Local (simulator, emulator, USB)	Cloud-hosted devices
Setup required	Yes (Xcode tools / Android Platform Tools)	None
Cost	Free, open-source	Paid
Best for	Local development, CI with self-hosted runners	Teams without local devices, hosted CI

Use Mobile MCP when you want to run against devices or simulators already on your machine. Use Mobile Next Cloud MCP when you need devices on demand without any local configuration.

Platform support

Platform	Supported
iOS Real Device	Yes
iOS Simulator	Yes
Android Real Device	Yes
Android Emulator	Yes

Key features

• Native accessibility tree — reads the UI structure directly from the OS rather than from screenshots, so no vision model is required for most interactions.
• Screenshot fallback — when accessibility data is unavailable (for example, in games or custom-rendered views), Mobile MCP falls back to screenshot-based analysis.
• Deterministic tool application — each tool maps to a specific, reproducible device action with no ambiguity about what will happen.
• Structured data extraction — the server can return typed, structured data from the current screen rather than raw image bytes.

Main use cases

• Native app automation for functional and regression testing
• Scripted multi-step flows and form interactions driven by an LLM
• Multi-step user journeys assembled and executed by an agent framework
• Exploratory testing where the agent decides the next action based on screen state

Prerequisites

For iOS:

• macOS with Xcode command-line tools installed (xcode-select --install)
• A running iOS Simulator or a real device connected over USB with trust established

For Android:

• Android Platform Tools installed (adb on your PATH)
• USB debugging enabled on a real device, or an Android Emulator running

Node.js: v22 or later is required to run Mobile MCP via npx.

Next steps

Follow the installation guide for your AI coding tool to connect Mobile MCP to your agent.