xcode - iOS 8.1 Simulator always uses US keyboard layout despite german hardware keyboard

Question

For some reason, I cannot enter text with my native german keyboard into iOS Simulator any more.

After downloading Xcode 6.1 (which contains iOS 8.1), I was stuck with the US layout.

I tried things like changing all Hardware/Keyboard settings, deleting ~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.iphonesimulator.plist, and resetting the iOS simulator.

Nothing helped!

Should I reinstall the complete package?

Answer 1

This is a known issue with the iOS 8.1 simulator runtime and is mentioned in the Xcode 6.1 Release Notes:

Localization and Keyboard settings, including 3rd party keyboards, are not correctly honored by Safari, Maps, and developer apps in the iOS 8.1 Simulator. [NSLocale currentLocale] returns en_US and only the English and Emoji keyboards are available. (18418630, 18512161)

The same is true for other preferences that should affect all apps and not just the locale (eg: keyboard settings).

As mentioned in the iOS SDK 8.2 beta 2 Release Notes, this issue should be resolved in iOS 8.2:

Fixed in beta 2 Additional keyboards, including 3rd party keyboards, may not appear in Safari, Maps, or 3rd party apps in iOS Simulator

If you need to use iOS 8.1, you should be able to use the German layout in some apps but not others. For example, Safari and Maps are two examples of apps that it will not work with.