Mobile Device Control MCP server for AI agents

Mobile Next's MCP server enables scalable mobile automation across iOS, Android, simulators, emulators, and physical devices through a platform-agnostic interface. It lets AI agents interact with native mobile applications using accessibility snapshots or coordinate-based interactions based on screenshots, eliminating the need for distinct iOS or Android knowledge.

Installation

Prerequisites

Before installing the Mobile MCP server, you need to have:

Xcode command line tools (for iOS)
Android Platform Tools (for Android)
Node.js v22+
An MCP-supported AI system like Claude MCP, OpenAI Agent SDK, or Copilot Studio

Setting Up the MCP Server

For Cline

Add the following to your MCP settings file:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "mobile-mcp": {
      "command": "npx",
      "args": ["-y", "@mobilenext/mobile-mcp@latest"]
    }
  }
}

For Claude Code

Run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add mobile -- npx -y @mobilenext/mobile-mcp@latest

Device Setup

Simulators and Emulators

The MCP server can connect to iOS Simulators, Android Emulators, or physical devices.

iOS Simulator Setup

To list available simulators:

xcrun simctl list

To boot a specific simulator:

xcrun simctl boot "iPhone 16"

Android Emulator Setup

Start an emulator using the Android SDK tools before running Mobile MCP.

Physical Devices

For physical iOS or Android devices, ensure you have the proper platform tools and drivers installed and that your device is connected via USB with debugging enabled.

Usage

After adding the MCP server to your IDE/Client, you can instruct your AI assistant to interact with mobile applications using natural language prompts.

Example Workflows

Here are some example prompts you can use:

Video Interaction

Find the video called "Beginner Recipe for Tonkotsu Ramen" by Way of Ramen, click on like video, after liking write a comment "this was delicious, will make it next Friday", share the video with the first contact in your whatsapp list.

App Download and Rating

Find and Download a free "Pomodoro" app that has more than 1k stars. Launch the app, register with my email, after registration find how to start a pomodoro timer. When the pomodoro timer started, go back to the app store and rate the app 5 stars, and leave a comment how useful the app is.

Weather and Messaging

Open Weather app, check tomorrow's weather forecast for "Berlin", and send the summary via Whatsapp/Telegram/Slack to contact "Lauren Trown", thumbs up their response.

Meeting Scheduling

Open Zoom app, schedule a meeting titled "AI Hackathon" for tomorrow at 10AM with a duration of 1 hour, copy the invitation link, and send it via Gmail to contacts "[email protected]".

Key Features

Fast and lightweight: Uses native accessibility trees for most interactions
LLM-friendly: No computer vision model required in Accessibility mode
Visual Sense: Evaluates what's actually rendered on screen to decide the next action
Deterministic tool application: Reduces ambiguity by relying on structured data
Extract structured data: Enables extraction of structured data from anything visible on screen

For more detailed documentation and examples, visit the wiki page.

How to install this MCP server

For Claude Code

To add this MCP server to Claude Code, run this command in your terminal:

claude mcp add-json "mobile-mcp" '{"command":"npx","args":["-y","@mobilenext/mobile-mcp@latest"]}'

See the official Claude Code MCP documentation for more details.

For Cursor

There are two ways to add an MCP server to Cursor. The most common way is to add the server globally in the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file so that it is available in all of your projects.

If you only need the server in a single project, you can add it to the project instead by creating or adding it to the .cursor/mcp.json file.

Adding an MCP server to Cursor globally

To add a global MCP server go to Cursor Settings > Tools & Integrations and click "New MCP Server".

When you click that button the ~/.cursor/mcp.json file will be opened and you can add your server like this:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "mobile-mcp": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "@mobilenext/mobile-mcp@latest"
            ]
        }
    }
}

Adding an MCP server to a project

To add an MCP server to a project you can create a new .cursor/mcp.json file or add it to the existing one. This will look exactly the same as the global MCP server example above.

How to use the MCP server

Once the server is installed, you might need to head back to Settings > MCP and click the refresh button.

The Cursor agent will then be able to see the available tools the added MCP server has available and will call them when it needs to.

You can also explicitly ask the agent to use the tool by mentioning the tool name and describing what the function does.

For Claude Desktop

To add this MCP server to Claude Desktop:

1. Find your configuration file:

macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json
Windows: %APPDATA%\Claude\claude_desktop_config.json
Linux: ~/.config/Claude/claude_desktop_config.json

2. Add this to your configuration file:

{
    "mcpServers": {
        "mobile-mcp": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "-y",
                "@mobilenext/mobile-mcp@latest"
            ]
        }
    }
}

3. Restart Claude Desktop for the changes to take effect