Developer Mode isn't showing on my iPhone
You have been told to turn on Developer Mode. You open Settings › Privacy & Security, scroll to the bottom, and there is no such row.
That is the normal state of a phone nobody has done developer work with. iOS keeps the row hidden until a computer has actually tried to use a developer service on the phone. Connect it to the Mac, let GPSLarp try once, and then look again.
01Why it is hidden
Developer Mode arrived in iOS 16. Before it, a phone would run developer-signed builds and answer developer tooling with no extra switch; Apple closed that because the same capability was being used to talk people into installing things on their own phone over the counter. Now the phone refuses that whole class of service until its owner has explicitly opted in, on the phone, with the passcode, after a restart.
The part that makes it feel broken is that the switch is not merely off — it is absent. iOS does not show the row until something has asked for it. So the instruction "turn on Developer Mode" and the phone in your hand genuinely disagree, and no amount of scrolling fixes that.
This matters for GPSLarp because of how the product works: the location is changed through Apple's own device-development services, the same ones Xcode uses, over the same protocol. On iOS 16 and later those services are behind this switch.
Where this page stops
Everything above is what iOS does. What GPSLarp does about it is nothing: the app does not check this switch, does not name it, and will not tell you that it is the reason your phone is missing from the device list. It looks identical to a phone that was never paired. That is a gap in the app rather than a subtlety, and it is written down as one.
02First, check whether you need it at all
On the iPhone: Settings › General › About › Software Version.
- iOS 16 or later — Developer Mode exists and applies to you. Continue below.
- iOS 15 or earlier — there is no Developer Mode on your phone and none is needed. Nothing on this page applies; if the phone is not appearing, the causes are on GPSLarp can't find my iPhone.
03Make the row appear
01Connect the phone to the Mac and unlock it
Cable, phone unlocked, and the trust prompt answered — including the passcode step that finishes it. If you have not got that far, Trust This Computer is the page for it, and this one cannot proceed without it.
02Let GPSLarp try to reach the phone once
Open GPSLarp and let it start its connection and look for devices. The attempt is the point: the row appears because a computer asked the phone for a developer service, and until something asks, iOS has no reason to offer the switch. It is fine if the app finds nothing — the request has still been made.
03Look again, at the bottom of the list
On the iPhone: Settings › Privacy & Security, then scroll all the way down. Developer Mode is the last section, under the analytics and advertising rows, which is why it gets missed even when it is there.
04Turn it on
01Flip the switch
Tap Developer Mode and turn the toggle on.
02Restart when it asks
iOS says a restart is required and offers to do it. Accept. Nothing has changed yet at this point — a phone that never gets restarted stays exactly as it was, which is the second most common way this gets left half done.
03Answer the prompt after the restart
When the phone comes back and you unlock it, iOS asks once more: Turn On Developer Mode? Tap Turn On and enter the phone's passcode.
04Check it stuck
Back to Settings › Privacy & Security › Developer Mode and confirm the toggle is on. The three-step dance — switch, restart, confirm — is designed so that no single tap can enable it, which also means any one of the three being missed leaves you exactly where you started with no error message.
05What turning it on changes
iOS tells you this itself and it is worth reading rather than tapping through: Developer Mode reduces some of the security protections on the phone. It exists so that a device being used for development can do things a device in someone's pocket should not.
Two practical consequences:
- It persists across restarts until you turn it off. It is not a temporary session.
- Turning it off is the same path in reverse — Settings › Privacy & Security › Developer Mode, off, restart. Worth doing if you have finished and the phone is your everyday one.
06If that did not work
The row still does not appear after connecting. The most likely reason is that the trust pairing never completed, so nothing has actually asked the phone for anything — the connection looks live and no developer service has been requested. Go back to Trust This Computer and confirm the passcode step was finished, then repeat step 2 above.
The row is missing and the phone is managed by an employer or school. A supervised device can have this restricted by its management profile. There is no way around that from the phone, and there is no setting in GPSLarp that changes it.
Developer Mode is on and the phone still does not appear in GPSLarp. Then this was not the cause. The remaining ones are on GPSLarp can't find my iPhone — the network, the search window, and the pairing.
The honest limit of this page: it describes a switch iOS requires for the class of service GPSLarp uses. It does not promise that flipping it makes GPSLarp work on your phone. No iOS version has been tested against this product, and a page that told you otherwise would be inventing the part you actually care about.