Yes it can.
Leveraging XCUIApplication
XCUIApplication has a minimal API, but a few methods warrant special attention:
-launch - By default, new XCTestCase templates include a line in -setup which instantiates a new XCUIApplication and launches it. When -launch is called, it will terminate any previously running instance of the target app. This means by default each test case you add will re-launch your app prior to each test method. You can avoid this by using a shared reference to a singular XCUIApplication that you -launch only once, however aside from overall test times there is not much advantage to doing so.
-launchEnvironment - Allows control over custom environment variables passed to the target app on launch. This can be used for (among other things) setting a custom variable your app can use to identify when it is running as the target for automated UI testing. Although this can be useful, it should be used judiciously. Your UI tests aren't very helpful unless they're exercising the same code your users will be.
UI Recording
With Xcode 7, Apple has added a Record UI Test button which allows you to step through your UI and have those actions recorded for you in whatever current test case method you're editing. While this sounds great in theory, in practice I've found its current implementation to be buggy and unreliable. Here are some tips for using it:
Move in Slow-Motion - Performing your clicks and keyboard presses too quickly or in rapid succession may result in some of them being skipped over by Xcode.
Expect Errors - Recording will simply not work in some cases. Clicking the Don't Save button in an NSSavePanel will record a string with an escaped Unicode character that doesn't work. Many times, recording will fail with a general error message like the one below. Suggestion? Use recording sparingly as a starting point for writing your test cases 'from scratch'.
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