Yes, that could be a cleaner solution. The only thing I'm a bit worried about is that with the proposed solution ```set_simulator_device``` will produce different results than what you get when you change device type from iOS Simulator app's Device menu.

When you select "iPad" from the iOS Simulator -> Device menu, ```SimulateDevice``` value in ```com.apple.iphonesimulator``` prefs plist is set to ```iPad```. If you run
```
defaults write com.apple.iphonesimulator SimulateDevice "'iPad'"
```
then ```SimulateDevice``` will be set to ```'iPad'```

However, running:

```
defaults write com.apple.iphonesimulator SimulateDevice "'iPad (Retina)'"
```
strips single quotes and sets ```SimulateDevice``` to ```iPad (Retina)```

That said, iOS Simulator seems to handle quoted ```SimulateDevice``` values just fine, so this discrepancy doesn't seem to cause actual problems.