I wanted to take an iPhone screenshot with a clean status bar: full battery and full reception.

There are apps for the purpose, but I first wanted to see if there was anything built in.

It's been documented how to record a video with a cleaned-up status bar on iOS 8 hooked up to OS X Yosemite: you just record within QuickTime Player and it cleans it for you.

But what about non-video screenshots? Turns out it's trivial:

• Connect your iPhone (or iPad) by Lightning cable.
• Open QuickTime Player.
• Click the "File" menu, then "New Movie Recording" (⌥⌘N).
• Click the disclosure triangle next to the record button, select your iPhone as "Camera" (not as "Microphone").
• Now that your iPhone shows a clean status bar, just take a screenshot on the device itself like you usually would (hold the power button and press the home button once, or the other way around).

Nothing more to it!

This status bar is super clean. Battery at 100%, full reception and wifi, clock at 09:41.