Unfortunately, setting it up is a bit of a pain.įirst, download the bundle that includes Android Development Tools (ADT) for Eclipse and the Android software development kit (SDK). Android EmulatorĪndroid also provides an emulator. But, to be honest, none of these are very promising. Beyond that, a handful of other simulators exist, including certain web-based offerings. You could look to iPadian, a Windows-based iPad simulator. Note: If you’re not working on a Mac, you’ll have to find another option. You can switch between different iPhone and iPad devices, change the iOS version, rotate the viewport and more.
Simply open up Safari in the simulator and test your website. Then, in Xcode, right-click and select “Show Package Contents.” Go to “Contents” → “Applications” → “iPhone Simulator.” Finding iOS Simulator in Xcode ( View large version)Īlthough iOS Simulator is difficult to find, using it is fortunately easy.
Viewing a website in iOS Simulator (Image: Jon Raasch) ( View large version)įirst, install and open Xcode. Included as part of Xcode, this simulator enables you to test across different software and hardware combinations, but only from a Mac. To test iOS devices, such as the iPhone and iPad, you have a number of options, most notably Apple’s official iOS Simulator. These virtual environments not only expand your testing coverage to more devices, but also are a quick and easy way to test small changes on the fly. But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t also test on emulators and simulators. Testing on real physical devices always pays off. Then, we’ll look at remote debugging tools, which enable you to connect a desktop computer to a mobile device and leverage a rich debugging interface. In this article, we’ll explore a variety of emulators and simulators that you can use for quick and easy testing. Best of all, you can use the same desktop debugging tools that you know and love, all on an actual mobile device. This means you’ll be constantly bouncing back and forth between the mobile device and the hacks in your desktop browser.įast forward to today, when we have a robust suite of debugging tools that provide meaningful debugging information directly from a physical device. If you’re recreating issues on the desktop, then you can’t be certain that any of your fixes will work. To put it bluntly, these hacks don’t work.
In general, these hacks were an attempt to recreate a given issue in a desktop browser and then debug with Chrome Developer Tools or a similar desktop toolkit. With a distinct lack of debugging tools, developers turned to a variety of hacks. Sure, you could get ahold of a device and perform a quick visual assessment, but what would you do after discovering a bug?
They appear to have put in a huge amount of work and have demonstrated a number of apps working on it.In the early days of mobile, debugging was quite a challenge. The user daeken on Twitter has been developing an emulator for iOS simulator on macOS that they have stated they are close to releasing (May 2020) though, but will be a commercial product.
In it's current state it will not allow you to run apps but very interesting none the less and worth keeping an eye as Corellium still appears to be invite only.Īpple is attempting to slowly destroy Corellium. Here is an article providing a guide on getting iOS 12 to the point of launchd and recoveryd running: It is the kind of thing I imagine Apple would have been quick to clamp down on in the past although there is lots of talk about the two app stores converging in the near future so who knows what will happen.Īpparently a number of researchers have had varying degrees of success booting iOS in QEMU. I'm not aware of any way of running them on your desktop though other than the Xcode simulator. It's not publicly available yet though and no word of how much it will cost. There is a recently announced service Corellium that offers virtualised cloud instances of iOS.