Problem: So I have that website which is developed with Google Web Toolkit (gwt). However, since the recent patch, the application freezes at a certain point for iPhone5 users with Safari. Other iOS-Devices like iPad seem to work fine so far.
My approach:
However, since I do not have an iPhone, I tried various online tools simulating websites on the iPhone but neither of them is having any trouble. Then I tried the Chrome's built-in device emulator which did not cause any trouble, as well.
Question: Is there any way, I can debug this case or at least reproduce it given the fact that I do not have access to an iPhone?
In case the answer is 'no': how can I debug a freezing Safari given the fact that I get access to an iPhone?
Bonus question: Why do the iPhone emulators not freeze? At least I would expect them to behave in a strange way or give me some message, that something might be wrong.
Solved the problem by using browserstack.com, which emulates an OS environment in-browser, where I could use the iPhone-Dev-Tools. Other browser-based emulators did not work as they did not emulate the OS and thus did not recreate the errors described.
Related
For testing browsers in different OS and different browser(versions), we can use browserstack. Is there anything similar thing, so that we can select device and install the app from app store and test?
You can try Ripple Emulator Chrome Extension
Ripple Emulator at Chrome Web Store
Was using it previously and it did a quite a nice job. Obviously its not as good as browserstack, but definitely helps a lot checking different sizes of screens and some of other page behaviour.
I have developed a responsive site. Now I want to check it for iPhone. I don't have iPhone. I came to know about iOS simulator. I am a windows user. Is it possible to use iOS simulator for testing in windows? If yes then which one and will it output as if real iPhone? I mean output will be 90% / 100% etc similar to real iPhone?
On Mac, Safari has a way to send the User-Agent string as an iOS device, and it may do a bit more fancy rendering emulations behind the scenes. I would try looking at Safari for Windows for similar features.
I'm currently developing a mobile website with jquery mobile, not exactly responsive web design. I know I can develop the project in the browser on my desktop PC with some plugins or use some online services or simulators available. But I'm not sure if I missing something really important for test.
Example:
touch/swype events or viewport rotation.
Is necessary purchase some physical devices (smartphone/tablets) to develop/test the project? Why?
Intro
First don't let anyone tell you it is not necessary to purchase a real devices for a test purpose. I will tell you why from an Android perspective, same thing, just in a much smaller manner also goes for iOS development.
Good sides of an emulator testing
It is free, you only need a computer which will run your emulator.
You can test your applications in different cases (different screen resolutions, different OS versions)
Faster I/O and network operations but this is not so much a good point if you calculate how much everything else is slow.
Bad sides
It is slooooooooow, if you never tried to use it you can comprehend how slow it is (iOS emulator is fast like hell in a comparison). It doesn't matter if you have a top of a line hardware PC or Mac it is just that slow.
Emulator is simply to darn buggy, there will be a lot of times when application will work just fine on a read device and it will brake on an emulator.
This also goes other way around, sometimes application will work just fine on an emulator but will brake on a real device, in some case it will not work at all or it will not work on some devices. This is usually a case when working with hybrid applications. for some reason Android web view acts differently on real devices and on an emulator.
Emulator simply don't have some functionalities to interact with a hardware nor it can successfully emulate it. Hardware connection it can emulate even don't work correctly sometimes.
I have talked about how slow it is (because of a converting ARM bytecodes to x86 ones on the fly) but from a graphics standpoint it tends to be even slower so don't expect to do any game development on it.
Real devices comes with much more preinstalled software which may slower your application or in some ways enhance its functionalities.
Real world GPS testing is out of a question
Final notes
If you are intending to work with iOS only emulator can be used to do much of a development. Sheer lack of different screens sizes and hardware diversity makes it a perfect platform for a test purposes. Android on the other hand is completely different story, its emulator is simply useless for test purposes. I have several real Android devices, ranging from Android 2.1 + , different screen sizes and finally hardware architecture. You don't need to believe me but everything I mentioned play a significant role while testing Android applications.
If your main concern is testing your jQuery Mobile application I would still advise you a use of a real device in case of Android while in case of iOS you can successfully use emulator. Android is problematic because transition effects are to darn slow and that includes everything else that requires animations. Swipe will not be a problem and I can vouch it works just fine. Second real problem is a device rotation. jQuery Mobile sometimes can have a problem with it, mostly when used with non responsive 3rd party jQuery plugins (carousels, sliders ....). Third problem is mentioned in my list of bad sides, basically web view used in a emulator acts different then one in a real phone so sometimes you will see one thing in your real device and one thing in your emulator.
It is not necessary to purchase such a device.
For Android there is an emulator provided by the Android Development Kit (ADK). You can use it to configure multiple emulated devices with defferent screen sizes, etc. to test for multiple resolutions and Android (browser) versions.
[edit] Though to really test it for iphones you would need that emulator too I suppose, to make sure the website is correctly displayed in the provided browser.
[edit 2] To test "real" smartphone apps (not webapps), it is better to have a real device at hand.
This very much depends to which level you want to test it before you are happy to hand it over for the usage. After you do that and someone reports a defect, will you be able to see where is the problem (if it works on your PC)?
The development itself can be done in your browser, you can even simluate swipe events by dragging mouse. You don't even need any simulators, you can just make chrome window smaller (most of the devices are using some version of webkit, same as chrome).
However, once it comes to testing, I wouldn't feel great if I didn't know how it looks on the device itself. So I think having at least one device (ideally two with different OS and resolution) is always beneficial.
I would also be unsatisfied if I was working on something of which I could not see the result :)
my employer is killing me.
I'm currently editing our website to fit on iPad's display, however I do not have an iPad. I have tried the desktop iPad emulator called airiPad made by adobe and the online www.ipad-emulator.org/
both are working but whenever my boss send me his screenshots from his iPad it looks very different so I'm asking advice and suggestion on what emulator can I use to get the most accurate results..
P.S All of our computer units are running on windows7.
thanks..
I would suggest trying Safari under Windows, I suppose that's the best you can get on Windows.
The only thing you need from the simulator is its Webkit engine, and some 3rd party solutions hardly will deliver you the very same engine as the one on the Mac OS X or iOS.
Also, here are some Apple's guidelines on compatibility.
I need to check rendering of a large sum of HTML5 "widgets" that will be shown in an iPad WebKit. Which desktop browser gives me the most similar renering experience? My widgets mostly consist of SVGs positioned with CSS3 and some CSS masking.
Is it Safari on a Mac?
EDIT: The desktop OS is not a concern, I can pick whatever I want for this...
EDIT: What particularly interrests me is if desktop Safari is closer to iOS Safari than Chrome is. They are both based on WebKit, but I see a lot of tiny rendering differences between Chrome and iOS Safari.
How about mobile Safari on the iPad Simulator?
Unfortunately, the iPad Simulator is Mac-only. If you can't test on that, Apple recommends using Safari and changing your user agent string to the iPad's user agent string. You can find instructions from Apple here.
Try real Safari. It uses Webkit and since you're on windows, you can't download the iPad simulator.
On the desktop, anything that uses WebKit is going to give you a similar rendering experience especially with regards to more technical things like SVGs. Unfortunately, there are still browser-specific quirks that you won't be able to notice without actually testing it on either the simulator or a real device.