At the moment, the world’s mobile phone number is approximately two times the number of personal computers. With this information in your head, you can imagine about why the development of mobile applications is now considered a very profitable business - a huge market in which consumers are constantly in need of more functional applications, which quickly fill the distance between mobile devices and computers.
Trying to please the customer and to grasp all the current trends - is only half of what developers need to manage applications for mobile devices. They face a challenge with respect to test their applications on different models of devices and operating systems. Each model unit can differ significantly, each of them has some of his "quirks" that can not be overlooked, and that’s not counting all the fundamental differences between the operating systems for mobile devices.
In this article we have compiled a selection of free tools (emulators and simulators) for testing your applications on all popular operating system for mobile devices including iPhone, Blackberry, Android, Symbian and Palm. Some of the tools have been released officially (except iPhone), and are now available for download as amended SDK and other tools that may look simple enough, but can also be used as a reliable platform for testing.
Also below are tools to test your Web sites for compliance with mobile devices. Some tools provide you with a visual description, while others will provide you with detailed reports, which you can find the compatibility of your website and mobile devices.
Those who need to test applications on the operating system Android, Android Emulator is a tool just in time. He can run Windows as a standalone application, and you do not have to download and install a full Android SDK. Moreover, you can even install and test an application directly to this small application.
Android SDK includes a mobile device emulator that emulates all the hardware and software standard mobile devices (of course, without being able to make calls). You will see buttons that can be pressed by the mouse or keyboard to the procedure, as if in a mobile application. Also, you can see the display, which displays your application.
MobiOne Developer is a mobile Web IDE for Windows, with which developers can code, test, repair, and pack and unpack mobile Web applications for devices such as: iPhone, Blackberry, Android and Palm Pre.
The new 7th edition includes a visual editor such as drag-n-drop to create layouts that generation mobile HTML-code, easy patterns for mobile applications, the updated components OSS, the ability to capture the screen and multitouch and gestures.
TestiPhone.com - simulation of Web applications for the iPhone
TestiPhone simulator is based on a web browser to quickly test your web applications for iPhone. This tool has been tested with Internet Explorer 7, FireFox 2 and Safari 3.
iPhoney gives you a comfortable environment, developed by a team of Safari. You can use this tool when designing web sites for iPhone. Annex excellent canvas for developing applications with a resolution of 320×480 pixels.
iPhoney simulator is not the iPhone, but instead it is a tool for Web developers who develop Web sites with a resolution of 320×480 or vice versa, which in future will be reviewed by the iPhone. In the application, just corresponding to the size of the canvas, which facilitates easy development and testing.
iPhoney will only work on Mac OS X 10.4.7 or later.
iBBDemo perfectly reproduces html-family applications Webkit, including extensions to CSS, by which you can get an effective preliminary model of how content will look on your mobile device iPhone.
This official emulator emulates the Palm device with Palm webOS systems on Linux, Mac and / or Windows. If you already have an SDK, then you already have the emulator on your PC.
There are many different emulators official BlackBerry, which can emulate the functionality of current products on the BlackBerry. With any such simulator, you can pre-test how your application will look at this device, as well as to check the functional aspect of the controls.
If you combine these with your favorite SDK development tool, then you will have all the functions required to develop and test applications Symbian directly on your PC.
NMB 4.0 (mobile browser Nokia) is a mobile browser SDK that allows you to view Web content directly from your PC.
WinWAP lets you use WAP services on your PC with a Windows. The browser is an internet browser that fully emulates the process of using the Internet through your smartphone.
This emulator is best suited to simulate the real usage of your smartphone. The application looks like a smartphone on the desktop of your PC, you can click on the button device to move around the site and clicking through.
This official emulator integrates emulator images to Visual Studio 2005 and Visual Studio 2008, due to which you can test applications for Windows Mobile 6.1.4, including Explorer Mobile 6. The emulator can also be used as a standalone application (not Visual Studio).
MicroEmulator is a versatile and expandable CLDC / MIDP 1.0-mobile device emulator. It can be used as a standalone application or as any workstation that supports JAVA. With it, you will be able to display the MIDlet-applications in a web browser applet, or in a separate java-application.
In this article, the developer describes the process of creating the outer shell for MicroEmulator in order to make it more like a favorite platform for mobile device - SonyEricsson T610, with additional applet.
Service Perfecto Mobile Handset Cloud will give you the opportunity to test mobile applications, web sites or services on the real phone models (more than 450 models). You will be able to manage a real mobile device through a web interface. You can subscribe to using $ 12 / hour, or without a subscription to use the service for $ 16 / hour.
mobiReady test your website for compliance with mobile devices.
Free report will give you an estimate of compliance (from 1 to 5), and you’ll get pages of detailed analysis and advice on how to improve the level of compliance with mobile devices.
You can also test individual pages (by entering a URL), to test the selected site layout. Thus, you will receive a detailed report on specific sites.
This is a free service from W3C, which helps you to check the compliance of your Web documents with mobile devices.
iPad Peek is an excellent tool with which you can see how any of the sites will be displayed on the iPad. Click on the upper limit to switch modes. Virtual keyboard and buttons on the iPad there just for decoration, but the reset button works.
Live demo of the most popular mobile Web browser MicroEmulator Opera Mini 5, designed to MicroEmulator (presented above). It works just as if you were holding this mobile device.