Is there a way to test a web site on the iPhone without an iPhone?

Question

I want to test a website to see how it works with the iPhone but I don't own an iPhone or an iPod touch. Is there a way I can test how the site works on them without owning one?

What I'm really after is fixing how Stackoverflow's WMD markdown editor works on the iPhone. I hear that the hyperlink and image prompts are created too high. I think I know how to fix that but it's pretty tough to develop blind.

Solution 1

If you own a Mac, you can download the iPhone SDK which comes with an iPhone simulator. It works not only for debugging a native app but also for browsing the web.

Solution 2

If you have Safari on your computer, you can enable the "Develop" menu under Preferences > Advanced > Show Develop Menu in Menu Bar.

With this enabled, you can go to Develop > User Agent, and change the user-agent string to the device you want your browser to report to the web server as. By resizing the window to the appropriate width, you can emulate what the site will look like on the iPhone.

The upside of this is that it's quick, it works on both Windows and Mac, and you don't need the iPhone SDK installed. You can also browse iPhone-specific versions of websites that catch user-agent strings directly from your PC.

The downside is obviously your Safari browser on your PC will behave quicker than on the actual device (especially in regard to javascript performance); it displays plugins and shows fonts that may not be available on the actual iPhone OS; a lack of multi-touch support and "snapping" to columns while scrolling; no auto-rotation; no multi-touch/pinch-zoom; widgets will look different; etc.

Solution 3

Just a notice on this old thread - we have now enabled live testing on iPhones and iPads via vnc at CrossBrowserTesting.com. Ken - Founder

Solution 4

There is a free app on the mac that emulates the iPhone browser: iPhoney

Solution 5

I don't purport to have done more than a web search, but the problem seems to be solved by several products that are "iPhone web app emulators."

http://www.testiphone.com/

http://marketcircle.com/iphoney/

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Comments

[Dana Robinson]

iPhoney looks promising so I'll give that a try. The problem is that the editor on SO uses a lot of Javascript and CSS which I need to be as accurate as possible.

[Chris Lundie]

The simulator works very well. The only big difference I noticed is that the real iPhone or iPod is way, way slower.

[Dan]

That would be interesting but I signed up for a demo wanting to test on a recent ios device and the system can't even run pages that run easily on xcode with ios 7.1

[klm123]

it doesn't really simulate device, it's just simulate resolution, which you could do simply by adjusting the size of your browser window.