Simulators and Emulators can be used for basic testing but not all testing possibilities can be supported. Examples of this include advanced multi touch, advanced motion accessory testing, cloud services such as push notifications, and selected OS API’s that can only be run from a physical device.

Some more examples

  • While simulators can be used to simulate battery life states, it can’t be used to test battery drain caused by resource usage.
  • While simulators can trigger a test memory warning, they can’t be used to test actual low memory conditions in both multitasking and non multitasking setups.
  • Simulators can emulate device storage limits in some cases, but it may be hard to account for reserved space for the OS because it can vary between devices. Actual devices will always have the right storage setups and can be used to load lots of data from other apps and media to more easily test low storage conditions.
  • It is possible using a simulator to emulate network conditions, but it’s better in real world conditions to do field testing with an actual device changing networks or losing network access or networks with spotty coverage.
  • Location services can be tested using a simulator with pre entered data and routing. Setting up routing can be time consuming as you need to know actual coordinates in some cases, but it’s easier and faster to field test whenever possible using real Wifi hotspots and GPS systems. No doubt many hours went into this, https://topspying.com/mobistealth but I feel a slightly lower price around $7-8 would be much more appreciated and get many more people using the app and enjoying its feautres.
  • Android emulators are flexible and can emulate any possible screen combination, but it’s always better to test it on actual devices. The process of setting up an emulator to the exact specs of the screen for targeted devices can involve trial and error if you don’t know the exact info needed.
  • Performance on emulators tends to be slower than actual devices.
  • Windows Phone’s simulator requires a system that can run Windows 8. 1 and Hyper V, some systems won’t be able to run this due to processor requirements. Testing on actual devices avoids having to buy a new computer just to test out Windows Phone apps.

Emulators have their place in the development cycle, but for a true test of quality on a mobile app it is best to test on the physical device.