How can I test how my websites render on Mobile Safari without buying an iPhone?

3
votes

All the "emulators" I've found via google are simply a skin on top of Safari desktop or use your OS's default browser :( I borrowed my friends iPhone and noticed the CSS for a pure CSS drop-down menu doesn't render properly and you can't click the links, yet it renders properly on Safari desktop and every other browser even Internet Explorer 6 and 7. In other words the site is unnavigable on the iPhone. How can I test the Safari Mobile rendering engine without buying an iPhone?

edit: Okay it appears there is an iPhone simulator for Mac. I will just see if an OSX image will dual-boot on another harddrive partition of my laptop, if not I'll scrounge for a used iPod Touch though I generally disdain possessing superfluous peripherals.

2
iphoneemulationmobile-safari
Borrow a friend's? Buy an iPod Touch instead? Use the simulator on a mac (but if you had a mac you could just use DashCode to make it much easier). - mk12
Its often a good idea to actually have a device if you are programming for it because the runtime performance could sometimes be quite surprising.... - AndersK
I run OS X on a virtual machine for testing (Virtualbox; VMware can do it too). It takes a little bit of hacking about, and it'll need a decent processor, with hardware virtualisation available, but it works without having to clutter the place up with more unwanted computers. - bobince
Did you ever get this resolved successfully? Do you still need help with this? - jcolebrand

2 Answers

5
votes

Either use a Mac and run the iPhone Simulator, or get an old iPod touch, which isn't that expensive.

1
votes

If it depends on rollover of any sort then I think you've discovered the problem.

Is purchasing a mac mini within your budget? Then you could load the emulater in XCode.