Tools for testing websites on mobile devices

[woohoo]

Hi all,

I'm after ideas for testing websites on mobile devices, ipad, iphone, tablets etc. First-hand knowledge would be preferable.

I've used Electric Mobile Studio from Electricplum which is ok, but I've had issues with JavaScript failing on our website when using an iPhone but working ok in the emulator. It's happened twice now so I'm not keen on relying on it.

Buying the actual hardware is an option but it's a distributed team so a good emulator(s) would be ideal.

Thanks for any ideas.

Edit. just to let you know our team are trying out http://www.browserstack.com/ - if anyone is interested in the findings will post a comment.

[Bunk]

Xcode contains an iOS simulator which is good for testing rendering and adaptive/responsive layouts, less so for Javascript errors. I'd be surprised if mobile Safari was throwing errors that the desktop one didn't, they're usually pretty close. For better debugging I use my iPhone connected to a Mac running Safari so I debug the mobile browser on the desktop one.

I'm sure there's something similar for Android but I've only used their emulator, not really any debugging tools.

[Bunk]

We looked into BrowserStack for current clientco but we needed to be able to test dev servers within our network and there was no way in hell IT Security would allow them to tunnel in so that was that.

[woohoo]

We looked into BrowserStack for current clientco but we needed to be able to test dev servers within our network and there was no way in hell IT Security would allow them to tunnel in so that was that.

Fair point - I won't be using the local testing feature either. But clients test site is accessible from the internet so we can still use BrowserStack, plus I can give it to our tester and they can do the final testing.

[d000hg]

Xcode contains an iOS simulator which is good for testing rendering and adaptive/responsive layouts, less so for Javascript errors. I'd be surprised if mobile Safari was throwing errors that the desktop one didn't, they're usually pretty close. For better debugging I use my iPhone connected to a Mac running Safari so I debug the mobile browser on the desktop one.

I'm sure there's something similar for Android but I've only used their emulator, not really any debugging tools.

Had never thought of using the iOS simulator for testing websites on Safari!

[Bunk]

Had never thought of using the iOS simulator for testing websites on Safari!

We use it for testing clientco's dev server because we have Macs on the network which can access it, but our phones can't (the wifi is a separate network).

[jmo21]

The Responsinator is quite useful and free but again it'd need be on the Internet for the site to get it