3 ms·

I agree that it works just like any other emulator, but the competition offers simulators which take up far less resources. Google did start work on a simulator

I agree that it works just like any other emulator, but the competition offers simulators which take up far less resources. Google did start work on a simulator which went by the name of 'Arc Welder' and while it seemed promising it was discontinued soon after. And I wholeheartedly agree with your point about compile times and have added it to my comment.

jeroenhd 6y ago
Windows Phone used the same model as Android, only Windows Phone devices never got to the point where they came out with over 4GB of RAM. iOS doesn't actually emulate most of the system though, which is why it can run on so little RAM. Apple repurposes the shared components running on macOS to do the heavy lifting of iOS emulation. Their approach, in my opinion, is closer to a Docker container with a display than to a traditional emulator. This is also why it's technically impossible to port the iOS emulator to Windows or Linux even if they were willing to give up their vendor lock-in. I haven't worked with the iOS simulator for long, but I found some features the Android emulator offered missing in iOS. There was no installing apps (like WhatsApp, to test sharing) and the tooling for faking following a recorded or generated GPS path were either impossible for me to find or just not there. I also found that the "OS" inside the simulator felt bare-bones and incomplete whereas the Android emulator comes with the complete toolkit, including Google Play. iOS simulation is faster than Android emulation, but in my opinion that comes at a cost. It's possible to do the same thing on Linux through Anbox, though that might not have all the same API's. The Android kernel is quite different from the Linux kernel it was once just a fork of and on Windows you'll never see the same level of integration with Android that iOS has.

3 ms·

I agree that it works just like any other emulator, but the competition offers simulators which take up far less resources. Google did start work on a simulator

by me551ah 6y ago

jeroenhd 6y ago
Windows Phone used the same model as Android, only Windows Phone devices never got to the point where they came out with over 4GB of RAM. iOS doesn't actually emulate most of the system though, which is why it can run on so little RAM. Apple repurposes the shared components running on macOS to do the heavy lifting of iOS emulation. Their approach, in my opinion, is closer to a Docker container with a display than to a traditional emulator. This is also why it's technically impossible to port the iOS emulator to Windows or Linux even if they were willing to give up their vendor lock-in. I haven't worked with the iOS simulator for long, but I found some features the Android emulator offered missing in iOS. There was no installing apps (like WhatsApp, to test sharing) and the tooling for faking following a recorded or generated GPS path were either impossible for me to find or just not there. I also found that the "OS" inside the simulator felt bare-bones and incomplete whereas the Android emulator comes with the complete toolkit, including Google Play. iOS simulation is faster than Android emulation, but in my opinion that comes at a cost. It's possible to do the same thing on Linux through Anbox, though that might not have all the same API's. The Android kernel is quite different from the Linux kernel it was once just a fork of and on Windows you'll never see the same level of integration with Android that iOS has.