With Sauce Labs, you can run automated Appium tests for your native and hybrid mobile apps against many virtual OS and platform combinations with Android emulators and iOS simulators.
Scroll down to watch a demo video of how to run an automated mobile web test using Android emulators and iOS simulators. But first, some background information to get you started.
What is Appium?
Appium is a popular open source test automation tool for controlling a native, hybrid, or mobile app on iOS mobile, Android mobile, and Windows desktop platforms. It allows testers and developers to create automated tests of mobile applications, helping them deliver quality software faster, with less risk.
What is an Android Emulator?
An emulator, as the term suggests, emulates the device software and hardware on a desktop PC, or as part of a cloud testing platform. It is a complete re-implementation of the mobile software written in a machine level assembly language. The Android (SDK) emulator is one such example.
What is an iOS Simulator?
A simulator delivers a replica of a phone’s user interface and does not represent its hardware. A simulator is a partial re-implementation of the operating system written in a high-level language. The iOS simulator for Apple devices is one such example.
Why Should You Test on Both Emulators and Simulators?
Emulators and simulators enable parallel testing and test automation via external frameworks like Appium, Espresso, and XCUITest.
Emulators and simulators enable parallel testing in a way that can’t be achieved with devices in a lab. Because tests on emulators and simulators are software-defined, multiple tests can be run on tens of emulators and simulators at the click of a button without having to manually prepare each emulator/simulator for the tests.
Emulators and simulators are complementary to real devices, but they can’t deliver the real-world environment that a device can deliver. Real devices and virtual devices (emulators/simulators), when used together in an automated testing environment, enable modern mobile development and testing teams to get the most out of their mobile testing efforts.
