Virtual Mobile Devices
Let’s start by addressing the obvious question: What is a Virtual Device?
Simply put, it is a virtual or emulated instance that replicates a physical mobile device, whether iOS or Android.
For Android, the correct term is an Emulator.
For iOS, the correct term is a Simulator.
Virtual devices can be a valuable addition to your testing strategy. They are typically faster to provision and can handle the common scenarios you’d encounter on a real mobile device, such as Manual Testing, Automated testing (With frameworks like Appium, Espresso & XCUITest) and running Automated Tests at scale to get faster feedback, sometimes challenging with physical devices due to the number of devices available to you.
However, while virtual devices can streamline certain processes, they come with limitations. They cannot fully replicate real-world conditions, including how users interact with applications downloaded from the App Store or Play Store, or how the applications downloaded behave and impact the CPU, Memory and Battery of a mobile device.
Moreover, many features available on the physical devices we offer are not supported on virtual devices.
Let’s take a closer look at these limitations.