Testing your products on emulators or on actual mobile devices are completely different things! Therefore, in this article we’ll give you some professional and inside tricks and tips on which are:
The Best Mobile Devices for Developers
iPhone Devices
If your are a designer or a website developer, having an iPhone for tests is an absolute must! It is recommended to stay up to date and have the latest iPhone…the notch can really affect the user interface and the user experience.
Moreover, testing your products on Safari and Chrome is also important. Apple is gaining more and more terrain, despite their huge prices. If you are in a business, reaching a larger amount of your audience is in your benefit, and there are a lot of people that want to enjoy your creation on their iPhones! Statistically speaking, people the use an iPhone rarely download another Browser, and prefer using Safari.
For example, last year, 25% of users accessed the internet from Safari. You can see a graphic bellow.
Android Devices
Google is definitely dominating the market with Google Chrome (WebKit & Chromium Engines). However, because the market is so vastly populated with devices, it is a bit hard to choose the best one for you, as a developer. But don’t worry, we’ve got you covered.
The answer is extremely simple. Get an Android device that runs the closest software to Android Vanilla. The catch here is that you will be one of the first lucky ones who will get the software updates on time. And as a designer or developer, you need to keep up with the latest software technologies.
We’ll cut it to the chase. If you are interested in having the latest software update, then it would be suitable for you any android device that is not Samsung, HTC and so on. They are known for the immense delay for software updates. Therefore, if you own a Samsung, your neighbour who owns an OnePlus 5, he will get the update long before your latest Samsung flagship will.
With Androids, you can never guarantee that the most expensive one receives the best features. Especially in such competitive market with so many tech giants.
What about Emulators, can’t they replace my devices?
It is debatable. Some work, some don’t. For example, Xcode emulator is 100% accurate compared to an iPhone, therefore you just got rid of a massive expense this year! However, if you get the change to get your hands on an iPhone, you will not be disappointed when testing your designs and products on it.
The bad side comes now, with Android Studio Emulator. You gamble a lot when you choose to use it. It’s a Hit & Miss game and this is because Android Studio is struggling in showing the reality of the CSS3 capabilities.
This means that sometimes it doesn’t show you the CSS3 animations on the emulator. However the animations works perfectly fine on an actual device and vice versa.
Our strong advice is for you to get a low cost, yet highly performant device, such as OnePlus 5, 5T, 6 or 6T. The cost is nowhere near the latest Samsung Galaxy or Note and it has some awesome features. It is a great tool to have when you build mobile websites, apps or user interface designs.
Conclusion
Nothing compares to the experience of testing your final products on an actual mobile device, interacting with it at a first end level and see exactly which are the aspects that can affect the overall user experience, that is a fact.
However, we understand that due to the high prices of the iPhones on the market. It can be difficult to invest in such thing, especially if you are at the beginning of your career. Luckily, the Xcode emulator will do the trick for iOS.
When it comes to Android, and you want to have a 100% accuracy and certainty, then buying an actual device is the answer. Otherwise, you may have a lot of angry customers that will have animations which don’t work and you will not be able to test, find out the problem and finally solve the problems.
What do you use for testing your products? Please share your story with us in the comments!