I like to try my hand at developing e-learning for mobile, but while I can check the boxes to enable HTML5 output and Articulate Mobile player I don't have a smartphone.
Does anybody know of a way to test mobile versions of courses without having access to a smartphone?
You can test the HTML5 output on your desktop browser but that's not necessarily a good replacement for testing on actual devices. I have used http://www.keynote.com/solutions/testing/mobile-testing The free version gives you remote access to a handful of REAL devices (the paid version provides a substantial library of devices)
One more suggestion: If you are felling adventurous, you could also download the Android and/or iOS SDKs, both come with a device simulator. Or you could try the Bluestacks (http://www.bluestacks.com/) emulator.
Chrome and IE11 have mobile device emulators in their built-in developer tools. IE11 only emulates Windows Mobile devices, but Chrome has a pretty good variety. They're easy to use and, of course, they're free.
To display the developer tools, open the browser (Chrome or IE11) and then press F12.
In Chrome, you can immediately choose a mobile device emulation mode from the Device drop-down list at the top of the browser window. You can also easily set the emulated screen resolution, and even swap the screen dimensions, basically toggling the emulated screen orientation.
In IE, click the Emulation tab of the developer tools bar near the bottom of the browser window. You can choose the emulated screen orientation and resolution from convenient drop-down lists.
For Android devices you can also use the Android SDK which will enable you to test over different devices and/or different Android OS versions. Bear in mind, you shouldn't test for performance over these (or any of the above) emulators (except maybe Bluestacks), as they tend to be much slower than a native device.
For iOS (as well as Android), you could use Keynote as Michael suggested above, or Browserstack.
6 Replies
You can test the HTML5 output on your desktop browser but that's not necessarily a good replacement for testing on actual devices. I have used http://www.keynote.com/solutions/testing/mobile-testing The free version gives you remote access to a handful of REAL devices (the paid version provides a substantial library of devices)
Thank you Michael. I'll check that out.
One more suggestion: If you are felling adventurous, you could also download the Android and/or iOS SDKs, both come with a device simulator. Or you could try the Bluestacks (http://www.bluestacks.com/) emulator.
Chrome and IE11 have mobile device emulators in their built-in developer tools. IE11 only emulates Windows Mobile devices, but Chrome has a pretty good variety. They're easy to use and, of course, they're free.
To display the developer tools, open the browser (Chrome or IE11) and then press F12.
Hi Simon,
For Android devices you can also use the Android SDK which will enable you to test over different devices and/or different Android OS versions. Bear in mind, you shouldn't test for performance over these (or any of the above) emulators (except maybe Bluestacks), as they tend to be much slower than a native device.
For iOS (as well as Android), you could use Keynote as Michael suggested above, or Browserstack.
Hope this helps,
Alex
Oops, just noticed Michael added the SDK to a later comment, so it pretty much made mine redundant.
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