iPhone devsugar: Simulating device events with iSimulate
Anyone struggling with the challenge of developing for the iPad, a platform whose hardware has not yet been released, should welcome iSimulate. For just ten bucks, you can test your applications using event inputs from a real device. Yes, you'll be working with the limited geometry of an iPhone -- fewer pixels, not the same device shape -- but you'll gain access to a much wider range of gesture and accelerometer events to help you debug and develop your apps.
Using iSimulate involves little more than compiling in a framework and running an iPhone-based application that you download from the App Store. You'll need to add -ObjC to your linker flags and include the Core Location framework. This latter is needed in order to provide simulated compass and GPS events to your app. Once run in the simulator, iSimulate will automatically find that running app and offer to link to it.
It took me only a few minutes to bring my Xcode project into iSimulate compliance and get it working with the iPhone. In use, I found the entire process of interacting with my phone to generate events on the Simulator far easier and more intuitive than I expected. I suspect I'll keep using iSimulate over the next few weeks until the iPad debuts and can comfortably recommend it to other devs.
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