iSimulate
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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. TUAW is commonly provided with not-for-resale licenses or promo codes to permit product evaluations and reviews. For more details, see our policy page. Promo code requests are not guarantees of reviews.
iSimulate brings iPhone apps to the big screen
Apple's iPhone simulator built into Xcode is nice, but it doesn't completely replicate the actual feel of playing with an iPhone (not to mention that things like multitouch and accelerometer info can't be tested on screen). Enter iSimulate, a new app from a company called vimov. In conjunction with a program on your Mac, it allows you to take the input (including multitouch and accelerometer) of an iPhone, and wirelessly connect it to an app running on your monitor. The effect, as you can see above, is basically an iPhone controlling a big-screen app.Which has all sorts of possibilities. Developers can use it to both test and show off their apps, which is nice. But perhaps more importantly, (assuming it works smoothly -- we haven't tested it yet) it will let people use apps on their big screen monitors. Playing on the iPhone's screen is fun and all, but wouldn't it be nicer to play on two big screens at the same time?The app might not quite be ready for that use quite yet -- not only is the app for your Mac called an "SDK" (which definitely means it's meant for developers, not gamers), but the price might be prohibitive as well. They launched it at $2, and the price is going up exponentially (it's now $8) until it arrives at its final price of $32. But this is definitely a great idea. And it if happens to be popular even at that price (for consumers and developers), we wouldn't be surprised to see Apple finally "get it" in terms of bringing some of the App Store's offerings to their own big screen.
