- Simulate Device On Safari. An iPhone, or an iPad. I do own an iPhone and iPad but wanted to do it all on my Mac, I've tried searching for Safari extensions to do this but so far I haven't found one. If you could give me some suggestions or a link to what I should use it would be appreciated.
- Apple Safari Browser Apple Safari is Apple's proprietary browser on the MacOSX and iOS platforms and the default browser for devices such as the iPhone, iPad and MacBook. Testing on Safari is often a challenge without a physical test device or a device lab - many testers choose to test these mobile devices in the cloud.
- Therefore, ensuring iPhone users get the best user experience is critical. IPhone runs on Apple’s iOS and users predominantly browse using Safari. IOS behaves differently from Android and Safari supports CSS in a different form versus Chrome, IE. Therefore, testing on iPhones for responsive design and cross browser compatibility is important.
One of the sites I am working on works differently on the desktop than it does on the iPad. And whenever I make a change, I end up having to test on both my iPad and my Mac which is OK most of the times but if I am doing more than 5-6 changes, then it quickly turns into a little bit cumbersome ( having to shift between iPad and Mac and refreshing browser windows…)
Therefore, ensuring iPhone users get the best user experience is critical. IPhone runs on Apple’s iOS and users predominantly browse using Safari. IOS behaves differently from Android and Safari supports CSS in a different form versus Chrome, IE. Therefore, testing on iPhones for responsive design and cross browser compatibility is important.
Until, this morning when I found out that I don’t need to use the iPad at all to test my site on the iPad. I can make the Desktop Safari to mimick the iPad Safari. And it’s pretty simple to do that. All you need to do is change the User Agent in Safari to Safari for iOS. Like this :-
And that’s it..I am wondering why I did not do this before. Not even sure if this was available in previous versions of Safari or not. I know most browsers let you change the User Agent but was not sure if iPad Safari could be simulated too.
Just before publishing this post, I thought I should check whether this feature is available in other browsers. It is available in Google Chrome, as well. You can change the user agent in Google Chrome too.
Recently, I have been working on improving mobile support in the content produced by our PDF to HTML5 converter. One problem that I have encountered is how to debug iOS Safari, particularly if you are not a Mac user.
If you are a web developer, you are likely very familiar with the tools available to you when debugging a web page or web app in a desktop browser, but how do you debug when developing for a mobile device such as the iPad or iPhone?
The answer is that you debug remotely, using the same tool as you would on desktop, except connected to your mobile device. If you are debugging Safari on iOS this will require Safari version 6 and up. Windows & Linux developers will be disappointed to hear that the latest version of Safari available for Windows is version 5, and it’s not available at all on Linux.
If you don’t own or have access to a Mac this can be very frustrating (though I would not say it’s the most frustrating thing about developing a web app for iOS, there are many). It would be great if Apple offered Virtual Machines with Safari pre-installed for testing, as Microsoft does for Internet Explorer. Fortunately, all is not lost – there are some alternatives available which I will discuss below.
Iphone Safari Flash
Remote Debugging iOS Safari on OS X:
Firstly, you need to have a device running iOS, such as an iPad or an iPhone that you can connect by USB to a Mac computer with Safari version 6 onwards installed.
Next, you need to enable ‘Web Inspector’ on your iOS device. You can do this by going to Settings > Safari > Advanced, and toggling Web Inspector so that it is enabled.
Then, you need to enable the Develop menu in Safari on your Mac computer if it is not already enabled. You can do this by going to Safari > Preferences > Advanced, and ticking the check box for Show Develop menu in menu bar.
Now, if your iOS device is plugged in to your computer with the web page you wish to debug currently open, you can go to Develop > iOS Device Name in desktop Safari, and click on the page you wish to debug.
You can now view and update the DOM, access the JavaScript console and more.
Inspect Iphone Simulator Safari
Remote Debugging iOS Safari on Windows and Linux:
[Update – Jan 2019] Since writing this article, the recommended solution is no longer available. There is however a new tool which allows you to debug iOS Safari using the Chrome Web Developer tools. You can find instructions for setting this up here: RemoteDebug iOS WebKit Adapter. I have tested this tool (in January 2019) and can confirm it is working.
There are very few options available to the web developer using Windows, and even fewer for those using Linux. Apparently, the Telerik Platform AppBuilder includes a Chrome Developer Tools capable of remote debugging pages in Safari. You can find a guide for doing that here. Be aware that this is not a free solution.
In my option, the best solution for debugging Safari on Windows and Linux is to use a really cool web app called JSConsole. JSConsole works by inserting a script tag into your web page that overrides the console behavior. Rather than writing logs and errors to a console you can’t see, instead they will be streamed to a jsconsole session open in your desktop web browser that will be listening to your device.
To start, go to jsconsole.com and run :listen in the prompt. This will give you a unique session ID and a script tag that you insert into your mobile web page.
Now, any console output that your mobile page generates will be streamed to the console open in your desktop web browser, including any errors!
It is certainly no replacement for a full web inspector, but it can get you out of trouble when you don’t have access to a Mac.
If you found this article useful, feel free to try our PDF to HTML5 converter online for free.