Emulate/Simulate iOS in Linux [closed]

Asked 10/6, 2011 at 19:39 Answered 19/3, 2019 at 0:17

100

I'm developing a web app that apparently is having problems in iOS devices. The problem is that I don't own an iOS device and I develop in Linux Ubuntu. I'm looking for a way to emulate/simulate this OS in Linux (especially the browser), but haven't found anything.

So far, what I've found is the iOS SDK's Simulator, but that is meant for the Mac. And also some emulator for Windows. Has anyone done this before?

Globin answered 10/6, 2011 at 19:39 Comment(4)

The web app is intended mostly for regular browsers. However, a few users try to see it using an iPhone, and I needed to verify some problems they were having. – Globin 16/8, 2012 at 3:49

If it's a layout issue I recommend installing the Konqueror web browser. Then look in settings to be sure it uses Webkit layout engine (same as safari). – Petterson 24/4, 2016 at 10:27

Here is an article wich should solve your problem - proreactnative.com/… – Ledford 31/3, 2017 at 14:17

macOS VM with QEMU+kvm, actively maintained – Udder 14/4, 2021 at 11:48

The only solution I can think of is to install VMWare or any other VT then install OSX on a VM.

It works pretty good for testing.

Colony answered 10/6, 2011 at 19:54 Comment(7)

Doing this, as no other option seems available (except for actually acquiring the mobile devices in question). – Globin 19/6, 2011 at 5:17

is it possible to deploy for tests an app on iphone using Linux? – Cullan 24/10, 2011 at 19:52

With this solution, yes. – Colony 15/6, 2012 at 10:24

Is there a legal way to do this? I stupidly bought an OSX CD thinking that I could install it in VirtualBox, but it turned out to be much more compilcated than that. I think you need some kind of hardware image which is not strictly legal to obtain. No? – Ramburt 20/7, 2013 at 12:37

Virtualisation of some of the mac os is often not permited. apple.stackexchange.com/questions/20965/… – Desiree 13/11, 2014 at 14:19

I have a "hackintosh" in VirtualBox (plenty of instructions online). Apart from the licensing issues, the performance is pretty bad and graphics glitches are common. Unless you only need a CLI environment, IMHO this option is not suitable for serious development. – Prognostication 31/7, 2019 at 9:7

As far as I know, legally you can only install Apple OS on Apple hardware. To circumvent this issue, I've been using lambdatest.com. The downside is that you will have to deploy your web app publicly for being able to access it thorough here. – Sinistrorse 22/9, 2021 at 23:17

On linux you can check epiphany-browser, resizes the windows you'll get same bugs as in ios. Both browsers uses Webkit.

Ubuntu/Mint:

sudo apt install epiphany-browser

Lemur answered 29/12, 2016 at 18:12 Comment(9)

This isn't a catch-all solution. The engine may be the same, but I have encountered some ios browsers which error on pages that render fine on epiphany. YMMV – Sonorous 20/3, 2017 at 13:54

Working well for me to fixing layout bugs on cordova hybrid app – Elbe 25/6, 2019 at 22:49

This may not be a perfect solution but it definitely helped me solve my javascript issue that was happening in Safari on iPhone without having access to one. – Zibet 17/4, 2020 at 18:19

@Zibet That's it. When I've answered this, I got into this question because I was developing something in Cordova. As I remember, I've used this to solve some layout bugs. So it may be an amend about this answer. – Lemur 18/4, 2020 at 17:38

Thanks to epiphany I could solve some iOS bugs. Thanks so much for sharing this! – Feminize 6/6, 2020 at 23:0

This is underrated answer. Got the same bugs as on real iOS – Maciemaciel 20/11, 2020 at 22:58

good idea for some (but not all) sorts of bugs, Epiphany is now officially known as "Gnome Web" browser, apps.gnome.org/en-GB/app/org.gnome.Epiphany – Winston 9/2, 2022 at 16:18

This is quite a quick and free solution to test most IOS bugs.. it helped me many times.. good answer.. – Contrapuntal 6/12, 2023 at 8:55

This used to work but as of today there are too many differences. – Ottoman 8/12, 2023 at 7:36

BrowserStack.com
On this site, you can emulate a lot of iOS's devices online.

Factotum answered 10/7, 2013 at 10:57 Comment(2)

Isn't this site testing, and not actual iOS application testing? – Pattipattie 31/8, 2016 at 0:35

its only for remote testing purpose ...not for actual simulator on laptop – Garner 9/7, 2018 at 15:20

Run Ripple emulator(retired as of 2015-12-06) on Chrome
Run iPadian on WineHQ
Run QMole on Linux or Android
Run XCode on PureDarwin

Hagiographa answered 7/5, 2018 at 10:45 Comment(0)

Maybe, this approach is better, https://saucelabs.com/mobile, mobile testing in the cloud with selenium

Subvert answered 14/5, 2014 at 21:12 Comment(1)

Link not working. – Mella 28/8, 2019 at 7:38

You might want to try screenfly. It worked great for me.

Humber answered 19/3, 2019 at 0:17 Comment(3)

This is really a comment, not an answer. With a bit more rep, you will be able to post comments. Thanks! – Heterochromous 19/3, 2019 at 0:43

@MiroslavGlamuzina, there is nothing else to add to my suggestion. Not a long answer required. Cheers – Humber 20/3, 2019 at 14:58

@MiroslavGlamuzina Yours is neither an answer nor a comment – Benner 26/7, 2022 at 17:12

-2

As far as I know, there is no such a thing as iOS emulator on windows or linux, there are only some gameengines that enable you to compile same code for both iOS and windows or linux and there is a toolchain to compile iOS application using linux. none of them are realy emulator/simulator things. and to use that toolchain you need a jailbreaked iOS device to test binary file created using toolchain. I mean linux itself can't run the binary created itself. and by the way even in mac simulator is just an intermediate program which runs mac-compiled binary, since if you change compiling for iOS from simulator or the other way, all the files are rebuild. and also there are some real differences, like iOS is a case-sensitive operation while simulator is not.

so the best solution is to buy an iOS device yourself.

Hypoglossal answered 10/6, 2011 at 19:49 Comment(0)

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