Smartphone & Tablet Emulator

1

I wondered if anyone had any views about this service that I came across: It’s called BrowserStack and it offers an opportunity to test a web app on virtually every platform there is.

There’s a 30-min free trial then you can sign up as a freelancer on a monthly account for $19/m as I have done - you get a number of minutes real-time testing. Just don’t renew if not needed.The pricing seems a bit convoluted but it saved me a shed-load and seems good value even at a 1 year subscription.

It sounds like I’m trying to sell it which is not the case. I have seen many comments on the forum about not being able to test on every device and this seems a cost-effective option. I have tried it and been able to trouble-shoot an issue on Samsung S5 which I discovered on a colleague’s real phone and then replicated on the site. Hell of a lot cheaper than buying the phone.

If nothing else it enables you to see how the app displays on a wide variety of screen. Interested to know the professional opinion on whether this is a valid way to go; or not.

2

Looks pretty cool! Thanks for posting this.

4

Just curious to see if anyone here is using Browserstack or if there are better options. Also, would you need to get both a “Freelance Live” and “Freelance App Live” subscription to be able to test both webapps and native apps?

I haven’t gone down the native app path yet so have no idea how you folks test those.

Bob

5

I took a chance an purchased a one month Freelancer account and then immediately asked for a refund. For their free trial you can “add to home screen” but this feature is disabled for the Freelancer account.

6

Here’s an update. Browserstack’s customer service is amazing. When I asked for a refund they contacted me immediately, looked into the issue and told me that “add to home screen” hasn’t been implemented for iPhones between v10 and 13 (default was an 11). I tried it on a v13 model and it worked perfectly.