I can (eventually) get to the mobile browser and enter some sites, which work fine - at least, they work as well as they ever do on a mobile browser.īut there’s a snag: hacking the local hosts file. Slower than a real device, which is quite remarkable, and probably explains why Android apps are quite fast: developers get used to the poor performance of the emulator. Oh, and it’s slower than molasses on a January day in Gloucestershire. Don’t get me wrong, it works, but it’s just … not quite right. Only to find that – well, it’s really not that brilliant on Windows. My wife has an HTC Desire HD which is really rather cool, so off to Google we go to get the Android emulator.

Which is fairly reasonable given that I’m using a three-year-old laptop.

So it’s off to the Microsoft site to download their emulator… which promptly told me that my video drivers were Just Not Up To Scratch.

I’ve had my fingers burned (a bit) with previous Windows Mobile devices, but lots of people I know and respect reckon that Windows Phone 7 is really pretty good. I was so tempted to nip down to the local Apple Store and get a Mac Mini, but, given that once this job had finished it’d really just be a toy… I vetoed that one.

Unfortunately another quick check confirmed that the budget wouldn’t stretch to anything capable of running an iPhone development kit. While I was on that project I reckoned it might be a good idea to use an emulator so I could test what my mobile Web site might look like in real life.Ī nice idea, but in practice it seems the mobile toolchain is… rather more full of good intentions than actual capability.Ī quick check with my product owner confirmed that based on anecdotal research on the use of mobile devices by doctors in the NHS, iOS was the primary target, with Android a distant second. Previously I ranted about JQuery Mobile and the immature state of mobile development tools.

Android emulator hosts file mac