Providing a seamless user experience across various devices and operating systems is now crucial in the fiercely competitive app development market of today. Consumers anticipate reliable performance whether they are accessing your app via a browser like Safari, an Android smartphone, or an iPhone. When physical access to all required devices is restricted or impractical, achieving thorough test coverage across this vast range of environments can be difficult.
Simulators and emulators are useful in this situation. Without requiring substantial hardware resources, developers and QA specialists can effectively simulate real device behavior with these virtual testing environments. They allow for greater software development lifecycle coverage, greatly lowering costs and speeding up testing cycles.
One common challenge, however, lies in testing web and mobile applications on Safari for Windows. Apple discontinued support for Safari on Windows after version 5.1.7, leaving developers on Windows platforms with limited access to Safari’s rendering engine and features. This limitation complicates efforts to verify how applications behave on iOS browsers like Safari.
In this blog, we’ll examine efficient emulator and simulator-based app automation techniques as well as how Windows users can still test on Safari using contemporary tools and platforms.
Understanding Emulators vs. Simulators
It’s important to understand the difference between emulators and simulators before implementing any strategies:
Emulators replicate an actual device’s software and hardware. They can be slower, but they are usually more precise, making them perfect for testing Android apps.
Simulators, which are frequently used for testing iOS apps, merely imitate the software environment. They might not have all the hardware-level functionality, but they are faster.
Given that Safari for Windows does not natively support the more recent Apple WebKit standards without the use of third-party tools, simulators offer a useful place to start when testing iOS or web apps on Safari.
Why Use Emulators and Simulators?
In mobile and online app development, testing on actual devices is frequently regarded as the ultimate standard; yet, there are drawbacks. Keeping up a complete set of physical devices for iOS and Android is costly, logistically challenging, and hard to scale. In this situation, emulators and simulators become essential components of the contemporary automation toolbox.
The following are some strong arguments for using emulators and simulators as part of your testing process
Economic Testing: It can cost thousands of dollars to build a physical device lab with the newest iOS, Android, and smartphone models. Simulators and emulators provide a very cost-effective substitute. You may simulate a broad range of devices, screen sizes, and operating systems with only a normal development workstation, whether it’s Linux, Windows, or macOS.
Fast Feedback Loops: Because virtual devices are quick to boot up and simple to reset, development and testing can be done quickly. This is particularly useful in the early phases of development when rapid validation is required for frequent changes. After writing or changing code, developers can test right away with iOS simulators and Android emulators.
Parallel and Scalable Automation: Modern CI/CD pipelines greatly benefit from virtual environments’ scalability. It’s challenging and expensive to run hundreds of test cases at once using physical devices alone, but emulators and simulators can be spun up in parallel.
Broad Platform and OS Coverage: One of the main issues in QA is mobile fragmentation. To make that the app works properly in a variety of scenarios, testers can use emulators and simulators to mimic different device settings (OS versions, screen sizes, resolutions, etc.). This is especially helpful for testing Safari on iOS simulators, which are not normally available on a Windows computer.
Easier Debugging and Diagnostics: Rich debugging features like logs, memory analysis, and performance profiling are frequently offered by virtual environments. As opposed to using actual devices, where such tools might not be as consistent or easily accessible, this enables engineers to find and address faults more quickly.
Automating Web App Testing on Safari for Windows
If you’re working on Safari for Windows, you’re likely aware that modern versions of Safari are no longer supported on Windows. However, automation workflows can still be implemented effectively:
Use Simulators on macOS via Cloud Platforms
Because Safari is a macOS-native browser, Apple only allows macOS devices to use its most recent versions. When testing web apps in Safari’s environment, this presents a problem for developers and testers working on Windows systems, particularly when aiming to reach iOS users.
One approach is using Windows emulators to simulate macOS-like environments, but these often lack performance and compatibility with newer Safari versions due to Apple’s system restrictions. A more reliable solution is offered by cloud-based testing platforms. With the help of these platforms, you can remotely access iOS simulators and actual macOS computers directly from your Windows browser. Through the use of authentic Safari browsers and a cloud-hosted iOS simulator, you can test your apps on Safari for Windows without actually running Safari.
Strategy:
- Using Selenium, Appium, or your favorite framework, create automation scripts on your Windows computer.
- Set up your scripts to connect to the grid endpoint of the cloud testing provider.
- Use the infrastructure of the provider to remotely run the tests on iOS simulators or Safari browsers.
- With this approach, you can integrate Safari testing into cross-browser automation workflows without requiring macOS hardware to be present.
WebDriver Integration with iOS Simulators
Simulators provide an easy-to-use and adaptable testing environment for iOS apps. Although simulators are limited to running on macOS, you can separate the creation of tests from their execution with frameworks like Appium. This implies that you can create and maintain test cases on your Windows computer and execute them on distant macOS systems that house the simulators. In this case, Appium’s support for Remote WebDriver is crucial. Your automation scripts will have complete access to interact with Safari running within an iOS simulator if you connect your test scripts to a macOS host via a network.
Strategy:
- Create your automation tests in Windows by utilizing the standard syntax provided by Appium.
- Configure a macOS computer with simulators turned on as your Appium server, either locally, remotely, or in the cloud.
- Use Appium’s Remote WebDriver to establish a connection between your Windows environment and the distant server.
- Use the iOS simulator to run your tests in Safari just like you would if you were using it locally.
This configuration is ideal for groups who wish to validate iOS-specific browser behaviors while still having the freedom of working in a Windows environment.
Best Practices for Automation Based on Emulators and Simulators
Although emulators and simulators provide a great deal of flexibility for automating apps, their effective use necessitates a methodical approach. Virtual environments, in contrast to actual equipment, contain unique constraints and subtleties that may impact test reliability, performance, and accuracy. Use these excellent techniques to maximize the effectiveness of your automation plan, particularly when testing on limited platforms like Windows’ Safari:
Optimize Test Cases: Test cases should be optimized because virtual devices operate more slowly than physical ones. Make sure your test scripts are focused and concise.
Parallel Testing: To expedite continuous integration pipelines use parallel execution. During simulator-based testing use mocks of APIs and services to lessen reliance on actual backend systems.
Track Resource Usage: Using a lot of resources to run several virtual devices can be a problem. To control load, use containerization or task schedulers.
LambdaTest Plays a Pivotal Role in Windows-Based Safari Testing
LambdaTest is a cloud-based cross-browser testing solution built to make website testing faster and responsiveness better across many different devices. Its complete test suite capabilities enable developers to ensure their sites are properly optimized and provide an equal experience for every visitor across every device and browser used. LambdaTest is an artificial intelligence-based test orchestration and execution platform that allows developers and QA engineers to execute automated tests on more than 3000+ browser-OS combinations, including 10,000+ real environments.
The lack of native support for Safari or iOS simulators which are necessary tools for verifying how apps behave on Apple platforms is one of the main drawbacks for Windows users. This is where LambdaTest changes everything. LambdaTest is a top cloud testing platform that provides immediate access to Safari browsers and iOS simulators via the cloud bridging the gap between Windows environments and macOS-only tools. .
With LambdaTest, Windows users can:
Test on real Safari Browsers: Windows users may test webpages and web apps on genuine Safari versions thanks to LambdaTest’s remote access to real Safari browsers operating on macOS. This is particularly helpful for verifying layout, responsiveness, and compatibility with various Safari builds, which is not achievable on Windows otherwise.
Access iOS Simulators: Users can use the LambdaTest platform to conduct tests on iOS simulators to confirm functionality specific to mobile devices. As a reliable alternative to real iOS devices, these simulators can be used to test touch gestures, PWA installation, or responsive design in iPhone and iPad Safari.
Automate Using Selenium and Appium: LambdaTest enables automation by utilizing popular frameworks like Selenium and Appium. LambdaTests’ remote grid makes testing easier overall by enabling Windows users to write test scripts locally and execute them on iOS simulators or Safari browsers.
Simulate Multiple Devices and OS Versions: Create multiple device simulations and OS versions to test across a variety of screen sizes, OS versions, and device models. This guarantees thorough coverage and assists teams in locating and resolving problems that might only arise on particular device-browser combinations.
Conclusion
Ensuring cross-platform compatibility becomes more difficult as mobile ecosystems continue to change. Now, developers and testers are expected to optimize web experiences across a variety of browsers and operating systems, in addition to Android and iOS. Automation is not only useful in this environment but also necessary. In today’s QA toolbox, emulators and simulators are essential tools. They eliminate the need for large hardware labs and allow for quick, scalable, and economical testing.
This is quite useful for testing under certain limitations, such as attempting to verify functionality on Safari for Windows, which Apple no longer supports. By using simulators in combination with cloud-based platforms and automation frameworks such as Appium and Selenium, teams may circumvent browser and operating system limitations. Without compromising quality or coverage, these methods enable you to test on Safari rapidly from a Windows environment, regardless of whether you’re creating native apps or progressive web apps.
