That explains the difference, but what's the purpose?
replyThe simulator doesn't have a camera. The android emulator allows to configure the camera and use a picture, it's very handy to test your qr/barcode reader without needing to use a physical device. Maybe this also allows to use an image as camera?
replyYou cannot run Network Extensions on the simulator
replyYou can test your application, game, website without a physical phone?
replyCan do that with the simulator too
replyRunning on ported userspace components, with a shim, isn't the same as running on the OS in itself.
replyThat really matters, sometimes.
But not the vast majority of the time.
(source: been coding iOS since pre-SDK iPhone OS 1.0)
Can you give some examples of where it matters? I'm genuinely curious.
replyLast I checked, VPN network extensions wouldn't run in the simulator.
replyIs the simulator faster than this? I would suspect so.
replySpam. Click farms. Etc.
replyIt would also make testing far easier. I got bit with something that failed on real life iPhones with language set to es_US that worked fine on the simulator.
replyoh. is this why icloud spam texts are running wild now
replyNo, it’s just trivial to generate iCloud email addresses that won’t get picked up by spam filter.
replyIf functional, you can download apps from the App Store, sign in to iCloud.. probably do a bunch of agentic stuff as if you had a real device
replyLooks like apple services compatibility is not currently supported for this [0]
replyExactly. It means it cannot download apps from the App Store or use Apple services and Apple knows this deliberate limitation.
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