Simulator: Quick Launch, Easy Video Recording. Device: Hardware Goodies. iSimulate: A Compromise

There are a lot of reasons to use the iPhone simulator and a few reasons not to.

During development, I like to see my changes in the app ASAP; I use the simulator because waiting while a build is pushed to a device interrupts flow. Later, when it’s time to create an app screencast, it’s a darn sight easier to use the simulator too.

Of course, the simulator isn’t perfect. Testing performance and tracking elusive memory leaks are best done on the device. And the simulator’s support of multi-touch, location and accelerometer is thin to non-existent.

This last set of limitations makes it tough for me to use the simulator precisely when I want to: during development and for screencasts. This is where iSimulate comes in.

iSimulate is an iPhone app and library intended for iPhone app developers. With it, you run your app in the simulator and but take multi-touch, accelerometer and Core Location capabilities from an actual iPhone.

I was skeptical of iSimulate’s PR pitch that it “takes literally 2 minutes to get it running on an application.” Having now used it with Apple’s AccelerometerGraph and Touches sample apps, as well as one of my own apps, I can confirm that it really only does take a couple of minutes to set up:

To use it, you add their library to your project, include Core Location (if it’s not already part of the project), add a linker flag, launch their app on your phone and launch the app in the simulator.

I’d like to see them make a couple of enhancements to the on-phone app:

First, the on-phone app is arranged in a landscape orientation, so my natural tendency is to hold the phone in this orientation. If my app runs in portrait mode — as most do — the touches are rotated by 90-degrees. Of course I should just hold the phone in portrait mode. Nevertheless, I’d like the phone app to have the same orientation as what’s displayed in the similator.

Second, it’s difficult to aim. When I put a finger down it’s never exactly on the target I was aiming for. This lowers the production quality of screencasts. It’d be nice if the on-phone app mirrored the simulator’s display, even at a low frame rate.

That said, it’s a dandy application and works as advertised. Details, documentation and pricing information here.