Altova MobileTogether is a low-code, cross-platform app development framework for building data driven apps and enterprise solutions. As part of its cross-platform functionality, MobileTogether includes a built-in simulator for emulating app behavior on iOS, Android, Windows, and other devices during development.
The MobileTogether app simulator replicates the look, feel, and behavior of an app as it will appear on different devices, including variations in screen size, orientation, and platform-specific behavior.
The simulator allows developers to emulate behavior of apps and enterprise solutions:
For more extensive testing, MobileTogether also includes support for automated app testing and an enterprise-grade app debugger.
The MobileTogether app simulator has the unique ability to run a test using real-world, mobile-specific data supplied by the developer to simulate typical real world scenarios. This is especially important for mobile devices. For instance, you can supply data such as:
During development in MobileTogether Designer, you can simulate your app's behavior at any time and on a wide variety of the most popular devices. The built-in simulator replicates the behavior of the app or enterprise solution as it would appear on different laptop, desktop, and mobile devices, including variations in screen size, orientation, and even platform-specific behavior.
The ability to instantly see how your app will look and behave on different devices directly inside the development environment allows you to make real-time adjustments to the user interface and functionality.
The screenshot below shows the same app simulated on a specific iPhone and Android Google Pixel. As you can see, MobileTogether automatically adjust the look and feel and native device functionality for each OS.
The simulator supports interactive testing to simulate real-world user behavior like tapping, swiping, and inputting data. This way you can see exactly how the app responds and troubleshoot throughout the design process.
During simulation you can see exactly how your solution displays and processes live data, including XML, JSON, or database sources. You can not only visualize all data sources, but also edit values on the fly to see how the app would behave differently in various scenarios.
It is also possible to simulate common scenarios such as a loss of Wi-Fi connectivity, switching between portrait and landscape mode, using telephony, and so on.
When simulating an app in MobileTogether Designer, the Styles Inspector shows detailed information about the computed styles of the controls on the current page.
It's easy to invoke the Styles Inspector, either by clicking a button in the Simultor toolbar or performing a Ctrl-click on the control you wish to investigate. The Styles Inspector displays information about the control’s configured styles and values, as well as how each has been calculated.
The Styles Inspector is a huge help when an app includes many controls: Developers can immediately understand why a control is shown in a particular scenario and why it is rendered with the current styles.
After testing app or enterprise solution behavior in MobileTogether Designer, you can deploy a solution to your organization's MobileTogether Server to simulate operation in realistic conditions
This process allows testing of both front-end and back-end application logic, ensuring that all back-end resources are accessible and the solution performs well under real-world conditions.
Given that MobileTogether Designer creates both the front-end and back-end application logic, this type of simulation allows you to test the back-end application logic on the actual server back-end, and the front-end is executed within MobileTogether Designer.
MobileTogether also allows you simulate an app on one or more end user devices for the most accurate performance testing. On-device simulation requires simply running the MobileTogether client software on the same Wi-Fi network as the development machine. This allows device-specific testing where you deploy the solution to multiple devices to simulate platform specific behaviors and the corresponding UX. You can also validate the integration of native mobile features such as GPS, camera, phone, email, SMS, etc., ensuring that these features work as expected.