Posted May 7th, 2015 in Applications
Five years ago, I bought a Mac Mini so I could use the iOS Simulator (and then quickly "upgraded" to a more powerful MacBook Pro when I realised I far preferred OS X to Windows) but struggled to find a decent equivalent for Android devices. After a quick Google today I found the Xamarin Android Player, which does the trick nicely.
Download it from here: https://xamarin.com/android-player
There are versions for both Windows & OS X. I've only tried the OS X version. You download and install it, and then there's a list of downloadable devices. At the present time, these are:
- Nexus 4 KitKat, Lollipop & Jelly Bean - 768x1280
- Nexus 5 KitKat & Lollipop - 1080x1920
- Nexus 7 KitKat, & Jelly Bean - 800x1280
- Nexus 10 KitKat - 1600x2560 (i.e. 800x1280)
- Nexus S KitKat - 480x800
I'm not sure how or if you can add other images.
The only annoyance I have found so far is that the virtual device will only use DNS for domain lookups, and won't look at your local hosts file (whereas the iOS Simulator will use the hosts file first, and DNS lookups next).