Re: Tempting for devs?
>> Yes, true, I could use the emulator, if I were using XCode, but as mentioned, I'm experimenting with B4i, which uses a real device for debugging.
Yes, I read your description above. It sounds like it outputs an XCode project though, so it seems like you could also use XCode for debugging...?
Minor quibble: the iOS Simulator is a "simulator," not an emulator. That is, the apps it runs are built for x86 and run against iOS libraries that are also built for x86. No emulation is done anywhere in the stack, which makes it about a million times smaller and faster than the Android emulator.
>> Of course, upgrading to the latest OS X (and hence XCode - the current version won't run on Snow Leopard) is free, but also likely to set off a horrible cascade of other upgrades.
It would be very easy to clone your laptop's drive to an external drive using a program like SuperDuper!, then try updating, and if it doesn't work, you can restore your machine from the cloned drive.
I expect everything would work nicely though. Updating OS X usually isn't the exercise in masochism that you get with updating Windows.
>> Obviously, this isn't a typical situation, and you're right that many people may be able to test most stuff with the emulator, certainly for casual apps. But I think even when you can, a lot of people will prefer having a real device in their hand.
Certainly true when developing Android apps because the Android emulator is so big and slow. But the iOS Simulator is really very nice to use. When developing my apps, I can go for days using the Simulator and not bothering to install builds on my devices.