Testing your website on Android
The number of handheld devices running on Android OS are greater than those running on iOS, which is why it is important that you test your website to make sure it works optimally on this platform.
Like the iOS simulator for iPad and iPhone, it is also possible to test your latest work on your computer using the Android emulator. This article explains how.
Testing using the Android emulator
The Android emulator is part of the Android SDK which can be downloaded for free. It allows you to emulate a mobile device from your computer, which means you do not have to actually own a mobile device running on Android to test.
How to install the Android SDK
Once you have your copy of the Android SDK, installing and configuring the Android emulator is fairly straightforward. Unzip the contents of the zip file and move the folder that contains the Android SDK files to a directory of your choice. Next follow the Android SDK installation instructions skipping step 3 if you only want to test your website in the emulator.
Setting up Virtual Devices
Once installed Mac and Linux users can launch the emulator by navigating to the tools directory and executing the following command in your Terminal.
android
Windows users should double-click the SDK Manager.exe file at the root of the Android SDK directory. Before you can run the emulator you need to download and install the required SDK packages. Navigate to "Available Packages" and toggle open the Android Repository. At the time of writing Android 2.2 and 2.3 are the most popular platforms so you should start by downloading and installing the SDK platforms for these platforms. Once installed can setup a virtual device for each version of Android in the "Virtual Devices" section. Click the "New" button, give the device a name, select the "target" (version of Android that the device will use) and click "Create AVD".
Now you have configured your devices you can begin your testing. Start a device and wait for the emulator to load. Open up the browser and navigate to your website and begin testing.
