Part II
Plato's cave & the Wachowskis' matrix: how do they relate to the world of mobile development and testing? Well, ...fasten your seat belt Dorothy, 'cause Kansas is going bye-bye.
Content developers are not afforded the luxury of ignorance. They are "enlightened" to the magic world behind the curtain and are tasked to make it better for the rest of us. Their unique challenge is to create a better experience in our matrix-like view of the Internet. Multiply this challenge by the number of mobile handsets that can impact the user experience and a developer's challenge is truly daunting. When code does not render consistently on the thousands of types of screens out there, the developer must identify the issue, fix it, and validate that the fix addressed the issue. Now compound all of this with geographical and network differences.
Until recently the options for testing and validation were few. They were solely dependent on real devices. This solution can be costly, cumbersome, and slow-- dirty words when speed to market is key. Recently, new emulated testing tools have hit the market that help address these issues and provide quick and accurate solutions for content developers.
The characteristics of hundreds of devices can instantly be downloaded to your desktop. From there you can choose a device and carrier, pull up a website and have direct access to the raw content components of a page from the network before they are rendered by the handset's browswer. More importantly, you can pull up the source code and find error, redirects, broken-links, and over-sized images.
Neo: "Link, where am I?"
Link: "You're not gonna believe this, but you're in the mountains."
[Neo looks around. He is surrounded by grassy hills and snow-topped peaks]
Neo: [Sarcastically] "Really?"
Now here's where it gets really cool. Record the script you've run and you can re-run over and over again on the other devices. What you're able to accomplish in a short amount of time is no less incredible than what Neo was able to accomplish in the world of Thomas Anderson (in Plato's world, Neo's slave name). One can proverbially fly through tasks and make sweeping changes that seamlessly alter and enhance our visual experience.
Neo:"Choice, the problem is choice."
But the choice for an emulated solution is not that simple. 
Shaved headed Neo looks pretty close to his cool looking persona in the Matrix world... but not quite as good looking. And more importantly to the rest of us, it's not as we see things. For many in the content development cycle there is no alternative to a seeing content on a real device. For them, validation on a real device will continue to be needed.
Morpheus: "Free your mind."
The fatal flaw is to think that real device testing is the only means of improving the develop process. It isn't an either-or proposition. Emulated devices can be used be used in conjunction with real devices in the development cycle and still result in faster time to market, and a better end user experience. Much like Neo, toggling back and forth within the Matrix, you can use emulation to rapidly test content and optimize it across many different user screens. Then, if needed, run a validation test on real devices. You should still find yourself doing more, in less time, and at a lower cost.
Emulated device technology is powerful and can greatly impact time to market and the user experience for any content provider. We at Keynote are proud to be at the forefront of this with our newest desktop testing product MITE. Like Plato, we end this conversation without concluding that emulated is better than "real" but we will stand by his position that persuing knowledge is the ultimate goal.
Try it for free today and see what you think: www.mite.keynote.com
Neo: "Why do my eyes hurt?"
Morpheus: "You've never used them before."
