iPad - Test an HTML5 site on a Win7 PC

Question

I'm looking to target a website specifically for an iPad but we don't have any Macs in house for testing. What's the most accurate way to test the site on a PC? I image I could use the Safari browser and shrink the window down to approximate the iPad screen size but I wonder if there's a better method out there.

Answer 1

I'd just use Safari, as the mobile version uses the same rendering engine (though possibly modified to fit the iPads resources).

It should display the same, if not close.

Answer 2

If you target a website specifically for a particular device, buy that particular device. This doesn't only apply to iPad.

Two caveats I noticed a lot of websites have for a touch-oriented device like an iPad, iPhone:

1. The mouse-hover event isn't generated. So, the HTML/CSS/Javascript menu structure which works without clicking on a WebKit browser (like Safari) on a mouse-oriented device might stop working completely.

2. The scrolling event (coming from a flick of a finger) is not passed to elements inside a page; instead it just scrolls the entire page. A subelement shown with a scroll bar on a non-touch-oriented device might be shown without the scroll bar at all. So, sometimes you lose the ability to scroll inside a subelement.

There might be other caveats. It's really difficult to imagine all the way a device might behave differently from a mouse-oriented device; so, buy an iPad.

By the way, it's of no use to buy a Mac in this situation: Safari on a Mac still behaves (as far as the mouse/touch events are concerned) rather differently from Safari on an iPad/iPhone. An iPad can be paired with a Windows PC.

See this Apple document for a few advices for preparing a web page for the iPad.

Answer 3

this can be useful

http://www.merhl.com/?page_id=58