Difference between mobile emulator and simulator

Mobile Emulator is a desktop application that emulates mobile device hardware and operating systems, allowing us to test and debug our applications and see how they are working.

Example of Emulators: Genymotion Android Emulator, Google Android player

Mobile Simulator is a less complex application that simulates some of the behavior of a device, but it does not emulate hardware and does not work over the real operating system. These tools are simpler and less useful than emulators.

Example: Different versions of iPhone simulator’s available from Xcode.

When an Emulator or a Simulator is preferable?

Whenever the Android device’s external behaviors need a testing, we require a Simulator. For example, we can use an emulator to do mathematical computations, execution of step-by-step transactions, etc. They could be handled with the source code and we are not bothered about the hardware.

At the same time, when we need to test the Android device’s internal behavior such as to verify the operation of a hardware part, firmware, etc, we prefer an emulator. The terms might be slightly confusing as ‘external’ I s being used for the simulator and the term ‘internal’ is being used for the emulator. When you read it the second time, you would get a clear idea.