Definition
Plain language
Software that pretends to be a phone or other device so programs can run on a computer as if on the real thing.
As stated in the literature
A virtualized device environment used to run and reset mobile apps cheaply for agent testing; many production apps detect and refuse to run inside emulators, limiting their fidelity for real-world evaluation.
Also called: emulators
Why it matters: It matters because it makes large-scale agent testing cheap, though some apps refuse to run in one, limiting how realistic those tests are.
For example, a developer can run and reset a phone app hundreds of times on a laptop-based emulator instead of tapping a real device.
Heard on the show
“You collect thousands of these interaction traces, you fine-tune, you run reinforcement learning inside live Android emulators.”Episode 157 — When an AI Coding Agent Drives a Phone Through the Terminal, No Screen Needed