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
“And the standard benchmarks run inside emulators — simulated phones on a server.”Episode 189 — Why Phone Agents Ace the Test and Crash on Your Actual Phone