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What is the difference between iPhone Simulator and Android emulator? I have heard people saying that Emulator really emulates the target device which is not true in case of simulator.
I think Android emulator mimics the processing speed of the target device, the memory usage, but a simulator does not emulate the device.
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Conclusion. To sum up: A simulator provides a fast and easy way to set up a software environment for application testing purposes without mimicking actual hardware. An emulator takes things a step further by emulating software as well as hardware configurations.
An iOS Simulator basically mimics an iOS app or browser on top of a developer's operating system. This is viewable in an iPad or iPhone like window. They cannot virtualize the actual hardware conditions of an iOS device, which is the main requirement for comprehensive testing and debugging.
Emulators enable a computer system (the host) to mimic the hardware and software, while simulators model an environment to mimic the behavior and configuration of another target device.
Emulators are written in machine-level assembly languages. The simulators can be difficult in terms of debugging purpose. A simulator is just a partial re-implementation of the original software. Often an emulator comes as a complete re-implementation of the original software.
Disclaimer: I'm only an iPhone developer, not an Android developer.
You are correct, the difference between emulators and simulators is that emulators mimic the software and hardware environments found on actual devices. Simulators, on the other hand, only mimic the software environment; they otherwise have access to all of the host system's hardware resources such as disk space, memory and processor speed.
Apple always harps on the importance of device testing because iPhone Simulator does not emulate an iPhone processor, disk drive, memory constraints and whatnot. You hardly ever get memory warnings unless your Mac is struggling to manage resources itself, unless you simulate (again) memory warnings from the Simulator's menu item.
In fact, if you go to Settings > General > About, you'll see that the Simulator's disk capacity is the same as the filesystem of the Mac it's installed on:
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