Is there any difference between emulator and simulators?

Question

I am just bit confused with two different things as we have emulators in android and simulators in blackberry. Is there any difference between a simulator and an emulator or are they just different names for the same thing?

Answer 1

Emulator is combination of hardware and software. Simulator is only software.

Consider example of android emulator, when any action is done on android emulator, the instruction is get converted into ARM call and then to the underlying operating system(windows/mac/unix).

In case of iPhone simulator instructions on simulator are directly converted to the native call(Mac).

That's why emulator provides more realistic behavior.

Answer 2

See both the names are same for the "Virtual kind of Devices".

Its Emulator for Android, Simulator for BlackBerry, again Simulator for iPhone as well.

What is Virtual Device?

Virtual device means which is not a real phone(but almost giving the same functionality as real phone does except some features like camera) but developer can use it to test their application).