BLACKBERRY EMULATORS

Applications need to be tested before they

are installed on devices or in your networks, so RIM provides developers with simulators and emulators.

Emulators let you experiment with how your applications will work under different wireless conditions and the most obvious set is device simulators, each version of which supports a different device or set of devices.

On the BlackBerry website, you can download emulators for each BlackBerry OS revision - and, often, for specific operator versions of devices. If you are targeting OS 4.6, you will find plenty of Bold simulators for various European operators, as well as for generic hardware. Operators like to have their own software and Ul components, so it's important to test applications on as many different versions of the OS that you are targeting as possible.
 

RIM currently provides device emulators that go back to OS 3.6, with a generic device emulator. Download any of the BlackBerry development tools from the RIM site and you will get one or two emulators to get you started - but you will need to install more if you are planning to deploy applications across a wide range of devices of different vintages.

Setting up a test BES is a complex task and it is not surprising RIM also provides email-server and MDS simulators. The MDS simulator replaces a BES and MDS combination, and lets you use ali of the services without touching a live server. It's a powerful tool and simplifies a lot of application-development scenarios. You can use the email-server simulator to test how an application responds to mail - whether it's sent via BES or picked up through the BlackBerry Internet Server (BIS) on a consumer BlackBerry.