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iPod Touch 7th Gen - Made for Devs?

Sethu Senthil on June 02, 2019

I don't know why I'm talking about the iPod in 2019. Since WWDC is tomorrow and the recent refresh of the iPod lineup I thought this would be the b...
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Stephen Belovarich

When developing for mobile web you might as well use the lowest common denominator of the available devices and the iPod Touch would be it. If you develop on MacOS you can save money by using the iOS Simulator that comes free with XCode. Issues will be replicated in the iOS Simulator 99.9% of the time probably. If you develop on another platform like Linux or Windows aside from possible remote VM solutions this would be the cheapest, possibly best device to test on locally.

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Sethu Senthil

I agree, but for camera based apps (which are only a handful) you will need a physical device as well as a few other API's. But many people use older MacBooks which might make it hard for the iOS simulator to run smoothly.

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Jens@MindfulDevMag

You can not test in-app purchases in the simulator for examples as I learned the hardway yesterday... Now I am looking for a device and was considering the ipod touch. Which led me to the article :-)

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Chris Sepic

I was about to pick one of these up for just this purpose, since my phone is an Android device, and my old iPhone 5 was too old to support newer versions of iOS. I ended up getting an iPhone SE instead - it's about the same form factor, and I found a unlocked refurb for $120. Can't beat that, with the bonus that it can still be used as a phone. In my case, I plan to use it overseas since my US-based Android phone is tied to Verizon.

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Sethu Senthil

Wow, an iPhone SE for $120 is a steal!

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Carles Mata

I agree! In my company we have to develop a few internal apps for our employees, and we have 2-3 using iPhone and the rest use Android. We bought an iPod Touch last year just for development purposes and I think it's the best option. You can have a first sight of the app in the simulator, but the user experience is best tested in a physical device.

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Essien

I just wish it had a bigger screen.

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Sethu Senthil

Yeah, the screen is kinda a disappointment.