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So I understand that Corona allows me to "write once," and deploy on both iPhone and Android. And I understand that I cannot get any iPhone app into the app store without having (at the moment of submission/distribution) an (Intel-based?) mac (physical hardware).

I assume that if I only own PC hardware, I will not be able to test-deploy my game to an iPhone, nor see how the performance might be on an iPhone; but given those limitations, can I expect my Corona app to work decently if it performs decently on the Windows SDK and iPhone versions?

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up vote 5 down vote accepted

No. The device has an entirely different hardware than your PC and testing your App solely on the Simulator isn't going to be enough. You might hit problems in the simulator that won't occur on the device and vice versa. The simulator also doesn't simulate memory constraints of a device.

I know that getting a Mac and an iPhone can be rather expensive, but I'd look around for used hardware. A Mac mini can be a good choice as these are rather cheap and won't take up much space. A cheaper alternative to the iPhone is the iPod. The hardware is essentially identical (apart from the actual "phone").

If you own an android device with similar specs to the iPhone, you might use that for testing during development and ask a friend that owns Mac hardware to test the game at key-points in development. Still, there's no way around testing on the actual device.

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Bummer dude. So I can build an app, but I just won't be sure if it will work (well) on iPhone? What if I buy the Android-only first, and then in a couple of months/years, buy both kits? Can I easily port/test my existing games? –  ashes999 Oct 21 '11 at 15:29
Another potential pitfall is that APIs on iOS flat out do not work on the simulator, or cannot get any input data when run in the simulator, and thus can only actually be tested on the device. Fortunately they aren't super popular for use in games. –  Josh Petrie Oct 21 '11 at 15:49
also note that the performance is wildly different between android and ios, i got burnt on that one. –  wahyudinata Oct 24 '11 at 19:20
And also wildy different between different Android devices. –  5ound Oct 25 '11 at 0:13
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