Setting up a mobile emulators for automation

In this section, we will take up examples of Android and iOS emulators in order to understand the setup required on a Windows machine, so that we can test the mobile applications on different platforms, without using a real device.

We can follow a similar process on a Linux or Mac machine and even for other emulator software with minor changes to commands.

The Android emulator setup

The following is the step-by-step process required to set up the Android emulator on a Windows machine:

1. Download the Android SDK or the complete Android Studio from http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html. Note that you need to download according to the required machine configuration, such as 32- or 64-bit.
2. Now download and install Android SDK Tool and Android SDK Platform-tools:
   
3. Now, to set the Path environment variable for the Android SDK, follow these steps:
   1. Open the System properties window by right-clicking on My Computer , and then on properties.
   2. Click on the Advanced...