Monday, November 8, 2010: Test iPhone Web Apps in iPad « from the old blog archive »

I wanted to test how websites will look on iPhone on iPad because I don't want to buy another device. After a bit of hacking, I found the solution, but you need a jailbroken iPad.

Here's how (try it at your own risk!):

First, you need to ssh to your iPad, then

cd /Applications/
cp -R MobileSafari.app/ MobileSafari01.app

This duplicates MobileSafari app. (Thanks to this guide on how to duplicate any application).

Then open your file transfer program (I use Cyberduck) and go to /Applications/MobileSafari01.app/

Download Info.plist to your computer, open it with Property List Editor.

Change CFBundleIdentifier (or Bundle identifier) to com.apple.mobilesafari01. This makes iOS know that it's a separate application.

Go to UIDeviceFamily, and then remove the item with the value 2. This makes iOS run the application in iPhone mode.

Save the file, upload it back, and respring. You will have another Safari icon.

One will run in normal mode and another one will run in iPhone mode.

Now you can see how web apps will look like in an iPhone, in iPad. Also, in iPhone mode, Safari will identify itself as an iPhone, instead of iPad!

As the article points out, it will save the settings separately, as far as I have tried, I couldn't see a way to configure the iPhone Safari. If anyone did it, please let me know.

Also, don't run two versions simultaneously, or they may clash with eachother.