When developing applications for mobile phones, it is easy to get tricked into thinking the emulator will accurately represent how a user will interact with the application.
This is dangerous for a few reasons.
I ran into one reason today: real devices move around. They rotate, yaw, pitch and jiggle. The emulator does not. Sure, you can rotate it and simulate a “shake,” but no way are you going to move it around like you would a real device. One app in development has two screens: a main screen and a settings screen. As long as the user keeps the device orientation the same when switching too/from the settings screen, everything is great. The problem occurs when the user is looking at the main screen, switches to the settings screen, rotates the device, and switches back. The main screen still thinks it is not rotated, so the display is messed up.
Another problem is there is no way to use the emulator as you would a real device. You wrap your fingers around your phone and type with your thumbs. You select options a certain way, you scroll, pinch, expand, and press buttons in a way that is natural for you to do so. None of that is obvious on the emulator, since it is all keyboard, with the mouse acting like a “finger.” What looks great and works great on the emulator can suddenly become clunky and hard to use on a real device.
Lots of device testing (with different size screens) is time consuming, but getting it right is important.