I’m building a new website and would like to make sure that people using an iPad can see it properly. Besides going out and buying an iPad, is there anything I can do to make sure the site displays ok?

Ah, those lovely iPads! We all love them, don’t we; but they’re still too expensive to just go our and buy one for test purposes. It’s a bit like heated motorcycle clothing, great if you have it, but not if you don’t!

Anyway, there’s something you can do. There’s a project that’s working to build an iPad emulator for PCs. It’s called iPadian and while not 100% complete, it provides a great way to test your website. Here’s what the useragent looks like:

Besides testing your website, iPadian comes with a few extra options than iPad, and also excludes some major ones. For example, it contains an additional Facebook messages and notifications section on the right hand side corner, whereas it does not provide access to some native application features. The Videos app is replaced by a Movies icon which leads to a third-party website providing movie streaming for members. This is, of course, due to patent issues, as the developer obviously does not have rights to replicate or provide Apple products. Nonetheless, many applications which come pre-installed with iPadian work just fine.

Have fun playing with it!