What is the best way to debug and profile a web application on an iPod in Mobile Safari?

Question

I've built a web app that makes heavy use of JavaScript and HTML5 canvas. It's easy to debug in Chrome, but on a mobile device the developer tools are much less robust. Is there a tool or technique that will enable me to easily debug and profile my application on an iPod in Mobile Safari?

Answer 1

By using the iOS simulator that comes with the (free) iOS development kit you can achieve a lot; but profiling is generally tricky. Run it with the debug console; but do the major testing in Safari. (Not Mobile Safari, but the desktop version.) This should help you root out most actual errors.

As for performance, there's not a lot more you can do than to simply test it on a number of representative devices and see if it's fast enough. (2nd gen. iPod Touch, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS etc, with both iOS 3 and iOS 4 (latest versions) should be a good starting point.)

Answer 2

I have been working on a similar problem, and am happy to share my experiment, source code, and results with all.

https://github.com/GameMaker/PhoneGap-Performance-Test--PGPT-

It's specific to testing javascript / HTML5 in PhoneGap - but you can also run the source in any browser of your choice. It's still in-progress, but if folks have constructive critique, I'm all ears! :)