Accessing iOS Safari Web Inspector from Windows Machine

I regularly use weinre. It basically runs a webserver that in turn acts as an inspector-enhanced proxy to browse webpages and websites. The inspector can be started by adding a script to your page or running a bookmarklet.

weinre is a debugger for web pages, like FireBug (for FireFox) and Web Inspector (for WebKit-based browsers), except it's designed to work remotely, and in particular, to allow you debug web pages on a mobile device such as a phone.

To install it, you will need NodeJS and NPM (included with NodeJS). You will also need a WebKit-based browser on the desktop/receiver end (Safari, Google Chrome, or Chromium). It should work on Windows, OSX, and Linux.

  • Official page: https://people.apache.org/~pmuellr/weinre/
  • Documentation & Getting Started: https://people.apache.org/~pmuellr/weinre/docs/latest/
  • NPM Package: https://www.npmjs.com/package/weinre

If you already have NodeJS and NPM installed, you can install and run it with:

npm i -g weinre
weinre
# Go to the URL that it outputs for instructions to use it

screenshot of developer tools and ios simulator, showing weinre in action

UPDATE:

@EvAlex has pointed out another tool very similar to Weinre called Vorlon.js. It is pluggable and supports viewing/switching between the inspector of multiple devices simultaneously.


It appears to require Safari 6, which has not been released for Windows. Regarding the unavailability of Safari 6 on Windows, Apple has stated "Safari 6 is available for Mountain Lion and Lion. Safari 5 continues to be available for Windows."