One of the most useful things about Ionic is that since the framework is web based, we can easily develop and test through the browser. However, if you do intend to build your Ionic application as a native iOS application using Cordova, you will need to test on a real device at some point.
In this video tutorial, I walk through how you can remotely debug your Ionic application when it is deployed to an iOS device (using the same tools that you are familiar with through normal web browsers).