Methods and apparatus are described herein emulating, by one or more servers on behalf of a mobile computing device, a cloud-based virtual machine. The cloud-based virtual machine may include a virtualized hardware component that provides, as virtual hardware input for a software application executing on the cloud-based virtual machine, either “genuine” virtual hardware input or “simulated” virtual hardware input. Genuine virtual hardware input may be based on an actual hardware signal received from a hardware component of the mobile computing device that corresponds to the virtualized hardware component. Simulated virtual hardware input may be generated independently of any hardware signal associated with the hardware component. Output of the software application may be interactively streamed to the mobile computing device.