by admin | Dec 28, 2020 | Mobile App Testing, Fixed, Blog |
Using iOS, you can develop mobile apps. iOS development strongly follows the Model-View-Controller designs pattern, which separates data from visual objects. As a mobile app tester, if you are familiar with some basics of iOS development concepts, you will understand the importance of testing the iOS apps on real devices using different orientations. There are two UI frameworks available for iOS app development. One is UIKit, and the next one is SwiftUI. In iOS 13, SwiftUI was introduced. So any mobile apps which are developed using SwiftUI don’t work on older versions of iOS.
If you are participating in any discussions related to SwiftUI development, bring this drawback to the table as a discussion point. If your team is developing a brand new app and are not worried about older version compatibility, then SwiftUI framework is an excellent choice.
In this blog article, you will learn iOS App Testing approach.
App Types
Using iOS, you can develop six different types of apps.
Default App – This is the widely used iOS app type. As we mentioned before, you can select either ‘Storyboard’ or ‘SwiftUI’ for the app interface. However, now, you can use the Document App option to create file management apps.
Game – In this app type, XCode will add the appropriate gaming kits for game app development.
Default App – This is the widely used iOS app type. As we mentioned before, you can select either ‘Storyboard’ or ‘SwiftUI’ for the app interface.
Augmented Reality App – You can create Augmented Reality Apps using RealityKit, SceneKit, SpriteKit, and MetalKit. RealityKit & SceneKit are used for 3D content. SpriteKit is for 2D content.
StickerApp & iMessage App – Message framework was introduced in iOS 10. Developing a Sticker App is easy. There is no coding involved. You can also create your own Standalone iMessage app.
Distributing App for Testing
The developed mobile apps can be distributed for testing before releasing in AppStore. To build the apps for testing purpose, you need to ask the mobile app developers to sign the mobile app for your device.
Once you get the build for testing, first check the content and images because users will easily spot the content issues. Let’s say the images in your app are broken. It will spoil your app’s reputation drastically.
If your team has decided to remove any old functionalities from the mobile app, make sure it does not impact the users when they upgrade. Before retiring any features from your mobile product, analyze the usage of the functionality and its importance. Sometimes app upgrading may lead to dissatisfaction.
After deployment in AppStore, use your device and install the app. Checking the download experience of a new version using Persona will help find bugs & new features for your app.
If your app supports multiple languages, then test the translation and other locale details.
Testing on Real Devices
As a mobile app testing company, we highly recommend testing mobile apps on Real Devices. Mobile developers use simulators or live preview to check the designs and functionalities during development. Deploying on a simulator is an easy job for a developer. Now, SwiftUI supports live preview for different device combinations.
Checking the designs and functionalities on real devices during development will slow-down the progress. Once the app is ready for testing, it should be tested on real devices.
Simulators use your computer’s network. So it does not mimic real-world network conditions. Sometimes, your apps may crash due to memory problems. Simulators run on Mac. So your app will not crash on simulators.
If your app connects with Bluetooth or Camera or IoT devices, then testing on a real device is a must.
iOS App Automation Testing
Executing a regression test suite manually on multiple devices is a tiresome task for a mobile app tester, and it is error-prone. So automating manual testing eases mobile app testing. Appium is the idle choice for mobile app automation testing.
To run your automated test scripts on real devices using Appium, you need the following tools.
HomeBrew – HomeBrew helps you to install and manage the required packages for Appium setup.
Xcode IDE – WebDriver agent app needs to be built and installed on your devices along with AUT (App Under Test). To build the WebDriver agent app, you need Xcode IDE.
NPM – Node.js package manager is required to install Appium. If you would like to install Appium using the Desktop app, you can try directly instead of trying the command line installation.
Appium Node Package – As an automation testing company, we use the Appium Node package instead of Appium Desktop App. If you are a novice mobile app tester, use the Appium Desktop app to learn mobile app automation testing.
Carthage – Carthage is a package that helps you to resolve framework dependencies. Before building the WebDriver agent app, Carthage needs to be installed because Carthage will resolve the dependency issues in the WebDriver Agent XCode project.
Once the WebDriver Agent app is installed successfully on the real device, you can execute Appium scripts.
Testing on Cloud Platforms
Managing mobile devices locally for testing purpose is an overhead cost for your team. For mobile app testing projects, we use BrowserStack App Live to test a mobile app on Cloud Real Devices.
You have the below advantages if you use Cloud Test Platform to test mobile apps.
Battery Charging – Let’s say you have 50+ mobile devices for testing. Before commencing the testing, you need to plug-in the charger for each device to have sufficient battery power during testing. If you test it on Cloud Real-devices, you need to bother about Battery Power. Everything will be taken care by the cloud vendor.
Video Recording – When you perform testing on the local device, you need to record and save the screen-cast as a piece of evidence. The cloud platforms will record your testing sessions automatically. You need to spend your time recording the test session.
Network Simulation – If you want to test your mobile app on low Internet Bandwidth, then you will have to set up a router to configure a low bandwidth Wi-Fi network. A tool like BrowserStack has a feature to launch the real device on various network conditions.
Orientation Testing
iOS has four orientation types. Based on how the user is holding the phone, the appropriate interface orientation of the apps will be changed.
The default selected orientations for an iOS app are Portrait, Landscape Left, and Landscape Right. Let’s take Facebook mobile app as an example. It has been set for only Portrait orientation. Landscape Left and Right are locked for Facebook mobile app.
There is another orientation available. That is Upside Down. It works only for the iPad. It means the iPad supports all four orientations.
It is always good to test orientation related test cases using real devices. Even with cloud real devices, we cannot 100% guarantee how the orientation works.
While testing the mobile app, change the mobile device orientation and see how the app is reacting.
UI Testing
- Test whether the user can fill the forms quickly.
- Check the buttons or clickable items are large enough.
- You are testing a mobile app. So the screens will be smaller. Ensure the smaller objects are separated enough to avoid accidental clicks.
- Try all the applicable gestures on UI objects.
Menu Touring
As soon as you get the build for testing, walk-through all the menus and dialog boxes in your mobile app.
Unit Testing
Unit Testing is for developers. iOS provides a Unit testing bundle to add tests to your mobile app code-base. When you have comprehensive unit tests, it will reduce the number of bugs. If your developers are following the Test Driven Development model, then you will know the importance of Unit tests and their benefits. Writing tests first and building the app to make the tests pass helps your developers to have a clear understanding of the features of functionalities that are being implemented.
Writing tests for everything will slow-down your development process. Let’s say there is a change in functionality. You will have to update the test and code. It is a time-consuming effort. However, the process helps you to build a reliable app with fewer bugs.
Performance Testing
Conducting performance testing only for Mobile App APIs is not sufficient. The poorly managed main thread may lead to unresponsive for user inputs. When a mobile app is performing poorly, the rating of the app will come down drastically.
Sometimes memory leaks can be detected only when the app is used for a longer duration. You can also use Appium scripts and execute them for longer hours to unearth memory leaks.
Some iOS apps may take time to draw UI screens. In automation test scripts, you can set the excepted screen loading time. So, the scripts will fail if the screens are loading more than the expected load time.
If your app has Tables, then test those screens to find performance issues. Users may notice the lag when the tables are scrolled if there is a performance issue.
You can use JMeter and Gatling performance testing tools to conduct performance testing from API stand-point. Involve multiple testers and ask them to use real devices to test the core functionalities simultaneously.
Monitoring mobile app crashes using crash reporting tools provide great inputs for mobile testers and developers. When new features are added to your mobile product, monitor app crashes because new functionalities may cause unexpected crashes at the initial stage.
App Security & Privacy
If your app needs device-related permissions from the user, then mention why the user needs to grant the permissions in the app description.
Check all possible data leaks to prevent data breaches.
Usability Testing
If the user does not like your app immediately after installing, he/she may never revisit. As a mobile app tester, you need to make sure the app adds value to the user.
Common Usability Issues
Multiple Steps – If your app has a lengthy registration or form filling, your users will be frustrated.
Scrolling – Your user should get the required information within the screen limit. However, it is not possible for all the scenarios. It would be great if never-scrolling is avoided.
Navigation – Great apps need proper navigation. Users will never consume your app if the app navigation is confusing.
Auto-Filling – If the app is an interesting one and users use daily, it needs to leverage the auto-filling feature. Because your app users will hate to type the same data again and again.
Unresponsive for Inputs – If a mobile screen is unresponsive for inputs or gestures, your users will be annoyed. Make sure no screen is unresponsive. If the screen is used for loading purpose, then display the relevant content to educate the users.
Conclusion
Before releasing an iOS app, you need to test it on multiple devices. Testing the app only from functional testing stand-point will never address the real-world issues. Test both functional and non-functional areas. Insufficient testing will allow users to experience the buggy app.
Once a mobile app’s reputation is lost due to bugs, it is hard to regain.
App quality starts from coding. If the unit testing covers all the code components, then it will reduce the number of bugs. Mobile app testing service is one of the core testing services of Codoid.
Web Applications has only a few browser combinations. However, mobile apps need to be tested on different OS, platforms, and versions. To release an app quickly, it needs to be tested quickly. Testing the same scenarios manually on multiple devices needs more testers and time. Automate all your regression test cases to speed-up the testing.
Automate all your regression test cases to speed-up the testing. Automation testing is not error-prone. Your team will get confidence if the regression testing is taken care of by automation testing.
Codoid is a software testing company. We have tested more than 1000+ mobile apps. All our mobile app testers are expertise in both manual and automation testing. We have our in-house mobile app testing lab, which contains 70+ mobile devices. Contact us for your mobile app testing needs.
by admin | Dec 24, 2020 | Mobile App Testing, Fixed, Blog |
You can find many blog articles and YouTube videos that demonstrate Appium iOS setup. However, in this blog article, you will learn about each installation step and its importance. Many automation testers follow Appium iOS installation steps blindly and install the required software without knowing its details and usage.
HomeBrew Installation:
HomeBrew is an open-source package manager for macOS. If you have HomeBrew, then it will ease Node and Carthage installations. We will discuss more Node and Carthage later. HomeBrew installation is straight-forward. Visit https://brew.sh/ website for more details.
Node Installation:
In order to install Appium node package, you need Node Package manager. Using brew install command, you can install Node package manager. Once npm is installed, you can verify the installation using node -v command.
XCode IDE:
To run your mobile test automation scripts on real iOS devices, you need to build and install webDriver agent app in your device. To build web driver agent app, you need XCode. You can install XCode from AppStore.
Appium Installation
If you have already installed npm, then installing Appium is a cake-walk. Use the following command to install Appium.
You can also install Appium Desktop instead of node package. As an automation testing company, use Appium node package to automate iOS app test automation. It is up to your flexibility.
Carthage Installation:
Carthage is required to install dependencies of WebDriver agent Xcode project. Once Appium is installed, you can find WebDriver agent project in node_modules folder. Previously, the WebDriver agent project was not shipped along with Appium package. Now, you can find it in the following folder.
/usr/local/lib/nodemodules/appium/nodemodules/appium-webdriveragent
Build WebDriver Agent project:
Goto appium-webdriveragent and run the following command.
mkdir -p Resources/WebDriverAgent.bundle
./Scripts/bootstrap.sh -d
The above commands will install the required dependencies of WebDriver Agent project using Carthage.
Now, open the WebDriver agent project in Xcode, connect your device and build the project. If the build is successful, you can see the WebDriver agent app on your phone.
Conclusion:
Appium Setup for iOS is not a simple task if you are a novice mobile app automation tester. However, If you follow all the steps one-by-one carefully, you can succeed in the first attempt.
Don’t worry if the installation didn’t go well. Just roll-back all the installation and try again from the beginning. Building WebDriver agent is a crucial step in Appium iOS setup. As a mobile app testing company, we use Appium for Android and iOS apps automation testing. Appium setup for iOS is a one-time activity. However, if you are familiar with the required tools and packages, you can recollect the installation steps in the future.
We hope you have learned the details of Appium iOS setup. After following up the installation steps from any YouTube videos, just go through this article to better understand. In the subsequent blog articles, we will be publishing more topics on Appium iOS automation testing.
by admin | Nov 26, 2020 | Mobile App Testing, Fixed, Blog |
While we can all dream about creating software free from bugs from launch, there is no such thing, especially when it comes to mobile applications. This is because different mobile devices have different specifications, all of which can affect an application’s performance one way or the other. Even the mobile app developers themselves have their limitations, from the operating systems they use to the hardware they have access to. Pair that with new mobile devices coming out practically every year, ensuring applications are bug-free at release is unlikely.
How do you ensure that your mobile application comes out as flawless as you can make it without leaving any bugs that can hurt the user’s experience? The answer is with mobile app testing! Although releasing a perfect app on day one can be extremely tough, mobile app testing ensures that many bugs are caught and addressed before they cause too much trouble.
This article will talk about the objectives of mobile app testing and why you need to integrate them when developing mobile applications.
1. Functionality
One of the most critical aspects that mobile app testing covers are functionality. The application must be able to function as intended, and it must meet the requirements and expectations set for it. For instance, if an app is created to act as a stopwatch, it should do what a stopwatch does. It should not handle emails; it should not be playing music.
2. Usability
Usability is also essential, and it is the second objective of mobile app testing. This is to ensure that the end-users can use the application, and more importantly, enjoy it. Usability also includes the mobile device itself, where the application should not impact the device’s performance by straining it of its resources.
3. Consistency
Look and feel are important. Similar to how Apple products feel like they are from the same company on any device, your application should be the same no matter which mobile device it is on. From its aesthetics to its functions, a mobile application should feel consistent throughout. This is to maintain the same user experience on any device the application is used on.
4. Security
Last but not least, security is one of the objectives of mobile app testing. Through testing, you can ensure that the app has no security flaws and that a good level of security is upheld no matter the device the mobile application is used for. This is to protect end-users’ data and protect its owner’s reputation.
Conclusion
Functionality, usability, consistency, and security—these are the objectives of mobile app testing. If you are developing software and want to ensure it is as good as possible on its release, you must never skip on mobile app testing. Otherwise, you may just be digging yourself a hole of trouble that is hard to get out of.
If you do not have the time or resources to carry out mobile app testing by yourself, we highly recommend working with professional mobile application developers. They have plenty of experience in testing out mobile apps, ensuring that they fully satisfy all the mobile app testing objectives and allow you to enjoy a fully functional mobile app you can rely on.
Are you in need of the best app testing services in the US? Codoid has got your back, offering mobile app testing services to ensure your app is in its best form. Contact us today and see how we can help!
by admin | Sep 13, 2020 | Mobile App Testing, Fixed, Blog |
Software quality assurance is vital when it comes to formulating and releasing software. Telecom testing is crucial to verify that the software is up and working, and you have got your money’s worth. Telecom testing involves a very fundamental principle; testing of telecommunication software. With the advent of technology, the requirement for software in various industries is skyrocketing, which further makes it use indispensable.
Telecom Services
You might have come across various telecom services, including switching, routing, Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), and broadband access. Therefore, it is imperative that telecom domain testing must not be neglected, while your company dispenses such crucial services to several clients.
Switching
Switching and routing often seem to be synonymous and associated terms, and a lot of people experience a difficult time differentiating between the two. However, they are two very different things and hence will be explained in different sub-heads. Switching involves establishing a multi-port bridge. It helps in determining the destination of where the packet should be sent. The process is completed by an examination of the MAC address within the packet’s data link header. A MAC address is the access for a network adapter, while switches operate at layer 2 of an OSI model. Furthermore, switching entails rotating packets within the same network devices.
Routing
While switching involved rotating packets within the same network, routing entails moving packets between the devices of different structures. It is the most primary and crucial distinction between the two. In addition to this, instead of functioning at layer 2 of an OSI model, routing operates one notch higher, that is, at layer 3. Considering the previously mentioned specs, a router would locate the destination at which the software will deliver the packet. Routing involves the use of the Network ID in the network’s layer header, post which it determines the optimum route for the destination host by utilizing a routing table.
VoIP Broadband Access
Also recognized as Voice over Internet Protocol, VoIP is a voice communication delivery method over the internet. VoIP communications include voice calls, texts, fax, and voice-messaging `by using the internet and not the public switched telephone network.
Domain Testing
Telecom domain testing, characterized under functional testing, verifies an application’s validity by giving inputs and, after that, receiving appropriate outputs. It is a testing strategy in which the output of a system is gauged with a minimum number of inputs such that the system does not accept invalid or out of range input values.
Back in the conventional days, testing was only applicable to software, and there was not much involvement of a domain. However, with the advancement of technology, telecom domain testing descended as the clients became eclectic. Individuals must note that it is crucial to have complete relative knowledge to test a specific domain.
The Telecom industry has been gaining the wind over the years now and has become essential for the posterity to survive. Although the industry has its own unique set of challenges on the technological front, wireless and satellite communication are increasingly divulging their incumbent market share. Domain testing is obligatory for delivering a viable software product, and here are the benefits you can derive:
- Reduces training period significantly
- It is helpful when tracking defects instantly
- Developers can come across fantastic ideas to enhance the UI features
- Technical jargons are easily understandable
End-to-end service verification is essential when it comes to improving the delivery of telecom services. It further ensures efficient testing and an exceptional formulation of the product. In the telecommunication industry, the provider who is interested in increasing his client base and for that purpose, a Telecom Service Provider (TSP) approaches the client with new services. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the testing team to develop seamless software.
A testing expert can offer various specialized services, including:
- Operational Support System (OSS)
- Network viability verification
- Real-time dashboards business assistance
- System (BSS) subscriber enrolment procedure
- Comprehensive backend processing
- Enterprise web application
- KPI dashboards billing
- Comprehensive checks and seamless implementation
For a deep understanding of the testing methodologies, technologies, and business process, you can employ a professional telecom domain testing agency that can provide you with profound services, while at the same time enhancing the quality of your product. With the right technical know-how, these experts can help you develop a product that will be unbeatable according to the market standards with their proficient understanding of the industry.
Why do you require telecom domain testing?
In today’s fast-paced digital world, telecom companies are under enormous pressure to always present with something disruptive that will indefinitely alter the market dynamics. However, to achieve such challenging standards, you must begin by testing your software to essential criteria.
The need for continuing advancements and the ability to introduce newer services within a short period determine the success of a telecom agency. To improve customer retention, you will require steady evolution across multiple platforms, including various applications, devices, billing systems, revenue assurance, durability, reliability, and interoperability. Your business needs to take responsibility to overcome such challenges. Therefore, to begin the wheel of inventiveness, you will require the services of a professional telecom domain testing agency.
With a reliable mobile app testing partner, your organization will be able to counter incumbent challenges, thereby accelerating your innovation process. A consistent domain testing agency can ensure:
- A constricted product with a definite release schedule
- Minimal bugs in your telecom software
- Disruption of the existing system
- Constant evaluation of the product to locate further flaws
- Modern user experience
- Augmented customer retention
- Quality assurance
- Comprehensively tackling bugs and scenarios for a seamless implementation
- Testing at a faster speed
- Interoperability of the software
- Accelerated innovation and seamless implementation
With all these benefits and services right into your pocket, your telecom software will see the light of day with absolute customer retention and satisfaction.
by admin | May 25, 2020 | Mobile App Testing, Fixed, Blog |
Mobile device usage has grown beyond everyone’s expectations, the degree of users using mobile devices instead of laptop/ desktop has increased phenomenally in recent years due to a multitude of factors like mobility, compatibility, internet usage etc.
Hence mobile phones have evolved from being a single-purpose communication device to more dynamic tools that support their users in a wide variety of tasks, e.g. playing games, listening to music, podcasts, watching movies/ video and navigating etc. There is certainly no sign that the move toward mobile is going to slow down anytime soon, hence many industries like real estate, retail, travel and financial bodies, even start ups started investing in developing mobile apps or a mobile friendly website and can see promising results. Mobile application development life cycle is generally much shorter than other application development but its success is purely dependent on its reliability and usability.
Hence, every application has to be thoroughly tested for its functionality, usability, compatibility, and security before it hits the market. Most of the appreneurs (mobile app entrepreneurs) are very serious in releasing their application with top notch quality because mobile users are notoriously impatient. They consider their devices even more personal than so-called personal computers and they will see how well the product actually works to achieve their given objective with greater usability. A frustrated user is least bothered nevertheless you have tested the app on 99 different types of devices if it doesn’t work on their device.
Businesses continue to integrate and deliver mobile applications with innovative and smart functionality to engage millions of their customers. Ensuring quality of their mobile applications with respect to its efficiency, performance and robustness will leave customers with an exemplary user experience. Testing a mobile application differs from traditional desktop or web applications, testers test the functionality of the application, run on different browsers and need to be tested on different OS versions.
Mobile application testing involves a number of check ins to make sure that the app meets the expectations of customers. One should run their tests on different devices, screen size, resolutions, OS and browser combinations. Also we need to check integrating with other services like location/GPS, Wi-Fi, and social media etc. It is not uncommon that these questions will arise if we want to cover the above aspects of testing the application.
• Should we procure as many numbers of devices as available to test the app?
• Do we have sufficient resources to test and cover so many devices?
• Should we test on available devices and assume that it will work on other devices too?
• Do we have any alternatives i.e. kind of simulation tools to test them all simultaneously keeping cost at minimum?
Above all, we should complete testing within a stipulated time frame, so the test team has to frame a mix of test plans that would help us in taking the right testing decision. Testers have to formulate testing strategies to overcome the below list of challenges immaculately.
Quick RolloutsMobile applications are expected to respond within a quick turnaround time to fix a bug or to release a new feature. It is necessary to test bugs/ features on devices within a short span of time.
Connection ModesOne should test how the app is performing on different network conditions like 3G/ 4G/ WiFi/ No Data, while Roaming etc. Especially gaming and live streaming videos need to be tested on such modes and the performance has to be evaluated.
End to End TestingMobile apps integrate seamlessly with other applications, middlewares etc. A thorough end to end testing is required to make sure that the data flow between applications, DB are produced without any problems.
Use of toolsThe most important factor is the availability and usage of tools to test the application’s feature, performance, compatibility etc. A right selection of tools will help the team to do better testing and to give better performance and ROI.
The above trends and practice aid mobile application testing to happen faster than ever before, which needs a greater need for speed and efficiency of QA teams. To keep on track, it’s critical to maintain a strategic mobile application testing process. The following model of mobile app testing plans can be considered for better execution.
Choosing the right set of devices as per your target audience’s behavior matters instead of testing in all devices. We can arrive at that using the approaches below.
1. Devices based on the market research:Select and prioritize your testing based on the market analysis. Determine the set of devices with your target operating System that will have the highest occurrence of accessing your application by using app purchase data and analytics.
2. Choose device based on key aspects:Select devices based on certain mobile aspects which can be considered in formulating the testing strategy. It focuses on the Infrastructure components like hardware, software, and network to ensure that the applications are managed in a controlled way.
3. Testing on cloud devices:Mobile cloud testing can overcome the cost challenges like purchasing and maintaining mobile devices. It has many benefits of choosing the right type of device, network and OS combinations. You can test your complete test suite on multiple devices in parallel and can pay for the duration you use that device.
4. Emulators:Emulator is another option to test mobile apps. These are free, open source and can be easily connected with the IDE for testing. As Emulators are available on the local machine so they run faster and with less latency than Real devices connected to a local network or devices available on the cloud. Gestures like Pinching, Swipe or drag, long press and network operations can’t be tested in emulators. However we can ensure that the basic functionalities are tested.
Many teams struggle to arrive at a consensus on when to choose automation testing and why. It’s very simple that it depends on your release cycle, development process, and the financial aspect, you may decide to start using automation for testing your app. Test automation is the best way of reaching an optimal level of test effectiveness, efficiency, and coverage. Test automation’s ultimate value comes from avoiding manually conducting repeatable test runs and freeing up time for new features and for faster releases. Mobile automation testing will increase your test efficiency as you will run more tests within a certain timeframe and shorten your time to market.
Mobile application testing is different from testing desktop or web apps. Before starting, you should determine the type of mobile app (mobile-web, native or hybrid) which helps you to choose a strategy. Also, you should choose the devices type (real devices, emulators or simulators, as well as cloud testing services). Each of the types mentioned has its own set of advantages and disadvantages as well, however a competent specialist will always help you in choosing the right one. Which makes you gain a better understanding and make informed decision of when to choose manual and when to use automated testing.
by admin | Jul 20, 2020 | Mobile App Testing, Fixed, Blog |
Mobile phones have become ubiquitous and the mobile market penetration has increased exponentially in the last decade. As there is high consumer demand for mobile, and the market is becoming more saturated as everybody seeks to capitalize. It is essential that your mobile app offers an absolutely perfect user experience and to achieve this, your mobile QA needs to be excellent.
With the proliferation of many different types of mobile devices, one significant challenge faced by QA teams is ensuring that the application functions correctly across all of them. We cannot rely on Simulator or Emulators behaviour to ensure quality. However, setting up a mobile testing lab with all device and platform combinations is not a viable option.
For a short term project, procuring real devices and managing them for a while is achievable. However, you need an in-house mobile testing lab only if a hardware device like (IoT, Wireless, & Bluetooth) is associated with your mobile app.
-You can’t test your app with every possible hardware and software combinations, as there are a sheer number of devices released every year and frequent OS updates for devices is also a big challenge. It is really hard to deal with devices vs OS combination which is known as mobile device fragmentation.
-We cannot eliminate/remove old devices which are no longer required for testing. Because not every user will install the new OS update. Many people don’t know how to do that, or they don’t care about new versions. You need at least some phones that are running older versions of the operating system to see how the app reacts in that environment.
-It’s important to test your app in real-life environments, a device with several hardware buttons, with batteries charged to run regression, with a headphone connection, turning on a camera, and network bandwidth.
-Installing the mobile app on all the devices manually will delay testing feedback.
Aforementioned real devices testing is a really challenging and time consuming process as one needs to wait for procuring new devices and adding it to your lab inventory and subsequently maintaining it. Testing mobile apps on the cloud is a really cost effective approach as the team can access real devices on the cloud any time. You need to subscribe to specific cloud testing platform service providers plan based on your usage, you will be charged for the hours of testing you have done with devices on cloud.
You can take full control of a real mobile device through a web interface. No installation is required. However, some mobile apps which are under development cannot be accessed outside your network. In those instances, cloud testing platforms will provide a desktop app to access the real devices for local testing.
Experitest is a one of the leading cloud mobile testing platforms. Here are the list of gestures supported in Experitest platform such as Multi-touch, swipe, flick, drag & drop, zoom in and out, shake, pinch, force touch (iOS), tap, and custom generated gestures. The list is comprehensive. You can do all the gestures you do on your real mobile phone and experience it.
Tester gets an array of devices, OS platforms, etc. to choose from thereby reducing the overall cost of infrastructure and maintenance. You need to evaluate all the prominent cloud testing platforms before buying a plan for your team or organisation. We, as a mobile app testing company, suggest you to ask the below questions when you are evaluating these tools.
-Prepare the required list of devices to do testing & check with the provider that “Do you have the listed devices?”
-Ask – “How frequently do you add new or additional devices?”
-If you have an automation test suite for your mobile app testing and if your test execution is halted due to device unavailability, then ask – “How often your customers faced the device unavailability issues” and how to plan or reserve the devices to avoid such delays.
-Check for Constant server and device glitches.
You can test your mobile app with different network simulations in all major cloud testing platforms. Testing a mobile app with your office network will not replicate end-user network conditions. You need to test your product in all possible network conditions. Let’s say you have a mobile app testing plan from BrowserStack. You can set your network as 2G, Edge, 3G, LTE, GPRS, Wi-Fi and 4G.
A cloud testing platform should ensure that remote connectivity is secure, whatever data you have stored during the testing session should be wiped out, and the test execution logs & screenshots are stored in a secured database. They do provide remote clean-up sessions but that won’t suffice. It’s still recommended not to use sensitive data in real devices like — email credentials, secure bank passwords etc.
We, as a mobile testing services company, use cloud testing tools for manual testing and automation testing for multiple testing projects. We would recommend choosing your cloud mobile app testing platform after a detailed scrutiny. Check whether the vendor has all the required devices and the devices are accessible quickly without delay.
When you are going to purchase a plan for more than 5 users, try for a month with 2 users and ask the users to write pros and cons about the tool. This will help you to decide which is suitable for your team or organisation.
Contact us for your mobile app testing needs.
