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In the year 2028, there will be around 7.8 Billion mobile users which accounts for 70% of the world population. More mobile users mean more apps and more competition and to lead the competition we need to make sure that our app is flawless. If nearly half of the bugs in your mobile app are discovered by the users, your app’s ratings are going to decline and so are the downloads. This is why the right choice of mobile app testing techniques must be followed in the decision-making process.

Mobile App Testing Strategies

Today, the mobile app market is highly competitive. To be better every day and survive for long, the QA team has to follow a mix of plans that would be responsible for taking the right testing decisions. The testers have to formulate testing strategies to face every situation fearlessly and immaculately. Mobile apps have to be perfect before reaching to the end users so there have to be certain decisions to be taken regarding the testing plan. The following model of mobile app testing plans can be considered for better execution.

In the planning Stage, decisions like Selection of Device matrix, Test Infrastructure (In-house vs. Cloud, Simulator vs. Real device), Testing scope, Testing Tools, Automation (Framework/Tool) are taken. Since it is the first stage, it is the most important one as all the further stages would depend on these decisions. In the next stage which is execution and review, decisions regarding Test Case Design, Testing of user stories, testing types as per Sprint Objective, Progressive Automation, Regression Testing, Review and course correction are taken.

We are going to discuss the planning stage aspects more elaborately

Device Matrix:

It is an important factor, choosing the device as per your target audience’s behavior matters in decisions regarding resting. There are different approaches to the selection of the device matrix.

Approach 1- Selection of Devices based on market research.

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. For Example- if you support both Android and iOS, and your application will be used across millions of Samsung, Google Nexus and Moto G devices but only thousands of iPhones, you prioritize testing on the Google Nexus and Moto G above the iPhone device. So, this test plan will consist of testing on devices which are prioritized by your market analysis.

Approach 2: Categorize the devices based on Key mobile aspects

This approach highlights the categorization of the devices based on certain mobile aspects which can be considered in formulating the testing strategy. The categorization goes as:

Test infrastructure

This is another element of the planning stage. This focuses on Strategizing on the Infrastructure components like hardware, software, and network which are an integral part of test infrastructure. It ensures that the applications are managed in a controlled way.

Real device, Emulators or Mobile cloud-Where to test?

Choosing the right platform to test as per the testing needs is very important i.e whether to test on the Real device or an emulator or on the cloud

Real Devices

Testing on a real device is anytime more reliable than testing on a simulator. The results are accurate as real-time testing takes place on the device in a live environment. It carries its own disadvantages as it is a costly affair and not all the organizations are able to afford a complete real device laboratory of their own.

Pros:

Reliable- Testing on Real devices always gives you an accurate result

Live Environment- Testing on real devices enables you to test your application on the actual environment on which your target audience working on. You can test your application with different network technologies like HSPDA, UMTS, LTE, Wi-Fi, etc.

User experience- Testing on Real devices is the only way to test your Real-time User experience. It cannot be tested through Emulators or devices Available on Cloud.

Cons:
Maintaining the matrix- You cannot maintain such a huge matrix of mobile devices in your own test lab.
Maintenance- Maintaining these physical devices is a big challenge for organizations.
Network providers- There are more than 400 network providers all over the world. Covering all these network providers in their own test lab is impossible.
Locations- You cannot test how your application behaves when it is used in different locations.

Emulators

The emulator is another option to test mobile apps. These are free, open source and can be easily connected with the IDE for testing. The emulator simulates the real device environment and certain types of testing can be run on it easily. However, we cannot say that the results of emulators are as good as those of real devices. It is slower and cannot test issues like network connection, overheating, battery behavior, etc.

Pros:

Price- Mobile emulators are completely free and are provided as part of the SDK on every new OS release.

Fast- 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.

Cons:

The wrong impression- Even if you have executed all test cases on emulators, you cannot be 100 % sure it will actually work in the real environment.

Testing Gestures- Gestures like Pinching, Swipe or drag, long press using the mouse on simulators are different in using these gestures on real devices. We cannot test these functionalities on emulators.
Can’t test Network Interoperability- With the help of Simulators you cannot test your application with different network technologies. Like HSPDA, UMTS, LTE, Wi-Fi, etc.

Testing on Mobile Cloud

Mobile cloud testing can overcome the cost challenges like purchasing and maintaining mobile devices. It has all different sets of device types are available in the cloud to test, deploy and manage mobile applications. The tests run virtually with the benefit of choosing the right type device-OS combinations. Privacy, security, and dependency on the internet can be a challenge in this case but it has many benefits that can cater to different testing scenarios.

The organization can choose the right mix of above-mentioned platforms as every platform carries its own advantages and disadvantages. Sometimes a combination of real and emulators is preferred and sometimes all three can be considered as per the testing strategy.

Pros:

Devices Availability- Availability of Devices and network providers is a big gain for cloud users.
Maintenance- When you are using cloud services. Forget about maintenance. These providers take responsibility for maintaining these devices.
Pay per use- You don’t need to buy a device. You only have to pay for the duration you use that device.

Parallel Execution- You can test your complete test suite on multiple devices.

Cons:
Cost- Some providers are a bit costly

Automation Tools for Mobile App Testing on Android and iOS

Nowadays, there are so many automation tools available in the market. Some are expensive and some are freely available in the market. Every tool has its own pros and cons. Choosing the right tool for testing would reduce the QA team effort providing seamless performance at the same time. We will discuss the best mobile app testing automation tools for iOS and Android platforms in 2018.

1. Appium: It is one of the preferred MAT tools by testers. It is open source and free tool available for Android and iOS. It automates any mobile app across many languages and testing frameworks like TestNG. It supports programming languages like Java, C# and other Webdriver languages. It provides access to complete back end APIs and database of the test codes.
Top Features:
-Appium supports Safari on Ios and Other browsers on Android
-Many Webdriver compatible languages can be used such as Java, Objective-C, JavaScript to write test cases
-Support languages like Ruby, Java, PHP, Node, Python.

2. Robotium: It is a free Android UI testing tool. It supports in writing powerful black box test cases for Android Applications. It supports Android version 1.6 and above. The tests are written in Java language and basically, Robotium contains a library of unit tests. Apart from this, Robotium takes a little more effort in preparing tests, one must work with program source code to automate tests. Robotium does not have play record and screenshot function.

Top Features:
-The tests can be created with minimum knowledge of the project
-Numerous android exercises can be executed simultaneously.
-Syncronises easily with Ant or Maven to run tests.

3. Calabash: It is an open source MAT tool allowing testers to write and execute tests for Android and iOS. Its libraries enable the test codes to interact with native and hybrid apps. It supports cucumber framework which makes it understandable to non-tech staff. It can be configured for Android and Ios devices. It works well with languages like Ruby, Java, .NET, Flex and many others. It runs automated functional testing for Android and ios. It is a framework that is maintained by Xamarin and Calabash.

4. Espresso: It is a mobile app testing automation tool for Android. It allows writing precise and reliable Android UI tests. It is a tool targeted for developers who believer automated testing is an important part of CI CD process. Espresso framework is provided by the Android X Test and it provides APIs for writing UI tests to simulate user interactions on the target app. Espresso tests can run on Android 2.33 and above. Provides automatic sync of test actions with the app UI.

5. Selendroid: An open source automation framework which drives off the UI of Android native, hybrid and mobile web application. A powerful testing tool that can be used on emulators and real devices. And because it still reuses the existing infrastructure for web, you can write tests using the Selenium 2 client APIs.

6. Frank: Is an open source automation testing tool for the only iOS with combined features of cucumber and JSON. The app code needs not to be modified in this tool. It includes Symboite live app inspector tool and allows to write structured acceptance tests. It is tough to use directly on the device but is flexible for web and native apps. It can run test both on simulator and device. It shows the app in action by showing its recorded video of test runs.

Above are a few promising, popular and most commonly used and mobile app testing automation tools. Choice of tools certainly resolves many testing-related problems faster and efficiently. Implementing these tools requires skill and experience and so an organization needs to have a proper testing team in place to make all of this possible.

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We are moving toward a future where everything is going to be autonomous, fast and highly efficient. To match the pace of this fast-moving ecosystem, application delivery times will have to be accelerated, but not at the cost of quality. Achieving quality at speed is imperative and therefore quality assurance gets a lot of attention. To fulfill the demands for exceptional quality and faster time to market, automation testing will assume priority. It is becoming necessary for micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to automate their testing processes. But the most crucial aspect is to choose the right test automation framework. So let’s understand what a test automation framework is.

What is a Test Automation Framework?

A Mobile Testing automation framework is the scaffolding that is laid to provide an execution environment for the automation test scripts. The framework provides the user with various benefits that help them to develop, execute and report the automation test scripts efficiently. It is more like a system that was created specifically to automate our tests. In a very simple language, we can say that a framework is a constructive blend of various guidelines, coding standards, concepts, processes, practices, project hierarchies, modularity, reporting mechanism, test data injections etc. to pillar automation testing. Thus, the user can follow these guidelines while automating applications to take advantage of various productive results.

The advantages can be in different forms like the ease of scripting, scalability, modularity, understandability, process definition, re-usability, cost, maintenance etc. Thus, to be able to grab these benefits, developers are advised to use one or more of the Test Automation Framework. Moreover, the need of a single and standard Test Automation Framework arises when you have a bunch of developers working on the different modules of the same application and when we want to avoid situations where each of the developers implements his/her approach towards automation. So let’s have a look at different types of test automation frameworks.

Types of Mobile Automated Testing Frameworks

Now that we have a basic idea about Automation Frameworks, let’s check out the various types of Test Automation Frameworks available in the marketplace. There is a divergent range of Automation Frameworks available nowadays. These frameworks may differ from each other based on their support to different key factors to do automation like reusability, ease of maintenance etc.

Types of Mobile testing automation frameworks:

Module Based Testing Framework

Module-Based Testing Framework, as the name implies, depends on a number of modules to function. In order to produce the greatest results from the automation test, you would need to develop unique scripts for each module and ensure that they work together. Changes to the application’s functionality won’t have an impact on the modules. The scripts are safe unless they are manually changed.
Given that a high level of modularization is produced by merging multiple modules, this provides a cost-effective management approach. Productivity is still at its highest level. But, if necessary, it can take a lot of time and effort to make modifications to the test data individually.

Library Architecture Testing Framework

Based on the modular foundation, the library architecture framework for automated testing offers several extra advantages. Instead of separating the programme under test into the many scripts that must be executed, related jobs inside the scripts are found and afterwards grouped by function, allowing the application to be eventually divided up into common goals. The test scripts can access this library of functions anytime they are required.

Data Driven Testing Framework

A number of tests must be run while testing an automation framework before a successful result can be determined. In these situations, you might need to alter the test results to try and draw a different conclusion. You can keep the test data on an external drive and access it later for adding a new script to the test case thanks to the Data-Driven Testing Framework.

Keyword Driven Testing Framework

The keyword-driven testing framework, which is frequently regarded as an extension of the data-driven testing framework, collects your test data from an external source and securely preserves the set of codes. These codes, which are also known as “keywords,” can be used to change the test script and draw additional conclusions from the test framework. Also, these keywords effectively determine what tasks each programme performs.

Hybrid Testing Framework

To maximize the effectiveness of the aforementioned frameworks, the hybrid testing framework combines the data-driven and keyword-driven frameworks. It provides more room for more efficiency and success, making it the ideal automation foundation.

Behavior Driven Development Framework

The goal of the Behavior Driven Development framework is to build a platform that encourages active participation from all users, including developers, testers, business analysts, etc. Also, it improves cooperation on your project between the developers and testers. For this behavior-driven testing, test specifications can be written in plain, non-technical language.

Benefits of a Mobile Testing Automation Framework

Apart from the minimal manual intervention required in automation testing, there are many advantages of using a test automation framework. Some of them are listed below:

1. Faster time-to-market: Using a good test automation framework helps reduce the time-to-market of an application by allowing constant execution of test cases. Once automated, the test library execution is faster and runs longer than manual testing.
2. Earlier detection of defects: The documentation of software defects becomes considerably easier for the testing teams. It increases the overall development speed while ensuring correct functionality across areas. The earlier a defect is identified, the more cost-effective it is to resolve the issue.
3. Improved Testing efficiency: Testing takes up a significant portion of the overall development lifecycle. Even the slightest improvement of overall efficiency can make an enormous difference to the entire timeframe of the project. Although the setup time takes longer initially, automated tests eventually take up a significantly lesser amount of time. They can be run virtually unattended, leaving the results to be monitored toward the end of the process.
4. Better ROI: while the initial investment may be on the higher side, automated testing saves organizations many a lot of money. This is due to the drop in the amount of time required to run tests, which leads to a higher quality of work. This in turn decreases the necessity for fixing glitches after release, thereby reducing project costs.
5. Higher test coverage: In test automation, higher number of tests can be executed pertaining to an application. This leads to a higher test coverage, which in a manual testing approach would imply a massive team, limited heavily with their amount of time. An increased test coverage leads to testing more features and a better quality of application.
6. Reusability of automated tests: The repetitive nature of test cases in test automation helps software developers to assess program reaction, in addition to the relatively easy configuration of their setup. Automated test cases can be utilized through different approaches as they are reusable.

Top ten test automation frameworks

1. Robot Framework
Robot Framework is the best choice if you want to use a python test automation framework for your test automation efforts. The Robot Framework is Python-based, but you can also use Jython(Java) or IronPython(.NET). The Robot Framework uses a keyword-driven approach to make tests easy to create. Robot Framework can also test MongoDB, FTP, Android, Appium and more. It has many test libraries including Selenium WebDriver library and other useful tools. It has a lot of API’s to help make it as extensible as possible. The keyword approach used by Robot Framework is great for testers who are already familiar with other vendor-based, keyword-driven test tools, making the transition to open source much easier for them.

2. WebdriverIO
WebdriverIO is an automation test framework based in Node.js. It has an integrated test runner and you can run automation tests for web applications as well as native mobile apps. Also, it can run both on the WebDriver protocol and Chrome Devtools protocol, making it efficient for both Selenium Webdriver based cross-browser testing or Chromium based automation. As WebDriverIO is open source, you get a bunch of plugins for your automation needs. ‘Wdio setup wizard’ makes the setup simple and easy.

3. Citrus
Citrus is an open-source framework with which you can automate integration tests for any messaging protocol or data format. For any kind of messaging transport such as REST, HTTP, SOAP, or JMS, Citrus framework will be suited for test messaging integration. If you need to interact with a user interface and then verify a back-end process, you can integrate Citrus with Selenium. For instance, if you have to click on a “send email” button and verify on the back end that the email was received, Citrus can receive this email or the JMS communication triggered by the UI, and verify the back-end results, all in one test.

4. Cypress
Cypress is a developer-centric test automation framework that makes test-driven development (TDD) a reality for developers. Its design principle was to be able to package and bundle everything together to make the entire end-to-end testing experience pleasant and simple. Cypress has a different architecture than Selenium; while Selenium WebDriver runs remotely outside the browser, Cypress runs inside of it. This approach helps in understanding everything that happens inside and outside the browser to deliver more consistent results. It does not require you to deal with object serialization or over-the-wire protocols while giving you native access to every object. Cypress can synchronously notify you of every single thing that happens inside the browser as you’re pulling your app into it, so that you have native access to every DOM element. It also makes it easy to simply drop a debugger into your application, which in turn makes it easier to use the developer tools.

5. Selenium
One of the most popular open source test automation frameworks for web apps. Selenium also serves as a base for a lot of other testing tools as it has cross-platform and cross-browser functionality. Selenium supports a wide range of programming languages such as Java, C#, PHP, Python, Ruby, etc. It is easy to maintain as it has one of the largest online support networks. Selenium is highly extendable through a wide range of libraries and APIs to meet everyone’s needs and requirements. Selenium is preferred by testers as it is possible to write more advanced test scripts to meet various levels of complexity. It provides a playback tool for test authoring without the need to learn a specific scripting language.

6. Cucumber
It is a cross platform behavior driven development (BDD) tool which is used to write acceptance tests for web applications. Cucumber is quick and easy to set up an execution and allows reusing code in the tests. It supports languages like Python, PHP, Perl, .NET, Scala, Groovy, etc. Automation of functional validation in easily readable and understandable format. One good feature is that both specification and test documentation are uploaded in a single up-to-date document. Cucumber makes it easy for the business stakeholders, who are not familiar with testing, as they can easily read the code as test reports are written in business readable English. The code can be used together with other frameworks like Selenium, Watir, Capybara, etc.

7. Gauge
It is an open source tool agnostic test automation framework for Mac, Linux and Windows. People who work on TDD and BDD will appreciate Gauge’s focus on creating living/executable documentation. Specs – the Gauge automation tests are written using a markdown language with C#, Java and Ruby within your existing IDEs like Visual Studio and Eclipse. Gauge’s functionality can also be extended with its support of plugins. It was developed as a BYOT (Bring Your Own Tool) framework. So you can use Selenium or you can use anything else for driving your tests UI or API tests. If you want a readable non-BDD approach to automation, you should try Gauge.

8. Serenity
If you are looking for a Java-based framework that integrates with behavior-driven development (BDD) tools such as Cucumber and JBehave, Serenity might be the tool for you. It’s designed to make writing automated acceptance and regression tests easier. It also lets you keep your test scenarios at a high level while accommodating lower-level implementation details in your reports.

Serenity acts as a wrapper on top of Selenium WebDriver and BDD tools. It abstracts away much of the boilerplate code you sometimes need to write to get started which makes writing BDD and Selenium tests easier. Serenity also offers plenty of built-in functionality, such as handling running tests in parallel, WebDriver management, taking screenshots, managing state between steps, facilitating Jira integration, all without having to write a single line of code.

9. Carina
Carina is built using popular open-source solutions like Appium, TestNG and Selenium, which reduces dependence on a specific technology stack. You can test mobile applications (native, web, hybrid), WEB applications, REST services, and databases. Carina framework supports different types of databases like MySQL, SQL Server, Oracle, PostgreSQL, providing amazing experience of DAO layer implementation using MyBatis ORM framework. It supports all popular browsers and mobile devices and it reuses test automation code between IOS/Android up to 80%. API testing is based on the Freemarker template engine and it provides great flexibility in generating REST requests. Carina is cross-platform and tests may be easily executed both on Unix or Windows OS.

10. EarlGray
Developers often face difficulty with some of the existing test automation framework in synchronization of the app and the instrumentation. Also, executing tests on apps as synchronized and advanced only when UI elements are visible on the screen has caused issues for many developers. Google EarlGrey has built-in synchronization that makes test scripts wait for UI events to occur before the script tries to interact with the UI of the app. This type of implementation makes the test script concise as all steps of the test script shows how the test will proceed and UI gets synchronized with it. One more key aspect of EarlGrey is that all actions on UI elements happen only on visible elements. This provides a fast and robust approach to ensure UI testing goes through as clicks, gestures and other user interactions do not get done if the UI element is not fully shown.

In a nutshell

This list of top tools here represents the best tools that are mature, popular, and provide test automation capabilities using AI/ML to address the challenges that organizations are now facing to deliver Quality at Speed. This list also includes the tools that provide API and services testing which is essential for successful DevOps transformation. The emerging technologies like AI, codeless, big data and IoT testing, are making test automation more efficient while creating opportunities for the existing tools and new players to assert value to the testing communities.

The choice of automation tools should not only meet your current needs but should also focus on potential trends and improvements. An efficient test automation tool should support basic optimization, data generation, smarter solutions, and analytics. As of now, the level of test automation in organizations is low at between 14% and 18%. But organizations are working towards increasing the automation coverage upto 80%. API and services testing is also a trend that should see further development in the future.

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Appium Mobile Test Automation

As we all know that Appium is the most preferred test automation tool for mobile applications. It is the first choice of the testers because of its flexibility i.e. it is open source, it has the best supported and highly active community of experts, Appium works across different platforms and works well with different scripting languages. Even after gaining such popularity and having a strong community base, surprisingly, the users still make mistakes while running the mobile test automation with Appium.

Here are a few common mistakes that Appium users encounter while using Appium Mobile Test Automation Tool:

1.Unrestricted X Path Usage:

Over usage of X Path could be found in case of Selenium as well but when it comes to Appium world, it has more outrageous effects because X Path is a more dynamic way to unearth the elements. But the biggest stumbling block in this scenario is its huge performance cost due to which it becomes elusive an area. This is because Google and Apple do not provide XML or XPath related queries in a way we would need them to be. All of this hospitalizes an unmanageable cost finding elements using X Path. Undoubtedly, X Path is the most trusted method but there are several other better locator methods like ‘Accessibility IDs’ that can be used in this sitch.

2. Neglected usage of Accessibility IDs:

The accessibility ID locator strategy is formulated to read a unique identifier for a UI element. For both iOS and Android, getting an element by their accessibility ID is the best method. Most importantly, it is preferable because it is quicker. It should be noted that semantically accessible IDs are different than the Web IDs. However, the two shouldn’t be combined. In many cases, the accessibility IDs are used only for the purpose of testing even though they have a larger purpose. So, in order not to spoil the accessibility of the applications just for the sake of testing, the bigger purpose of the accessibility IDs should be known. If the accessible IDs are set up on the elements to make the apps testable, the app accessibility also increases, provided that the accessibility labels are sensible to the users using them. But the foremost criteria not to make automation efforts a failure is to make the application testable in the first place.

3. Not making a testable App:

Developing an app should be a forecasted move where in the developers, even before writing the first line of code, plan to develop an app keeping the automation in mind. This they can achieve by keeping in mind the hooks and the unique IDs for the elements in order to make the app more testable. This strategic approach would be a reason for a successful mobile app test automation. Apart from this, there should also be a concentration on the different testing scenarios in order to elude the chances of overlapping before even getting into Appium coding. An open discussion forum with the development teams to discuss the plotting of right accessibility IDs, labels or Unique IDs for the application’s elements would reduce many test automation reliability concerns.

4. Disregarding Application View States:

One of the challenge faced in Mobile Test Automation is not setting up the application. Most of the developers do not set up the application in order to access specific views and user states rapidly. To quote an example given by Jonathan Lipps,one of the key contributors to the Appium project.

A shopping cart functionality of the app might have ten different tests, and ninety percent of the tests might go through the same steps of logging in and searching items to be put in the cart which is a huge waste of time.

So, your team should be able to set up an app’s state and start the test in that apposite state, straightaway. This is highlighted in Appium scenario due to the fact that the mobile simulators and emulators are slow and take longer than usual to reach to the right position on the test.

5. Query for every element visibility:

Not querying for the visibility of every element is another way to speed up the run-time of the Appium test scripts. This leads to an additional load of calls and waiting time for Appium while in the every activity of retrieving an element. The lag can be reduced by only requesting the element attributes which are important in perspective of the test code.

6. Native Testing tools – Always better?

According to some developers, usage of the native testing tools is the best way to get unfailing mobile tests. For example- Espresso in case of Android and XCUITest in case of iOS. This is not good advice as neither of Google or Apple are going to release and new automation technology. When the question is of stability, the stability of code should be chosen rather than technology and in this scenario, Appium is the best choice!

As an exception, if the development team writes the tests and it’s most comfortable in mobile SDK language, using Google and Apple providers to build development environments. Also, when the constricted test-app or test code-app code integration is needed, then Appium might not be of much help. The utmost value is that Appium provides the WebDriver layer on top of the technology, which means the code can be written in any language and acts as a stable interface to that specific automation technology. Also, being a cross-platform tool, Appium allows to saves a lot of code and architecture in case of testing both iOS and Android devices.

7. Appium is slow:

Appium might be slower in some circumstances and also there are points in Appium codes where it does not seem efficient. Appium backs upon technologies that are slower than Appium and the curators of Appium have strategically chosen to utilize slower strategies for specific instances. For eg: Appium will certainly be slower if you are relying on XPath. The efficiency of the tool depends on how it is being used. Mostly, Appium is favored because of stability than the speed.

8. Not Using Appium Documentation:

The earlier Appium docs were not very user friendly. As a result, they weren’t used as much as they needed to be but the new Appium documents have been completely redesigned and reorganized. Information about the API reference to Appium, client libraries, supported drivers and Appium commands, code examples which was not provided before is all documented in the updated version. It deserves a revisit due to its newness and can be accessed at Appium.io.

9. Not creating reusable code

Repetitive or duplicate code can cause several issues for Appium mobile testing process. When the same code is repeated in several test scripts, any updates or modifications must be copied across all instances. This increases the chance of failures and complicates the debugging procedure. It also increases the maintenance cost for the organization.

Duplicate code makes identifying the primary reason for a test failure challenging. It can be difficult to pinpoint which occurrence of the code caused a test to fail if the same code is used repeatedly throughout several test scripts. This could increase the duration required for debugging the software and expand the market time.

Therefore, it’s crucial to use appropriate coding principles to prevent these issues. This includes creating simple reusable code, utilizing libraries and frameworks, and modifying code to remove redundancies.

10. Ignoring the Test-driven Deployment

Test-driven deployment is an Appium mobile test automation approach that stresses developing automated test cases before writing application code.

It lets the developer test all the application features before being deployed. This way, they can detect and resolve any bug in the early stage. This saves not only the organization’s time but also valuable resources.

Not just this, Test-driven deployment also helps developers in developing more reliable and enduring codes. By allowing them to understand the needs and provide a solution accordingly. Which lets them create more modular, maintainable, and error-free codes.

11. Choosing the right tool for API testing

APIs may have several endpoints, each with a unique set of parameters, methods, and authentication requirements. Writing and maintaining tests that accurately reflect the behavior of the API can be challenging due to this complexity.

Another difficulty is the requirement to simulate various scenarios and inputs. Testing for different response codes, error messages, and payloads might be part of this. To ensure the API can manage a high volume of queries, developers might also need to simulate load and stress testing.

Developers use a testing framework or library like RestAssured and Postman, which provides integrated support for API testing. These tools streamline and simplify the testing process by providing pre-build methods for common API testing scenarios, these tools streamline and simplifies the testing process. Alternatively, they can mimic various scenarios and inputs using mock data or a staging environment.

Developers can test their API in a safe setting before releasing it for production. Moreover, they can evaluate the API’s capacity by simulating heavy requests using load-testing tools like JMeter or LoadRunner.

12. Need to follow a good design pattern.

In Appium mobile test automation, the Page Object Model (POM) and the Page Automation Layer Model (PALM) are popular architectural patterns. Both techniques increase automated tests’ maintainability, scalability, and reusability.

POM is a design pattern that emphasizes the creation of reusable and modular code by isolating the application’s user interface from the test automation code, making it simpler to update tests when UI changes are made. POM builds an object repository that holds all the web elements and methods.
PALM is another design pattern that builds upon the principles of POM. But unlike POM, which focuses on UI elements, PALM emphasizes creating an abstraction layer between the test automation code and the application’s business logic. This approach distinguishes the test automation code from the underlying implementation. Thus making it easier to modify the test code without affecting the business logic.

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Technology is growing exponentially and to be in the game, organisations have no choice but to be technologically enabled. Talking about ‘technology’ basically means creating solutions that are ‘faster, ‘convenient’ and ‘qualitative’. To keep up with the highly demanding technological dynamics, not only human resources need to be equipped with the contemporaneous developments of this industry but there is also a dire need of highly standardized processes in order to deliver the top-class results. That’s when the need of DevOps emerges. Right from the planning through delivery, the idea of introducing DevOps is to maintain the quality streak by a systematic collaboration of development and automation across the continuous delivery and continuous Integration. To make it simpler, there must be a convenient way to tackle the complicated scenarios without delays and for on time delivery. Hence, the introduction of Continuous integration tools makes it easier for the developers to streamline the development processes.

Continuous Integration methodology enables developers to provide immediate reporting whenever any defect is identified in the code so that immediate corrective action can be taken. It is an important part of DevOps that bis used to integrate various Devops stages. The testing process is also automated and the same is instantly reported to the user. There are innumerable Continuous Integration tools available in the market providing access to different unique features. These have open source as well as paid versions, depending upon the need of the user, the most preferred could be selected. Although all the continuous Integration tools are designed to perform the same basic functions but choosing the best suitable CI tool becomes important in the long run. Depending upon many factors like features, cost, ease of use, etc. more than one tools can also be chosen meeting varied needs and not just the single solution. Comparing the best continuous Integration tools that are available in the market, below is the list of 10 best and mostly used Continuous Integration tools which must not be ignored in 2023.

Continuous Integration Tools

1. Jenkins

Jenkins is a known and the most common Continuous Integration tool available today. Based on various comparisons, Jenkins tops the list. Jenkins is opensource continuous Integration server-based application that allows developers to build, automate and test any software project at a faster pace. It was originally a part of Hudson project started by Kohsuke Kawaguchi in the year 2004 but it was later on released by the name Jenkins in the year 2011. The tool has evolved over the years and has become the most reliable software delivery automation tool. The source code is in JAVA with few Groovy, Ruby and Antlr files. It has almost 1400 plugins to support the automation of the development tasks. Jenkins supports the entire software development life cycle right from building, testing, documenting and deploying. Jenkins comes with WAR file that allows easy installation of the tool which needs to be dropped into the JEE container and the setup can be run easily henceforth.

Key Features:

1. It is an open-source server for Continuous Integration tool
2. It is written in JAVA and comes with thousands of plugins that help in build, automation and deployment of any software project
3. It can be installed easily on any operating systems
4. User friendly interface that is easy to configure and with easy upgrades.

2. Buddy

Buddy is a web-based, self- hosted Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Delivery (CD) tool also known as Buddy.Works.Buddy is a serious advancement as one of the trusted CI CD tools. It has an extremely friendly user-interface and is also the simplest tool to use for the web developers, designers and quality assurance teams. Git developers can use this tool for building, testing and deploying the websites and applications using Github, Bitbucket, GitLab codes.

Key Features:

1. Steps for launching containers, automating deployment, and setting up
monitoring can be easily customised
2. Build, Ship and Deploy as inbuilt stack feature
3. Can be deployed to any hosting and cloud service providers
4. Supports Grunt. Gulp, MongoDB, and MySQL
5. Real-time reports on progress, logs and history can be monitored
6. Docker based builds and tests.

3.TeamCity

Teamcity, first released in 2006 is a continuous Integration tool developed by JetBrains. It runs in Java environment and is used to build and deploy different projects. It supports integration with many cloud technologies like Microsoft Azure, VMWare, Amazon.

Key Features:

1. It is a free of cost Continuous Integration tool
2. Supports platforms like Java, .Net and Ruby
3. Allows easy integration with IDEs like Eclipse, IntelliJ IDEA, Visual studio
4. Allows code coverage, inspection and performs duplicates check and creates history
reports of any changes made
5. It supports running multiple builds and tests under different platforms and
environments.

4. Bamboo CI

Bamboo is another Continuous Integration (CI) and Continuous Deployment (CD) software developed by Altassian. It is written in Java and supports other languages and technologies like CodeDeply, Ducker, Maven, Git, SVN, Mercurial, Ant, AWS, Amazon, etc. The tool performs automatic build, testing and deployments. Automation thus saves time and allows developers some extra time to focus on the strategic aspects of the product.

Key Features:

1. Bamboo can build, test and deploy multiple projects simultaneously and in case of any build failure, it provides the analysis and the failure reports
2. Current status of the builds and server status can be monitored with the help of the REST API provided by Bamboo
3. Bamboo supports testing tools like PHPUnit, JUnit, Selenium
4.It is compatible with JIRA and BitBucket
5. Bamboo is related to other products like JIRA, Confluence and Clover by Altassian allowing the developers and the other team members to be at the same page
6. It can also import data from Jenkins.

5.GitLab CI

GitLab Continuous Integration tool is a complete code management platform with multiple mini tools each performing a different set of function for the complete SDLC. It is owned by GitLab Inc and was created by engineers Dmitriy Zaporozhets and Valery Sizov . It provides important analysis on the code views, bug management,CI CD in a single web-based repository which also makes it the most demanded CI CD tool. GitLab CI is written in Ruby and Go and its  core functionality is released under an open-source MIT license, keeping rest of the functions under proprietary license.

Key Features:

1. It is directly integrated with the GitLab Workflow
2. Allows all critical information on the code progress in a single dashboard
3. Free for the community edition, the enterprise version is paid one
4. Language Programming CMD build scripts available allowing to program them in
any language
5. APIs are provided to allow better product integrations

6.Circle CI

Circle CI is one of the best Continuous Integration and Delivery tool available in the market. CircleCI provides a great platform for build and test automation along with comprehensive deployment process. It can be integrated with GitHub, GitHub Enterprise and Bitbucket to create builds. It also supports on-cloud Continuous Integration. Because of its strong features and efficient performance in this space, it is highly recommended by experts.

Key Features:

1. It easily Integrates with Bitbucket, GitHub, and GitHub Enterprise
2. It allows branch focused deployment
3. It performs easy bug-cleanup, runs tests quickly and is highly customizable
4. Easily integrates with AWS, Google cloud and other services
5. Build tools like Maven, Gradle can be easily integrated

7.Codeship

Codeship Continuous Integration tool was acquired by Cloudbees. It is praised by its users for its combination of features for build and deployment. It is efficient, simple and deploys directly from the Github and Bitbucket. Its features of integration and delivery are combined in such a way that it makes more reliable deployment as soon as the code is automatically tested.

Key Features:

1. It allows a very supportive environment when it comes to compatibility with different technologies, languages, deployment in different environments of choice.
2. It has a very fast and strong developer support and is very easy to use.
3. It also supports third party tools integration very well.
4.It requires a single sign-up for Github, Bitbucket and Gitlab
5. Allows simple file management configuration, easy monitoring and scale-up as per the need.

8. Cruise Control

CruiseControl is a Java based Continuous Integration platform. It is popular for allowing various source controls, email notifications and build technologies with the help of plugins. It is written in Java and has versions of .Net (CCNet) and Ruby (CruiseControl.rb.) as well.

Key Features:

1. Supplies builders for Ant, Nant, Maven, Phing, Rake, and Xcode.
2. It is an Open source Framework
3. Allows Custom build loops for build cycles
4.Its web interface provides visual status of the builds
5. Provides JSP Reporting for managing build results

9. BuildBot

Buildbot is a software development continuous integration platform that allows automatic compilation and testing in order to validate any changes occurred in the project. It is written in Python. Originally created by Brian Warner, it is now maintained by the developer Dustin Michelle. It is popular for performing complex automation testing of the Development Life Cycle processes and for application deployment. This is among one of those tools that allow distribution and execution of programs parallelly on different platforms.

Key Features:

1. It is an Open source Continuous Integration Platform
2. Automates complex building, application deployment and manages complicated software releases
3. Allows time estimation of build completion as it provides real-time insights of the build progress.
4. Uses Python, C and host requirements of Python and Twisted
5. Supports distributed, parallel execution across multiple platforms and provides extensive status reporting

10. GoCD

GoCD Continuous Integration server is owned by Thoughtworks. It streamlines the build, automation and deployments of complex build cycles. Its top USP is to enable plugins or design custom plugins for any requirements during the CI CD process. It follows business continuity concept under which it sets up multiple servers is possible in order to keep the data readily available at the time of emergency. It is compatible with Windows, OSX, AWS AMIs, Docker, Debian/APT, RPM/YUM, and Zip. It can run tests in multiple languages and provides robust reports on the insights.

Key Features:

1. It is an opensource Continuous Integration server.
2.It allows the deployment of any preferable versions of applications
3.It easily configures the dependencies based on the last report and allows on
demand deployments
4. There are numerous plugins available for this and can also be customized as per the
requirement.
5. It re-uses the pipeline configuration keeping the configuration organized with the
help of its template system
6. The entire workflow can be tackled and watched with good tracking and feedback
system allowing the developer to track changes from committing through
deployment at a single place.

Conclusion

The above list of best Continuous Integration tools describes each of the ten tools in detail and covers the best of all along with their main features. This information is insightful for those who still haven’t thought of inculcating these automation tools to build and deploy various aspects of the Software development projects. Continuous Integration, delivery and deployment are very critical and complex systems in the Software theory. They need to be handled with care in order to fetch great results. Choosing the right tool for your business would certainly help handle this responsibility well. It is not about choosing one best tool, but multiple tools can also be selected based on the requirements of the project. As the CI CD continues to grow and evolve, it leaves the innovators with more chances to explore on creating the best versions of such tools.

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Why Appium is The Best?

With Appium creating a buzz in enterprise mobility, mobility teams are still finding ways to successfully automate tests leveraging Appium. Appium being an open source tool is the perfect choice for automating native, mobile web and hybrid applications on their respective platforms.

Let us now see the major factors behind Appium being the best choice for mobile automation tool:

1. Use of standard API: Appium is widely popular because modification of codes or a recompilation of your app is not required as it uses the standard API in all the platforms. Appium makes it effortless to create your tests against iOS and Android platforms with same API. But, separate iOS and Android scripts are still needed as the UI elements vary on both the platforms.

2. Use any WebDriver compatible language: Appium gives the freedom from getting locked into a particular language or framework to write and run the tests. Any WebDriver compatible language like Perl with Selenium WebDriver API, Java, PHP, C#, Python, Ruby, Javascript with Node.js can be used for writing the tests.

3. Testing Framework of Choice: Appium gives flexibility to mobility teams to use testing framework of their choice. Earlier, tests could only be written through Javascript using the UI Automation of library for Apple or Java based tests could only be written through UI Automator of Google. Appium completely changed this scenario.

4. Cross-platform test automation: Having the capabilities to test on both Android and iOS devices makes it the best cross-platform mobile app test automation tool. In order to interact with Android and iOS with Selenium WebDriver, Appium uses the JSON wire protocol. Appium makes use of the libraries provided by Apple with the help of an application called Instruments to automate iOS apps. In newer versions of iOS after v9.3, the Instruments api has been deprecated and now use XCUITest framework.
The method is similar in Android also where Appium proxies the automation command to the UIAutomator test case running on the device. Android has a native UI automation framework called UIAutomator which supports running JUnit test cases from the command line directly into the device.

5. Open Source: Being an open source testing framework is one of the biggest advantages of Appium as it supports Simulators, Emulators, real devices, and of course, native, hybrid and web application testing of iOS and Android. Appium having a large and thriving open community makes it easier for new automation engineers to clarify their doubts.

You can instigate test scripts created from Appium libraries locally, on a session reserved by the Cloud, for any iOS or Android device. Appium integrates with continuous integration servers to ensure better results and drives GUI-related widgets and controls, allowing the same scripts to run for different software versions of various apps. Appium can automate native, web and hybrid mobile apps, and you can test on a real device, a simulator, or an emulator. It also supports Safari on iOS and Chrome Mozilla or any built-in ‘Browser’ app on Android.
There are many automation tools for mobile application testing. Testers usually choose Appium as the best mobile testing tool. Mobile automation testing tools comparison can be done on the basis of language support and continuous integration. The most common automation testing tools used for mobile application testing are Appium, Robotium, and Calabash. If you are looking for iOS app automation testing tools then Appium and Calabash can do the job for you.

Here is tabular representation for you to understand Appium’s compatibility with different features and tools.

Why mobile device cloud with built-in Appium support?

Teams who are getting started with Automation or are considering Appium as an option, must explore an alternative to go for a mobile device cloud with built-in Appium.

A mobile device cloud not only assists in managing and sharing devices, but also helps in streamlining automated testing and continuous delivery processes. A mobile device cloud with built-in Appium makes it easy for teams to get started with automation and scale up later. Furthermore, it will give additional cushion against any sort of roadblock that might occur while using an open-source platform for tests. Let’s have a look at some of the benefits of having a built-in Appium support on a mobile device cloud:

• Supports parallel testing on multiple devices
• Reduces the complexity of test frameworks
• Creation of appium scripts become easy
• Streamlines the CI/CD process

At pCloudy, we are dedicated towards helping enterprise mobility teams make the process of mobile development, testing and device sharing seamless and faster by integrating it with cutting edge tools like Appium. Read this blog to get a comprehensive analysis sheet to quickly choose which open-source test automation tool will be right for your automation testing.

Sign up on pCloudy and automate your tests using best open source automation tool for faster and better delivery of apps.

For more information check out this video:

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Did you know that there are nearly 1.8 million apps listed on the App Store for users to explore and make use of? And nearly 10% of these iOS apps are classified into business apps securing second place leaving games at the top with 21%. With many businesses, game developers, eCommerce ventures, fashion industries, etc, striving to venture out into the digital space; the need for high-quality iOS apps has become a necessity in today’s day and age. The power of developing an iOS app that is successful and purposeful gives you an option to interact with the customers directly. iOS app development is the way forward for many that want to tap into the millions of users that avail of its services on Apple devices. Mobile app marketing is setting the tone for a new way of advertising that companies are leveraging to level the playing field. While social media marketing and digital advertising seem to be gaining momentum, reaching audiences through app marketing seems to be taking shape as well. The future of mobile app marketing makes it all the more important for developers to ace the skill of app development to get ahead in the game.

iOS App Development

The high demand for mobile apps has raised the standard of iOS app development. The need for designing apps that look sleek and perform fast has always been a daunting goal of many iOS app developers. When building an iOS app, it is important to not just create apps that look good but also build them to ensure smooth functionality in fulfilling the requirements. The stringent app guidelines and the rigorous quality checks that are set by Apple makes it all the more difficult for developers to develop iOS apps that make the cut and become App Store worthy. Hence, It is crucial to assess the performance of the iOS app at every stage of the development process. The response time of the app and the speed at which it functions are a few other vital components that play an important role in qualifying to be listed on the App Store. Providing a practical application-based solution for the requirements of the stakeholders is more important now than ever before due to the changing environment.

Here are a few iOS app development tips that are trialed and tested to be beneficial when developing high performing iOS apps.

1. 1. Planning and Market Research

Before you jump straight into writing the code for the app, it is advisable to understand the requirements thoroughly to chart out a plan for app development. Performing an extensive market research to ideate a unique offering to the customers’ needs is sure to save you a lot of time that you may have spent reworking a plan if you were unprepared. Conducting a thorough app research about the requirements at hand will equip you to not only build an app that meets the needs but also will help you avert duplication of any sort.

Plan your app well, think about the target audience, chart out the requirements and ask all the questions needed before you initiate the iOS app development.

1. 1. Stick to a Simple Design

The mind of a developer generally wanders off to different tangents to build an app that overachieves the requirements. While most of the thought processes would be directed at adding additional features to the solution; most times these additional features become additional baggage of complexity to a simple solution. This in turn leaves the users confused of its usability and functionality. Designing a seamless UX/UI that speaks simplicity enables users to get around the app comfortably for its utility. Designing an app that addresses the key problem area tends to attract growth organically. The mantra is to take a simplistic approach to address the requirements of the app users and not complicate things.

Designing a seamless UX/UI that speaks simplicity enables users to get around the app comfortably and use it with ease.

1. 1. Spend Time on the Fundamentals

Brushing up your basics often is sure to set you on the path to developing apps faster. Getting your fundamentals in place, diving into algorithms, inheritance, polymorphism, and data structures are sure to enhance the use of the software fundamentals for building applications faster in the future. Every tool that you use to develop iOS apps be it Xcode, CocoaPods, Alcatraz, etc surely have shortcuts that you can take advantage of to speed up your build time.

Taking the time to learn various commands and shortcut keys are an added advantage that will put you on the fast-lane to become proficient at iOS app development.

1. 1. Use Storyboard for Transitions

A storyboard is an outlandish feature that provides an overview of the apps’ user interface on a screen. The beauty of this feature is captured in its capacity to help with designing multiple controller views on a single screen. Using the storyboard would not only provide you a roadmap of your prototype but also gives you the liberty to design your transitions between the view controllers. Talking about designing the content around the app, it is fundamental for app developers to stick to the principles of depth, clarity, and deference.

Storyboarding will ensure that your users get an immersive experience as they navigate through screens and follow the instructions that are thoughtfully constructed for a seamless functionality of the app.

1. 1. Don’t Block Main Thread, Use Git early

Another best practice that is followed by most iOS app developers is adopting Git at an early stage. Using Git early is sure to help with your build in a significant way especially if the app that you are designing is a combined collaborative effort. Using Git early makes it easy to roll back the changes when things go south. It also allows you to view any changes that may have been made to the code by others. Also, blocking the main code by performing app development tasks on it would make the app seem unresponsive, it is best to refrain from working on the main code as the UIKit constantly runs functions like drawing, touch functionality, and input functions on it.

Hampering with the main code could become a recipe for disaster leading the app to perform poorly and attract dreadful reviews on the App Store.

1. 1. Swift and Objective-C

Many app developers switching to Swift for creating applications has left the iOS app development industry in a dilemma. While the use of Swift has an edge over Objective-C, it sure has its set of audience that still favor the latter. Although Swift is an easier programming language that new coders can learn and pick up without much knowledge of additional code, a majority of the iOS programming community speaks the language of Objective-C for their iOS app development needs. Swift encapsulates a ton of advantages that is beneficial to paving the future of iOS app development and builds. It is still a work in progress and is consistently evolving with the changing needs of the app industry. Learning Swift is surely an advantage considering the future of app development.

Learn new programming languages like Swift which are easier and intuitive but also make an effort to be well versed with a widely used language like Objective – C to make the best use when the need arises.

1. 1. Ensure Compatibility

A crucial factor that you need to keep in mind while building an iOS app is its compatibility with different iOS versions. Running tests to ensure compatibility across devices on cloud-based testing platforms gives you the option to perform your tests on multiple devices running different iOS versions conveniently and effectively. It is advisable to optimize the apps to run smoothly on all iOS versions to ensure a maximum user-base.

Optimizing your app to perform well on different iOS versions is sure to fetch some brownie points to the apps’ success journey as you accommodate both the new and the old iOS versions.

1. 1. Streamlined interaction through Social Network Integration

One of the best features that you can include while developing and iOS app is the Social Network integration which allows you to streamline the interaction between the mobile app to the web app or the website. Developing this feature on the mobile app would surely help businesses engage with their users better through customizing their offerings to a particular geography or demography. Users would find it easy to use an app on their phone and pick up from where they left off on other devices that are in sync with the particular user account. The social network integration would allow the developers to diversify their tools for a future offering as well.

Integrating social networking platforms to the app would enable businesses to curate offerings to customers based on their interests, demographics, and geographies.

1. 1. Traffic Management

Prevention is better than cure. With the right tools and features in place for the app’s success, it is the responsibility of the developers to ensure that the app does not crash. Optimizing the memory usage, or timely updates to cater to the OS updates are a few of the vital elements to keep in mind. Putting systems in place for the app to function smoothly even when marketing efforts direct traffic toward the app should keep it going with a hassle. The last thing you want is for the app to crash during these promotional campaigns or marketing events.

Make sure that your app is optimized to handle the traffic during any promotional events or marketing campaigns, because an app that crashes during a sale is no good at all.

1. 1. Thorough Testing

The App is only as good as its functionality and performance. Assessing the app’s performance by conducting several tests multiple times will ensure a successful launch/release. Making sure that the iOS app achieves the requirements on different devices will secure a pivotal standing in the market gaps that it fills. Since Apple performs a much more rigorous assessment on the app as compared to the Google Play store, it is advisable to perform continuous testing at every stage of the iOS app development to monitor its functionality and make changes accordingly.

Testing for functionality, UI, compatibility, security, etc in different environments and devices running different iOS versions will ensure high quality and ROI on its release.

Apps when done right are sure to be on the path to success. However, in order to design an app that is successful, you will need to constantly plan, develop, integrate and test rigorously using continuous testing methods to save time on releasing the app at the earliest. App development can be a tedious task at first, however, with the right mindset, tools, and tricks up your sleeve you are sure to make it an enjoyable one. A pro tip would be to explore cloud-based continuous testing platforms like pCloudy for testing your iOS app on different devices before you submit it to the App Store for review. Ensuring that the iOS app that you built goes through a continuous testing process will ensure a quicker debugging and faster release cycle. We hope this was beneficial and wish you the best on your iOS app development journeys.

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Google has announced Android 11 roll out for select Pixel phones, as well as flagship smartphone models from Xiaomi, Oppo, OnePlus, and Realme. The manufacturers are releasing final beta ROMs based on Android 11 for their individual UIs. Google informed that the update brings changes to improve multitasking, and give users more control over their privacy with one-time app permissions. It also brings built-in screen recording to Android. The new Android 11 comes with many changes but the developers and QA needs to make sure that their app is compatible with the new Android version.

The most effective way to test the compatibility of apps with the latest Android is by testing them on pCloudy devices that have been updated to Android 11. Currently we have Google Pixel devices that are updated to the latest Android version. The new Android OS comes with changes in conversation notification, chat bubbles, media controls, smart device controls, etc. Let’s dive deeper into the updates to understand them better.

Screen recorder

There are plenty of apps on the Google Play Store that will record your phone’s screen. Android 11 might seem a bit late to the party, but it’s still exciting as there is one less app you’ll need to download. The screen recorder function lives in the Quick Settings tiles. You tap the Screen Record feature which gives you a few options before you start recording. For example, you can choose whether or not your screen-taps should also be recorded and whether the phone should capture audio, too. The whole thing is very simplistic, but it gets the job done.

Chat bubbles

Chat bubbles were planned for Android 10 but they faded into the background when the stable version of the OS launched. Now chat bubbles are here in Android 11 and taking centre stage. If you’ve ever used Facebook Messenger on Android, you already know how chat bubbles work. With Messenger, a “chat head” appears on your phone that overlays on top of pretty much every other app. A quick tap of the icon launches the chat and then you can minimize the chat back to an icon. You can remove the chat head until the next conversation starts. This is exactly how the system-wide bubble feature works, with the only major difference being that it can work for any chat app, not just Messenger or other apps that have a similar design.

Dark Theme Scheduling

Google finally introduced a native dark mode to Android 10 last year. However, it was fairly simplistic: it was either on or off. Meanwhile, Android skins from other manufacturers allow users to control when and why dark mode should be activated. With Android 11, users can now schedule the dark theme using one of two different metrics. Users can schedule a dark theme to turn on or off when the sun sets or rises. Users can also set up a custom schedule for dark mode activation if you wish.

Wireless Android Auto

Till now your phone had to be plugged in to use Android Auto. But in Android 11, every smartphone running the OS can take advantage of wireless Android Auto connections. The only limitation will be that the head unit in your car will need to support the feature. Obviously, this will still be a hefty limitation for folks who own cars that are a few years old, but it will start the transition towards every Android Auto experience eventually being totally wireless.

Share sheet

There is no doubt that Android’s sharing system was a mess. Thankfully, it is about to get more useful with Android 11. You can now pin apps to your share sheet in order to easily access them whenever you want to share something. This feature allows users to control which apps appear at the top of the list when you want to share something. Android’s current system of presenting apps in an order that it determines is confusing.

Improved voice access

By turning on voice access, you can simply tell your Android phone what to do using the power of Google Assistant. With Android 10, though, certain functions required you to voice-activate numbered on-screen elements. For example, you would say “Tap 4” while using the Twitter app to compose a new tweet (every link on the page would have a small number next to it). Now, though, you could say, “Open Twitter, compose tweet,” making your interactions with the phone much more fluid and natural. While this will only be helpful for a minority of users, it shows how Google is taking accessibility within Android very seriously.

Conclusion

To wrap it up, there are many minor changes in the new Android OS and many apps might get affected from the updates. This is why it is required to test the apps on the devices loaded with Android 11. This will ensure that the app works fine on different devices and also on different OS versions. So instead of buying the flagship devices on which the latest Android is available, you can just login to the pCloudy platform and test your app on real devices. It’s much more efficient as there is no issue of sharing the devices with other team members and you can perform manual and automated tests from anywhere, anytime.

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Most of the businesses have websites as the primary source of branding and communication. This is why they are looking for testing platforms that can improve the overall performance of the website and make an impactful first impression to gain a huge customer base. pCloudy has launched a groundbreaking feature called browser cloud, where you can test desktop web apps on real Windows/Mac machines. Testing your website in pCloudy’s browser cloud will ensure a stable and responsive user interface to provide a great digital experience.

The factors that mostly obstruct the smooth functioning of a website are the various combinations of browsers, operating systems, and devices available in the market. To perform cross-browser testing on various combinations can be difficult as you might have to set up a device lab. pCloudy’s browser cloud consists of a gamut of OS, browser, and device combinations which will easily facilitate browser compatibility testing. Also, pCloudy being a cloud platform that is ideal for parallel testing increases the speed of testing web applications by multiple folds.

Once you login to pCloudy, you just need to select the browsers tab and you will see all the devices with their OS versions and pre-installed browser versions. You can change the resolution of the screen and take screenshots of the issues that you find on the website. Testing websites on local networks is also possible through the Wildnet tool available in the browser cloud. These are some of the features which make pCloudy highly recommendable for testing and developing high-performance web applications. Enterprises are focusing on providing quality multi-experience to their customers. pCloudy is a great platform where you can test mobile apps, desktop web apps, and leverage integrations to deliver a quality experience through multiple channels.nn

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“Instead of pretending that we are living some great story, we must remain focused on the execution -and on executing with excellence. We must shun the false crown and continue working on what got us here.”- Ryan Holiday

Few months back I read the book “Ego is the Enemy” by Ryan Holiday and I’ve been a huge fan of this book since then. This book belongs on the bedside of everyone who aspires to be a leader as there’s plenty of value that one can gain from this book and I thought I’d share some of those valuable advices in this article.

Whenever we hear the word enemy, we probably think of somebody else from the outside but in our quest to reach our goals, we are our only worst enemy. Ryan says “Wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, your worst enemy already lives inside you: your ego.” It is true that all of us, with no exception, have a certain level of ego and pride but to succeed in life we need some serious ego eradicating work to be done.

Ego in this context refers to unhealthy belief in our own abilities, our arrogance and self centered ambition. Ego makes us believe that we are a true hero, that we know a lot more than we actually know. The ability to accurately assess our skills is extremely valuable, and by allowing ego to inflate it, prevents us from having a realistic assessment of our abilities and leads us to delusion. We really can’t learn anything if we have an “I know it all” attitude. This fantasy of greatness stops us from learning and collaborating with others and hinders our growth as Epictetus rightly said “It is impossible for a man to learn that, which he thinks he already knows.”

We must adopt a forever student mindset because there’s so much left in this world for us to learn. We can do it by striving to learn from everyone and looking for areas to improve on a daily basis. Actually, it is easy to be a student before we become successful and great but the real challenge is to stay in a student mindset even after achieving great success. If you look at the life of worlds smartest business people like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates and Warren Buffet, despite being highly successful, they spend an incredible amount of time reading books to learn new things. This mindset only comes if we practice humility, accept our setbacks and are open minded to learn.

Our ego has the tendency to blow everything out of proportion, both good and bad. Sometimes, when we get good results, we overestimate our abilities and get trapped into thinking that we know a lot better than we actually are. Other times, when the results are bad, our ego tells us that it’s not our fault and blame anything and anyone but for us. Instead when we meet failure, we must respond with humility, strength and responsibility instead of pitying oneself and complaining about others.

“In life, there will be times when we do everything right, perhaps even perfectly. Yet the results will somehow be negative: failure, disrespect, jealousy, or even a resounding yawn from the world.” – Ryan Holiday

We have minimal control over the rewards for our work and effort so we shouldn’t attach our ego to people’s validation, recognition and rewards. We can’t let trivial items like these motivate us. We can control only our actions, and that’s exactly where we must find our satisfaction and peace of mind. When we meet our own standards and know that we’ve tried our best that is what must fill us with pride and self – respect.

At the end of the day, if you are experiencing success, congratulate yourself, turn right back around, get back to work, and continue learning and hustling.But if you are experiencing a failure, deal with the situation and move past it by taking responsibility, learn something from it and start working again. Always, give your best and forget the rest.

Lastly, on our journey to success, we will encounter individuals who might deceive, offend and hurt us. This might piss us off and sometimes we might even seek retribution but this is the ego’s doing. It is our ego that makes us wants to hate them and seek payback but this is a distraction. If we are busy hating and getting revenge, we aren’t focusing on our work and aren’t going anywhere near success. Instead, a far better response would be love. Love yourself and those who did wrong to you. I know this is easier said than done.

Ryan says “In failure or adversity, it’s so easy to hate. Hate defers blame. It makes someone else responsible… Does this get us any closer to where we want to be? No. It just keeps us where we are… Meanwhile, love is right. Ego less, open, positive, vulnerable, peaceful, and productive.”

Always, stay humble, stay focused, show love and remember to suppress the ego’s silent evil talk in our heads.

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