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Jeroline | Posted on | 2 min Read

7 Types Of Mobile App Testing

Introduction

In today’s highly competitive mobile app market, delivering a flawless user experience is essential. Mobile apps are constantly updated with new features, bug fixes, and optimizations to meet user expectations. To ensure quality across diverse devices, operating systems, and networks, different types of testing methods are required. These testing techniques help ensure that apps not only function well but also provide a seamless, reliable, and enjoyable user experience. In this blog, we’ll explore seven essential types of mobile app testing, along with the challenges that arise and the solutions to overcome them.

Compatibility Testing

Key Compatibility Factors

 

Compatibility testing ensures that a mobile app works across a variety of operating systems, device models, screen sizes, and hardware configurations. This type of testing is critical because mobile users access apps on a wide range of devices with varying capabilities, and failure to support even a subset of these can lead to user frustration and lost customers.

Key factors that impact compatibility testing include:

 

  • Operating System Versions: iOS, Android, and their various versions.
  • Device Models: Different devices (phones, tablets) from manufacturers like Samsung, Apple, Huawei, etc.
  • Screen Sizes & Resolutions: Apps must adapt to a variety of screen sizes and pixel densities.
  • Internal Hardware: Testing on devices with varying memory, processor speeds, and storage capacity.

Challenges and Solutions

Challenge:

One of the biggest challenges in compatibility testing is the sheer number of device combinations that need to be tested. Managing physical devices in-house is expensive and resource-intensive.

Solution:

Cloud-based testing platforms like Pcloudy provide an efficient solution by giving access to thousands of real devices with different OS versions and hardware configurations. This helps teams to automate compatibility tests and scale their testing efforts without maintaining physical labs. Pcloudy also enables parallel testing across multiple devices, speeding up the overall process.

Installation Testing

Key Focus Areas

Installation testing is one of the first interactions a user has with a mobile app. It ensures that an app installs, uninstalls, and updates without issues. This testing is critical to verify the app’s ability to install smoothly across various devices and handle future updates seamlessly.

Key areas to focus on include:

  • App Installation: Testing how the app installs under different conditions, such as with limited storage or in different installation locations (e.g., internal memory, SD card).
  • App Updates: Ensuring that the app updates smoothly without causing data loss or crashes.
  • Uninstallation: Verifying that uninstallation removes all app data and does not leave residual files.
  • Post-Installation: Ensuring the app launches properly after installation and functions as intended.

Challenges and Solutions

Challenge:

The main challenge in installation testing is handling various installation environments, especially on devices with low memory or unstable network connections. Additionally, testing installation scenarios across different OS versions and devices can be complex.

Solution:

Using a cloud-based testing product like Pcloudy, QA teams can test on real devices under real-world conditions. Pcloudy provides access to thousands of actual mobile devices with varying configurations, enabling teams to test scenarios like low-memory conditions, update handling, and different installation environments. Automation tools help execute various user actions during the installation process, ensuring robust testing across multiple environments without manual intervention. This ensures that your app installs, updates, and uninstalls smoothly across different devices and conditions, providing users with a seamless experience.

Interruption Testing

Common Interruptions to Test

 

Interruption testing evaluates how well a mobile app handles unexpected events, such as incoming calls, network disruptions, or battery drains, while the app is running. The goal is to ensure that the app resumes normal functionality after an interruption.

Common interruptions to test include:

  • Incoming calls and SMS notifications while the app is in use.
  • Battery low, battery removal, or plugging the device into charging.
  • OS updates that occur while the app is running in the background.
  • Network disconnection and reconnection
  • Device shutdown or reboot while using the app.

Interrupt Testing Process

Challenges and Solutions

Challenge:

Replicating real-world interruptions, especially across different devices, OS versions, and network conditions, can be difficult to reproduce consistently.

Solution:

Pcloudy provides a reliable environment to automate and simulate interruptions such as network loss, incoming calls, or device shutdowns. Tools like Monkey (for Android) or UI Auto Monkey (for iOS) help simulate interruption scenarios, allowing testers to monitor how well the app recovers from these events. Automating these tests across multiple devices ensures thorough coverage.

Localization Testing

Types of Localization Testing

Localization testing ensures that a mobile app is tailored to a specific geographic region, considering cultural, linguistic, and regional differences. This testing verifies that the app works seamlessly when localized for various languages, currencies, time zones, and formatting conventions.

Four key types of localization testing include:

  • Linguistic Testing: Ensures that all text in the app is properly translated and adapted to the target language. This includes avoiding mistranslations or phrases that don’t make sense in the local context.
  • Cultural Testing: Ensures that content is culturally appropriate. Some symbols, colors, or phrases may have different meanings in various cultures, and testing ensures nothing offensive or inappropriate is presented to users.
  • Cosmetic Testing: Verifies that the layout and design elements fit well with the localized content. For example, languages like Arabic and Hebrew, which read right-to-left, require changes to app design.
  • Functional Testing: Ensures that the app functions correctly in the localized environment, including handling local date formats, currency, and special characters.

Challenges and Solutions

 

Challenge:

Managing translations and ensuring cultural accuracy across multiple regions can be challenging, especially with languages that have different text directions, such as Arabic or Hebrew. Additionally, it’s important to ensure that all text is properly displayed without breaking the app layout.

Solution:

Tools like Pcloudy allow testers to run localization tests across real devices in different regions, ensuring linguistic and functional accuracy. Automated scripts can be used to check for proper translation, layout adaptation, and functionality. Pcloudy provides access to a wide range of devices from different locales, helping to ensure comprehensive localization testing across multiple regions.

Performance Testing

Key Areas in Performance Testing

Performance testing is essential to ensure that the mobile app performs optimally under various conditions, such as high load, different network speeds, and limited device resources. It identifies performance bottlenecks, stability issues, and overall app responsiveness.

The three primary areas of focus in mobile performance testing are:

  • Device Performance: Testing how the app behaves on different devices, with a focus on start-up time, memory consumption, and battery usage. High memory or battery consumption can lead to users uninstalling the app.
  • Network Performance: Testing how the app handles different network conditions, such as slow or unstable connections. This includes testing the app’s ability to manage packet loss, network delays, and connectivity interruptions.
  • Server/API Performance: Testing how efficiently the app communicates with the server and processes API requests. Slow or inefficient API calls can degrade the user experience, especially in data-heavy apps.

Challenges and Solutions

Challenge:

Replicating real-world conditions like varying network speeds or high traffic loads is a significant challenge. Ensuring that the app works well under different device configurations while maintaining performance consistency is also complex.

Solution:

Pcloudy’s network simulation feature allows QA teams to replicate different network conditions, such as low bandwidth or high latency, to test how well the app performs under challenging conditions. Additionally, using tools like Pcloudy to run performance tests across multiple devices ensures that device-specific issues, such as excessive battery drain or memory usage, are identified and addressed early in the development cycle.

Usability Testing

Important Usability Factors

 

Usability testing ensures that the app is user-friendly and provides an intuitive, seamless experience. This type of testing focuses on how easy it is for users to navigate through the app, complete tasks, and interact with the app’s features.

Key factors in usability testing include:

 

  • Navigation Ease: Testing the workflow to ensure users can easily navigate through the app with minimal effort. Complex workflows or unintuitive navigation paths can frustrate users.

                                Example of Navigation Path

  • Design & Layout: Verifying that the app’s design is user-friendly, with clear, well-organized content. Elements like finger-friendly buttons, minimal text entry, and intuitive visual cues are essential for a positive user experience.
  • Response Time: Ensuring that the app responds quickly to user inputs without lag or unnecessary delays. A slow response time can lead to a poor user experience and high uninstall rates.
  • User Engagement: Testing how well the app engages users emotionally. A successful app should be smart enough to predict user actions, offer personalized experiences, and keep users motivated to continue using it.

Challenges and Solutions

Challenge:

Usability testing can be subjective, as user preferences and behaviors vary. It’s difficult to ensure that the app will be intuitive for all user types and across different demographics. Additionally, collecting meaningful feedback from users to guide improvements can be challenging.

Solution:

Tools like Mr. Tappy or Reflector can capture real user interactions during usability testing, allowing testers to observe how users navigate and respond to the app. Recording user sessions helps teams identify pain points and optimize the user experience. Pcloudy’s cloud-based platform allows for testing on a wide range of devices, ensuring that the app remains user-friendly across different screen sizes, input types, and configurations.

Conformance Testing

Key Conformance Testing Areas

Conformance testing, also known as compliance testing, ensures that your mobile app adheres to industry standards, regulatory requirements, and marketplace guidelines. This type of testing is critical, especially when submitting apps to app stores or meeting enterprise policy guidelines. Ensuring conformance can prevent rejections from app marketplaces and avoid penalties related to non-compliance with industry regulations.

The two key areas of conformance testing include:

  • App Store Guidelines: Every app marketplace, like Google Play or Apple’s App Store, has specific guidelines covering areas such as user interface (UI), privacy policies, content restrictions (e.g., nudity, violence, cultural sensitivity), and data protection. Failure to comply can result in app rejection or removal from the store.

Enterprise Policy Compliance: In some industries, apps must comply with industry-specific regulations. For instance, healthcare apps may need to comply with HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act), while pharmaceutical apps may fall under FDA (Food and Drug Administration) guidelines. Meeting these standards is essential to maintaining credibility and avoiding legal issues.

Challenges and Solutions

Challenge:

Staying up-to-date with app store guidelines and ensuring that the app meets the ever-changing standards of different marketplaces can be difficult. Moreover, managing compliance with strict industry regulations can be overwhelming, particularly when apps are released across multiple regions with differing legal frameworks.

Solution:

Pcloudy offers a comprehensive conformance testing solution that helps validate whether your app meets both app store guidelines and industry regulations. Automated checks ensure your app complies with the latest app store rules before submission, while the platform’s flexibility allows for testing specific compliance criteria related to industries like healthcare or finance. Pcloudy’s regular updates keep testers informed of any changes to app store guidelines, reducing the risk of non-compliance.

Conclusion

In an increasingly competitive mobile app market, delivering a high-quality user experience is crucial to success. Testing your app across various dimensions—compatibility, installation, interruptions, localization, performance, usability, and conformance—ensures that it functions seamlessly and meets user expectations across different devices, regions, and conditions. Each type of testing addresses specific challenges that can impact an app’s performance, usability, or compliance with industry standards.

The challenges associated with these testing types can be daunting, but with cloud-based testing platforms like Pcloudy, teams can automate, scale, and simplify the testing process. From testing real-world interruptions to ensuring app store compliance, Pcloudy offers the tools and resources to ensure comprehensive mobile app testing without the hassle of managing physical devices or manual testing efforts.

By incorporating these testing strategies, mobile app developers and QA teams can confidently release bug-free apps that provide a flawless user experience, leading to higher user satisfaction, increased app downloads, and long-term customer retention.

Suyash Dubey | Posted on | 2 min Read

Mobile App Testing Strategies

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:
Mobile device categorisation

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.
Mobile cloud

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.

Avinash Tiwari | Posted on | 2 min Read

Application Performance Monitoring

What is Application Performance Monitoring (APM)?

 

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) involves employing various strategies and tools to ensure the efficient operation of business applications. These apps need to meet the performance, reliability, and user experience requirements set by stakeholders, such as employees, clients, and partners.

 

Mobile Application Performance Monitoring is a part of the broader term Application Performance Management, which encompasses all aspects of managing an application’s performance, while APM focuses on monitoring an application’s performance. In simple terms, monitoring is an integral part of management.

 

What is the purpose of APM?

The main goal of Application Performance Monitoring (APM) is to maintain an application’s optimal performance and smooth operation. It enables linking application performance to business results, detecting and correcting mistakes before they impact end-users, and minimizing mean time to repair, aiding organizations in maintaining business continuity and enhancing customer satisfaction

 

Why is APM crucial?

 

Application Performance Monitoring (APM) is important because of all the advantages it offers to a business in terms of operational effectiveness, brand recognition, and long-term cost savings.

 

By enabling front-end monitoring, managing the user experience, back-end monitoring of the services and dependencies used by the app, and infrastructure monitoring, APM offers improved collaboration and coordination in the application delivery process. This promotes seamless and transparent application delivery and the elimination of silos.

 

APM safeguards the organization’s reputation and brand image by ensuring applications are reliable and accessible. Poor application performance can lead to user dissatisfaction, lower application utilization, slower adoption, and decreased revenue. APM is essential to maintaining a good reputation and ensuring application success.

 

App Performance while conducting Manual Tests

The performance of an app can be viewed real-time while conducting functional tests. You can simply select the application installed on the device from the Tools section to view a graph of Memory and CPU usage, with the packets/bytes consumed in the Data Usage.

application performance monitoring
application performance monitoring

All information captured during a app testing session is gathered by the platform and stored in a secure location to be used later. When a tester completes his testing session using a device, the performance related information can be found in the Cloud Drive.

 

Battery Consumption

The Battery Consumption graph indicates Battery consumption by Device, Battery consumption by Application and Battery consumption in %.

Perf_Battery_Consumption

 CPU Consumption

The CPU consumption of an App is plotted as CPU consumption in percentage against Time Duration in seconds.

Perf_CPU_Consumption

 

Memory Consumption

The CPU consumption of an App is plotted as Memory consumption in ‘Mb’ against Time Duration in seconds.

Perf_Mem_Consumption

How pCloudy can help you?

 

Mobile application testing does not stop when all the functional tests pass. Testing the application performance monitoring is a critical step before releasing it.

 

pCloudy helps you with performance profiling of your mobile apps. You can view the CPU usage, Memory usage, Data usage and Battery consumption while performing a series of actions on the app. The Real time app performance monitoring feature helps you to keep track of the app’s performance while conducting manual tests. You can even check the performance consistency of the app by running automation test suites in parallel on multiple devices and by also simulating different network environments.

 

Priyanka Charak | Posted on | 2 min Read

5 Reasons Why Appium is The Best Mobile Automation Testing Tool on Device Cloud

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:

 

Test App
An impressive expression by Appium.io showing why to choose Appium

 

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.

 

Appium Automation Testing 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:

Shivani Sinha | Posted on | 2 min Read

Moving Beyond Traditional App Testing with AI and DevOps

App Testing with AI and DevOps

 
Are we not living in an amazing time? Technologically advanced, digitally sound!

 

We thrive on all things digital. The world around us is becoming all digital with limitless possibilities. Today as a consumer, you can preorder your coffee, interact with augmented reality in the store, and skip the lines at store with alternative payment methods.

 

To cut the story short, as a consumer, we have access to unlimited goods and services and connected around us. And mobile is at the center of all this change. It’s the tool that is bridging the gap between the digital and physical.

 

And the availability of 5 million apps come as a proof of this explosion. In the first quarter of 2018, Apple had 2 million apps on App store. As of the same quarter, Android users were able to choose between 3.8 million apps. More and more businesses are adopting Mobile Apps as their primary channel for business growth. This explosion proves that mobile is at the core of customer experience.

 

Before moving further into the topic, you can watch the entire webinar here or else you can skip the video and continue reading to get the gist of the webinar.

 

 
As a business mobile Apps are not just another channel. More and more organization are realizing that it can be a means to create awesome customer experiences. There are numerous examples to illustrate.

 

One such example is Starbucks.

The secret to Starbucks’ app’s success is that it gives users an intuitive experience, making it as easy to find a store, order your coffee and make a payment through their wallet. Recently, Starbucks has also taken the mobile app experience one step further with an innovative conversational ordering system powered by Artificial Intelligence (AI). The explosion in mobile apps imply to speed. How quickly you can make a change and let the customer experience it? The mathematics of velocity matter here. Market speed has left companies with a simple problem: How do we go faster than we ever have before, without losing an eye on quality?

 
The success stories like Facebook and Netflix tell us that we can
It is an amazing fact that Facebook mobile app is updated and refreshed every two weeks like clockwork. That’s the new normal. We will talk about this example in detail a little later in the webinar.

 

So in order to gain Quality@Speed, we reach to a point where experience and quality intersect and we name this convergence Quality@Speed. It’s a no brainer to say that Quality @ speed can be achieved with two fundamental principles.

 

Agile: Agility allows teams to work closely with business and it Pulls quality forward. It’s also called Shift Left of Quality. You are delivering small chunks to end consumers on weekly or monthly basis. This allows teams to get feedback early on.

 

DevOps: DevOps brings you speed. It’s a Shift left of operations.

 

Shift left of operations

 

DevOps practices allow you to create “ready to deploy code” on demand. In other words, it means deploying software and the environment on which it runs, automatically and on demand, at any stage of the software delivery lifecycle. You can truly have multiple deployment in a day.

 

If we dig deeper, DevOps is enabled by two practices Continuous Integration and Continuous Delivery. These two will not work in sync until you have continuous testing in place. It’s also proven by many independent studies.

 

Here, we have a look at the data extracted from World Quality report, 2017-18 showcasing the popular and the best practices followed in DevOps.

 

World Quality report 2017-18

 

If we have a closer look at the data, we will find that 87% of CIOs and senior tech professionals use or are planning to use cloud based test environment. Depending on choice of organization, it could a Private or public cloud but it’s a must to achieve speed.

 

Second data point is about Continuous Testing, here as well more than 80% of respondents chose this as a preferred DevOps practice.

 
Let’s look at what some of the success stories say
 

Facebook follows Ship early and Ship often approach. They update their web app multiple times a day while their Mobile Apps with frequency of almost 2 weeks. This is possible with DevOps best practices they have been following from past few years.

 

DevOps at Facebook

 

If we analyze their DevOps story in short, we find that one of the biggest takeaway for Mobile Teams is their massive investment in device infrastructure. Every time they make a change to app, it gets tested on 2000 real devices. Imagine 2000 real devices! They have bypassed use of simulators or emulators.

 
Mobile DevOps Challenges
Now let us move on to have a look at some of the Mobile DevOps challenges that comes as an obstacle on the way of mobility teams.

 
Multi-platform Support
Mobile apps have multi environmental target. Mobile apps have to deal with device fragmentation as they need to be workable on multiple devices. This poses a test for Ops team to build an optimal device infrastructure. Moreover, it is difficult to keep pace with the ever changing device requirements.

 
Mobile apps as an enterprise front end
Mobile apps, that too, mostly the enterprise mobile apps catering to business-to-consumer (B2C) or business-to-employee (B2E) segment of apps, characteristically have very less trade logic on the mobile device itself. On the other hand, a B2C or a B2E mobile app
serves as a front end to enterprise mobility already in use by the firm, such as transaction processing systems, employee HR systems, or customer acquisition systems.

 

This implies that the mobile app, available on multiple platforms as a native or Mobile Web app, needs to be built and delivered aligned with the backend services. The biggest challenge for DevOps is to think about enterprise mobility holistically and manage their build and release processes and cycles.

 
The App store
The app store includes an extra asynchronous step to the deployment procedure since developers are not able to update apps on demand. Even for grave bug fixes, new app versions need to pass through an app store submission and review process. Continuous delivery here gets a roadblock and the instant delivery becomes “submit and wait.”

 
Build Challenges
Since apps today are supported on multiple platforms, numerous different builds of the app has to be triggered each time when a change is being deployed by a developer.

 

The build system and configuration for each supported mobile environment is dissimilar from the others. You will probably require a small farm of build servers to be provisioned and available to manage these multiple operating system builds.

 
A typical Mobile DevOps Architecture
Let’s try to depict the Mobile DevOps cycle. Some of the tools mentioned here are a representative set of tools in the respective category.

 

Mobile DevOps cycle

 

It starts with a Dev checking in a code to Git/Versioning system. That triggers the CI server to build the App which could be Internal build server or a cloud system like Circle CI. Once the build is successful, Unit tests are runs on Real devices. If the Tests are pass, build is pushed to QA Env. Where Automated regression tests are triggered on real devices. If that’s a pass App compatibility tests for new features are done.

 
The Evolution
 

DevOps Tools

 

We’ve by now witnessed quite a journey to reach Continuous Testing. “Classical” testing was intended for software delivery cycles spanning months or year. Agile has changed this norm to a 2-week development iterations—but now something extra is required to meet today’s insatiable demand for software. Attempts to fasten the process further, created a chasm between Development, Test, and Operations. That gap has been bridged with DevOps and Continuous Testing in order to move beyond that speeding up plateau. However, when we look into the future, it’s clear that even Continuous Testing will not be enough. We need “Digital Testing” to achieve extra acceleration and meet the quality needs of future. AI can help us get there.

 
Mobile Testing and AI

If you keep pace with the market buzz you will find there is an ongoing debate about what AI can do? When it comes to testing, lot of theories have started predicting that AI has the ability to replace testing. Well personally I don’t see this happening in near future. But we certainly are very excited about capabilities AI present in from of us.

 
When we an organization think of using AI to sole testing problems we think on three lines
a) Can it improve speed of current testing process?
b) Can it help generate meaning full data for me to make intelligent decisions?
c) Can it improve the test coverage and reduce cost?

 

So, are you ready to adapt a personal assistant for testing. So are you ready to say? Certifaya, Can you run an App Test for me? pCloudy’s AI powered bot, can automatically test the mobile applications over hundreds of real mobile devices and gives its users real time insights into the app’s behaviour and performance. Do you want to explore more? Try Certifaya for free now and testify it yourself. You can also go through our webinar on the same topic to understand it in detail.

 

Shivani Sinha | Posted on | 2 min Read

Mobile App Performance Monitoring Basics to Advanced

Monitoring Mobile App Performance

 

Mobile Device App Testing
Source: Pixabay

With the myriad of apps cluttering our smartphone screens nowadays, it has become all the more important to optimize app performance. While going through your daily routine, you certainly don’t want useful apps hanging up or worse still, crashing abysmally.

 

In this post, you’ll know how app monitoring performance works so that you can get the best out of your smartphone software.

 

What is application performance management? 10 APM features that we can tick right off our fingers are:

  • Troubleshooting of disruption of frequent speed and uptime
  • Monitoring of the speed at which transactions are performed by end-users and systems
  • Use of a single integrated suite of software tools
  • Load-testing
  • Synthetic monitoring
  • Real-use monitoring
  • Root-cause analysis
  • Web-performance monitoring, to gauge app speed and uptime
  • An end-to-end overview of bottlenecks
  • Review of service interruptions

APM is integrated through the lifecycle of an application including the pre-deployment and post-deployment stages. It is therefore important for developers, testers, and business teams.
A slow load can be prevalent due to a host of issues related to APIs, servers, or browsers. APM techniques are what help pinpoint the actual problem.

 

Basic availability monitoring involves testing IP protocols and network services, but a user needs to establish some optimal performance thresholds and real-time alerts to monitor and manage both speed and reliability.

 

Tips for monitoring app performance

Tips for monitoring app performance
Source: Pixabay

Performance monitoring must take into account certain things in order to optimize user experience. These include measuring from the user’s point of view, i.e. performance, stability, and resource utilization in real time the way the user perceives them.

 

The context is crucial too. It’s important to determine how many users were affected by a slowdown, and what action on a specific operating device prompted the disruption. To truly experience a ‘mobile moment,’ you should follow these tips for monitoring your app performance:

 

Measure Frame rendering time

Only measuring network time doesn’t cut it out for users, who are interested in when the network resumes as well as when it responds.

Measuring response time by the device or operating system allows the product manager to focus on one platform at a time, respond to performance issues, and deploy resources accordingly.

 

Measure battery usage

It’s crucial to measure the battery consumption of your mobile app, along with data plan impact and memory usage. If the app is responsible for draining your battery, you should bring it in line with best practices.

Frequent updates can also be minimized so that user satisfaction can be increased.

 

Measure cell data consumption

Recent studies by Dimensional Research have shown that 20% of respondents stopped using apps that were heavy on data usage. This indicates that you should measure the consumption by app version, the total number of users, KBs of data consumed per minute, the amount of data being transferred per hit, and the percentage of data being consumed per hit.

 

Measure errors

HTTP errors from certain URLs need to be captured. This will help track the number of users who received an error, the actions that resulted in it, number of users with errors on app launch, the percentage of actions that led to at least one error, and the app version.

Priyanka Charak | Posted on | 2 min Read

6 Most Common Problems in Mobile App Testing

Problems in Mobile App Testing

Mobile market has shown a phenomenal growth over the years and guess who is responsible for such tremendous success- undoubtedly, it is the mobile application market and evidently its progress appears to be indomitable even in coming years. As per the research, mobile applications are expected to generate around 189 Billion USD revenue figure by 2020 merely by means of app stores and in-app advertising.. As this stream of Mobile application gets strengthened, the competition to make each app unique and effective grows even stronger. The real challenge is to maintain the competitiveness by keeping up with this fast changing industry. With so many variations in the mobile devices, it becomes a challenge in the mobile app testing to succeed in ‘All-Device’ scenario.

 

Here are the most common challenges faced in the mobile application testing:

 

1. Multiple Devices
2. Networks
3. Choice of tools
4. Screen Sizes
5. Types of Mobile Apps
6. AI Test Automation

 

1. Multiple Devices: As the mobile market is growing, it’s coming up with more advanced features that before. This becomes a challenge when mobile apps are incompatible with different Operating systems. A mobile app that runs smoothly in one OS might not work well in the other operating system and in different versions of it.

 

Android OS Distribution

 

2. Networks: This factor has the most impact on the performance of the mobile application which effects the experience of the app even more. The Wi-Fi speeds, signal strengths or the network drops can cause a bad taste in the mouth of the end user. Since all the network carriers are supporting different data volumes, it is important to test the bandwidth usage. A mobile app tester has to consider all these factors and ensure the app runs smoothly on all networks.Testing on real networks is a fundamental practice to check the existent challenges of testing. In order to cater to this situation, pCloudy offers such a testing environment where the user can test their apps on different network conditions on real mobile devices on cloud.

 

network-simulation-tool

 

3. Choice of tools: Testing is the vital aspect of Mobile App Development life Cycle and there are myriads of tools available in the market. pCloudy offers access to tools like Espresso, Appium, Selenium, OpKey, Calabash, Jenkins and many more. Choosing the right tool as per the requirement is the most important decision. The efficacy of MAT process would completely depend upon the competency of the Test-automation tool.

 

Things to consider before tool evaluation:

  • Type of apps: Apps can be native, hybrid or web. While the trend is inclined towards hybrid apps but the tool of choice should be competent enough to support other kinds of apps.
  • Cloud Testing: Implementing a test automation cloud empowers teams to perform testing on any automation external testing framework .Moreover, the test results can be accessed from any location worldwide.
  • OS Support: Most of the apps are developed for IOS and Android but the scope can expand to Windows, Firefox OS, etc., anytime as the customer base increases. So, the automation tool should be able to support all platforms.

 

Frameworks

 

4. Screen Sizes: There are numerous devices-Android or IOS, available with different screen sizes. It is quite a challenge to test for each screen size. IOS mobile app developers who mostly focus on pixel perfect screen design now have to focus more on adaptive without changing all necessary screen elements. So, the businesses have no choice but to change their mobile app design as per the screen size of the devices to offer a top- notch user experience.

 

webdev

 

5. Types of Mobile Apps: Mobile apps can be based on either of these three architectures-native , hybrid or web application. All these types have different test case scenarios, and have different app behavior from installation to functionality.The decision of how the app will be tested depends on all these aspects.

 

Native Hybrid Apps

 

6. AI Test Automation: AI testing automation has become a vital part of the testing world and is the future of automated app testing. AI Bots can create test cases automatically, generate test codes etc., just by defining a specific testing goal and by providing the initial stage inputs. People still believe in traditional test approach without encouraging and believing testing by Bots at the times when Automated AI testing bots are the Golden Key to MAT automation success.

 

A good mobile app testing strategy would include a right mix of testing on real devices, user testing and bot testing all at a single platform.

 

pCloudy provides a biggest cloud platform for automated and manual testing of mobile apps on real devices. It has its own cluster of real devices hosted on cloud to test IOS and Android Apps. Visit pCloudy to choose your plan for availing the best MAT services.

Priyanka Charak | Posted on | 2 min Read

5 Best Practices App Testing Companies Must Follow for Success

App Testing Companies Must Follow

 

Today, the world is earnestly dependent on mobility devices and so is their dependency on the mobile applications. The number of smartphone users are expected to reach 3 billion by 2019 out of which India alone covers half a million. So, it becomes impertinent to have an extremely practical mobile application strategy to make the usage of it more effective. Unless the mobile application is acceptable and extremely compelling to the users, it becomes inconsequential to even trade in it. So, there is a huge responsibility on the shoulders of Mobile application companies to assure the accessibility, security, purpose and usability of the mobile application to make it noticeable and engaging enough in long term.

 

pCloudy is fully equipped cloud based platform with a strong principled approach to tackle and heed the performance of today’s robust mobile applications. Following are the 5 best practices to count on for successful mobile app testing:

 

1. Master Plan
2. Device Testing
3. An early stage testing move
4. Crowd Sourced App Testing
5. Automation

 

1. Master Plan: A common plan is what will drive the team towards the ultimate business goal. Defining the testing approach, the effort, the timeline and the expected results would solve a lot of anticipated problems in different testing phases.

 

2. Device Testing: Some important points in context to devices are:

  • Testing on every possible device is what looks promising but is impossible. So, testers have to be smart and cover the largest market with largest sample size.
  • Testing on real devices is what is going to be the reality check and is going to give a better idea of the challenges and the convenience of the general usability of the app.
  • Test on more than one OS version to check interface compatibility and consistency.

 

5 Best Practices App Testing

 

3. An early stage testing move: Testing early ensures quality and makes the application more favorable in the market as per the new approaches in mobile application development. To minimize the defects at later stages, testing efforts should start at the early stages of mobile app development life cycle.

 

mobile app development life cycle

 

4. Crowd Sourced App Testing: The best platform to employ the benefits of cloud which allows global pool of experts from all over the world to be utilized for incomparable testing practices and performance saving both time and money.Not to be considered as a replacement of traditional testing but it has some obvious benefits of testing in real world conditions and without investing in full-time testers. With more participation,feedback and reporting actions, crowd testing has become a reliable and most sought practice today. With the help of pCloudy’s global crowd, testing has become an easy ballgame ensuring app testing in different environments with different network bandwidth, on different devices and on time delivery.

 

crowd source

 

5. Automation: Test Automation is what a machine does much faster and with less error than humans. This approach would save a lot of time, cost and would provide great return on investment but for reaping all these benefits, this has to be properly planned as it involves good investment, training and cost of trained resources and tools.If the objectives are undefined, it can lead to wastage of time and resources.

 

Mobile app testing is facing challenges in terms of changes in networks, operating systems and of course devices. So, the functioning and performance of the mobile applications becomes the prime focus. Selecting the best tool and the reason of doing so is very important. A strategy with clear objectives would be an informed move and a savior in this decision making process.

 

In the end, all we have to keep in mind is the user is happy using the app and is able to fulfil the purpose. All of this cannot be achieved by an individual but by the effort and strength of the team of both Developers and testers. There can always be brainstorming and learning from failures but the real game can be played by having a strong unified strategy.

 

pCloudy is a market leader in mobile app testing providing a wide range of MAT services. It has the most powerful mobile app testing platform which gives you a chance to access to real Android and IOS devices in a single click. Connect with our expert team to build a customized MAT strategy for your mobile application.

Avinash Tiwari | Posted on | 2 min Read

Welcome to pCloudy 5.0

pCloudy 5.0

 

pCloudy is a unified mobile app testing platform which is trusted by its users for its excellent performance. We have more than 30,000 users across the globe, and we have received an overwhelming response for our platform. From bot testing to crowd testing, pCloudy has always been a front runner in the market. And with the launch of pCloudy 5.0, we are up for the challenge once again. It is a re-imagined and re-worked upon platform created in-line with intelligence to meet the market demands and accelerate delivery.

 

Let us have a look at what’s new here:

 

 

 

Features

 

a. iOS Connect
b. Automation Studio
c. Follow Me

 

a) iOS Connect: One of the very powerful features that we added is the iOS Connect. The major challenge iOS developers had been facing was the debugging of their iOS apps because of the difficult Apple guidelines regarding building any utility . We are proud to say that we have been successful in cracking that.
With iOS Connect, you can connect to an iOS Device which is present remotely and access the device as if the device is connected to your computer. With iOS Connect we are bridging the gap for the iOS development life cycle.

 

iOS Connect

 

b) Automation Studio: It is another promising feature that can revolutionize mobile app automation. We now have an in-built automation studio in pCloudy platform where you can access the devices to record your test scripts and execute it in parallel on multiple devices without writing any code.

 

There’s something more to it! If you already have your projects on Appium you can record your new workflows and export it to Appium Java format. This new integration would not only enable every user to start creating Automation scripts but it will also help Appium users to speed up their Automation. This makes pCloudy truly a Unified app testing platform.

 

Automation Studio Launch

 

c) Follow me: It is again one of the ‘wow’ features of pCloudy 5.0. This feature can speed up your App Testing exponentially. Follow me allows you to test your apps on 3 unique device while performing your test on only 1 device, thus saving your testing time multi-folds.

 

Follow Me

 

Re-Imagined UI

 

It has been designed to give a leaner, simpler and faster user experience. The look and feel of the pCloudy platform has been transformed keeping in mind the requirements, usability and ease of our users. All the pages have been made more intuitive. To simplify, we have grouped the actions together to save your time in figuring out the next step.

 

a. True Collaboration
b. Global File Storage
c. Comprehensive reports at a single stop
d. Test Scheduler

 

a) True Collaboration: We have introduced a powerful feature on our revamped Device Interaction page. Now, you can take the screenshot of the action you are performing and see the screenshot next to the device. But, the icing on the cake is that you can edit the screenshot, save it and log a bug directly to the JIRA enabling true collaboration between the developers and testers.

 

UI Design

 

b) Global File Storage: Heeding to the demands of our users we have reduced the clicks to perform any action on the File browsing /storage page. The file uploaded once will be available across all the different locations we have. It will also allow sharing of files across teams.

 

Global File Storage

 

c) Comprehensive reports at a single stop: Now, to make the user experience simpler and faster, we have placed all your reports at single stop be it manual or automation across all locations. Not just that, you can see all reports in the same format with much detailed information. Raising bugs after analyzing reports is also possible from here.

 

comprehensive-reports-at-a-single-stop

 

d) Test Scheduler: We have re-designed this page based on a Guided interface where the interactions are more thoughtful, straightforward, and guide you to the next step. It needs zero learning to run automation scripts on multiple devices.

 

Test Scheduler

 

pCloudy 5.0 is another breakthrough for us. After launching pCloudy 5.0, it is time to get feedback on a larger scale. We’re going to continue improving the UI, the navigation, and add some futuristic features to make your app testing simpler and faster. While we do that, we’d love to continue getting feedback.

Avinash Tiwari | Posted on | 2 min Read

Tips To Use Devices More Effectively

pCloudy Platform

 
This article explains the options available on device page. These options will help you use the devices effectively on pCloudy platform. pCloudy is a feature rich platform and supports whole lot of features to ease your device interaction. There are many single click options to speed up your testing on devices. On connecting to a device, You will see many icons in the top pane.

Lets understand what each of these icons/features does for you.

 

Device icons

 

1.
Camera

Capture high resolution screen shots with the skin of the device

2.
landscape and portrait devices

Change the orientation of the device to Landscape and portrait

3.
Cross Browser Testing

Open the browser from the list of preinstalled browsers

4.
Keyboard

Use the extended keyboard if you want to enter some text on the device. However, for Android ver 5.0 and above you can directly enter the text from your system keyboard

5.
Battery

Check the stack trace (crash logs) if the application is crashed

6.
Cursor
Navigate the application with the buttons
7.
zoom in zoom out

Zoom in/out the device shown on the screen

8.
zoom default icon
Reset the zoom level to bring the device to default size
9.
re-connect to a device

Click to Re-connect if the device shows black screen

10.
Extend Device Session

Extend the session if the device is available

11.
Wake Up

Wake up the device from sleep mode or push the device to sleep mode

12.
Stop Device Session
Release the device back to the cloud

 

pCloudy’s Device Settings tab has lot of commonly used features and device interactions. Some of the key features to test are Network, Location and Audio.

Lets see those in details.

 

mobile device settings

1.
Reboot Device
Reboot the device remotely
2.
Toggle Wifi

Switch ON/OFF wifi

3.
Adjust Volume
Adjust the device volume
4.
Manage Apps

Manage your apps on the device

5.
Network Profile

Throttle network to simulate different network conditions

6.
add google account
Add Google account
7.
Set Phone Location

Teleport the device – Set any location of the earth on the device

8.
Settings

Open Device settings on the device

9.
Open play store on mobile device

Open play store on the device

10.
open developer options on website

Open developer options on the device

11.
Inject Audio

Send audio commands to the device for testing applications which supports audio commands