This month’s edition of Testing Experience is dedicated entirely to mobile app testing! Here’s a rundown of the articles:

Mobile App Performance – How to Ensure High-Quality Experiences
All about real world performance and user expectations, this article covers user’s “need for speed,” the importance of capturing real world data, the business impact of poor performance, how to deal with third party integrations and some helpful tips for making your mobile app as fast as possible.

Roadblocks and their workaround while testing mobile applications
This article breaks down the challenges of mobile apps and testing into six easy-to-understand categories: Environment challenges and Application challenges, User’s challenges, Device challenges, Network challenges, Automation challenges. It shows a nice understanding of dealing with the mobile testing matrix.

Main issues in mobile app testing
This article lists the major mobile testing issues as: User experience; Coverage of available mobile hardware; Connectivity; Security. It also briefly covers integrating the testing methods in the article with agile dev.

Beyond the Smartphone – Testing for the Developing World
Remembering that feature phones still outnumber smartphones, this article takes a look at how best to test for feature phones and how to translate some smartphone testing criteria into the feature phone realm.

Best Practices in Mobile App Testing
The author provides short lists of tips for functional and non-functional testing, plus discusses device fragmentation, tools and the usefulness of internal beta releases and of being involved in the larger testing community to keep up-to-date and on your toes.

Mobile Test Strategy
This article covers a lot. It includes an overview of how mobile is evolving and what the app landscape looks like right now.  It gives pointers, guidelines and tools for testing – including sections on simulators, emulators and automation. Functional testing, load and performance testing, user experience testing, and accessibility and security testing each get their own sections.

Driven Development for the Android Platform
Focused specifically on Android web apps, this is a fairly technical article with a lot of screen shots. It promotes the Behavior Driven Development aspect of agile development.

There’s a Test for That
This article “analyzes the differences between testing mobile apps and ‘regular’ software” in an attempt to determine if mobile app testing requires software testing know-how or just common sense. The author highlights usability, portability, security, efficiency/performance/continuity, and an app tester profile.

Testing on a Real Handset vs. Testing on a Simulator – The Big Battle
The author looks at criteria like Time & Money, Hardware connections, Security, Errors and Interoperability testing from the perspective of simulated and read device tests to highlight the pros and cons of each.

What Makes a Good Tester?
This article highlights five specific personality traits that make for a great tester: Agreeableness; Extraversion; Neuroticism; Conscientiousness; Openness to Experience

4E Framework from Mobile Network Variability Testing
This article provides readers with several scenarios and consequences for network issues and talks them through setting up network variability testing. You’ll just have to read the article to find out what the four Es are.

Enterprise Mobile Testing for Success
A hot button topic right now, this article walks readers through the basics of mobile app testing at the enterprise level. Expect to read about different basic areas of testing, test scope, how to overcome complexity, tools and using both simulators and real testers.

Mobile App Testing
A walk through of different testing types, methods and the most common operating systems to consider. Plus a look at testing solutions and an analysis of which is best.

Context-Dependent Testing of Apps
The nature of smartphones means constantly changing environments and use patterns. This article proposes a method for dealing with the testing challenges that come with the ever changing environmental context of smartphones.

Testing Maturity – Where Are We Today?
This column gives an analysis of nearly 50 Testing Maturity Model integration (TMMi) assessments from the past four years. The authors hope it will give readers an understanding of the state of testing maturity in the industry today.

Mobile Business Application Testing Automation: A Novel Approach
Clearly this article takes a pro-automation stance. The best part of the article is the walk through of mobile automation tools and, more importantly, a checklist for choosing the right one for your needs.

Lots of good stuff in this issue! If you’re in the mobile testing world you’ll definitely want to take the time to read through this month’s Testing Experience.