Mobile App Testing

Before we get too far into 2012 lets take a look at the trends going into this year. Here are some key facts about the 2011 mobile market, from InformationWeek:

It’s Apple, Samsung Versus Everyone Else: Globally, Apple sold 37 million iPhones in the fourth quarter of 2011 and 93 million for the entire year. Samsung sold 36.5 million smartphones during the fourth quarter and 97.4 million for the entire year. Nokia ranks a distant third, with 19 million smartphones sold in the fourth quarter and 77.3 million sold for the year.

Android And iOS Will Lead For Foreseeable Future: Together, Android and iOS own approximately 76.3% of the U.S. smartphone market. Android has 46.3% of the market, while iOS has about 30%. RIM’s BlackBerry platform is third with about 15%. The remaining 10% is owned by Windows Mobile, PalmOS, webOS, and Windows Phone.

Read more…

If that headline confuses you, you’re not alone. In a blog post a few days back, Yahoo Mobile announced that it was abandoning several of its more well-known mobile apps in the name of their “mobile first” mindset. More on that in a second. But first, here’s a list of the apps – mostly for Android and iOS – that will no longer be supported:

• Yahoo! Meme (iPad and iPhone)
• Yahoo! Mim (iPad)
• Yahoo! Answers (Android)
• Yahoo! AppSpot (Android and iPhone)
• Yahoo! Deals (iPhone)
• Yahoo! Finance (BlackBerry)
• Yahoo! Movies (Android)
• Yahoo! News (Android)
• Yahoo! Shopping (iPhone)
• Yahoo! Sketch-a-Search (iPad and iPhone)

And here’s their explanation:

We’re moving forward with a “mobile first” mindset. You can expect to see more new Yahoo! mobile products in 2012, especially in areas ripe for innovation that build on Yahoo!’s strengths, such as companion experiences for TV like IntoNow, new ways to experience personalized media like Livestand, and some of our most popular and useful mobile apps like Yahoo! Mail, Messenger, Sportacular and Flickr, which are already being used by millions of people around the world. And we’ll be building these experiences with disruptive technology that’s going to change the mobile game well beyond Yahoo!.

Read the rest >>>

As testers do you own both an Apple and an Android phone? If not, how did you pick? Was it personal preference? How about platform marketshare? Or did you take developer-platform preference and app marketplaces into consideration?

I’m putting my money on personal preference, but in the event that your decision was driven by platforms, developers and marketshare here’s two interesting pieces of news:

1. While Apple has historically been the preferred developer platform (because it’s more lucrative), research firm Ovum is predicting Android to take that title by the end of the year.

2. Android and Apple marketshare are neck and neck as of the end of Q4 2011.

Here’s some more information on Point 1 from PCWorld:

Google’s Android will become the preeminent platform for developers over the next 12 months, edging ahead of Apple’s iOS, according to a study by research firm Ovum. Nearly all developers, however, will support both platforms.

Ovum’s call comes as Android continues to suck up market share, with more companies using the platform to crank out a wave of mobile devices. While iOS has seen its market share growth slow in the recent years, it has always been seen as a more lucrative location for developers to make money. As a result, most apps came to iOS first, and the other platforms second.

That, however, could all change in the coming months, Ovum said. Android’s prevalence is getting hard to ignore, and developers have incorporated new business models such as advertising and in-app purchases to spur revenue.

Read the full article >>>

And now a bit on Point 2 from Digital Trends:

Apple’s iPhone owned more of the US market than all Android-based devices combined during the fourth quarter of 2011, according to a new study from market research firm Kantar.

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This combines two of our favorite things here at MobileAppTesting.com – mobile apps AND security testing (or rather, proof of the lack thereof). From TechCrunch:

Lookout, a company that offers security services for a number of smartphone platforms, is debuting a new Android app that lets you see mobile threats as they are detected around the world. Launched from Lookout Labs, the new app basically visualizes what’s happening in the mobile landscape and also shares details on top weekly threats & distribution of malware vs. spyware. …

Lookout collects data from its Mobile Threat Network, a cloud-based network which constantly analyzes global threat data to identify and quickly block new threats with over-the-air app updates. The network includes more than one million apps and 15 million user devices worldwide.

With the Lookout Mobile Threat Tracker, you can now see the thousands of threats that Lookout identifies and catches every day via the network. Within the Mobile Threat Tracker you can quickly see the top three trending threats. For example, if you tap on the name in the app, you can learn more about each threat. …

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Google has been making some changes to aid Android app developers lately. First came Google’s insistence that the Holo theme be included on every Android phone that comes bundled with Android Market and now it’s pushing to streamline app development. Will the intended benefits of these efforts carry over to Android app testing? Will it make your life easier if a default theme is already on your Android 4.0 phone or if there are fewer development quirks to wade through with every app you test?

In case you have no idea what I’m talking about, here’s a recap of Holo from ReadWriteMobile:

Google is making incremental improvements to the Android platform to ease the burden of fragmentation on developers and original equipment manufacturers. While still allowing manufacturers to create custom skins, Google is doing its best to standardize the rest of the of the Android development environment with version 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Themes are a big part of standardizing the Android experience. Android has instituted a requirement in ICS that that the “Holo” family of themes be implemented into devices unmodified. This will mean that widgets, apps buttons and menu screens will be much easier for developers to integrate.

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According to a study released by Xylogic, iPhone users tend to download games (over apps) while Android users favor apps (over games). Here are a few key points from ReadWriteWeb:

The iPhone is the domain of the game. Android is the land of the app. 2011 showed some very distinct trends in user activity on the two major mobile platforms. A study done by Xylogic shows that of the top 25 app publishers for iOS, only one does not produce games. On the flip side, of the top 25 for Android, only about half are game publishers. …

Of the top 150 downloads in the Android Market in 2011, 85 were apps against 65 games. Apps were downloaded 91.5 million times against 33.42 million for games. On iOS, 100 games were in the top 150 against 50 games [sic]. Games were downloaded 71.57 million times versus 25.64 for apps. …

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Google Wallet encrypts credit card numbers but, according to analysts at viaForensics, not other personal data tied to those cards. Here’s what Out-Law.com has to say:

In its report, the digital forensics company said that Google Wallet only encrypts a user’s credit card number itself – leaving data including the cardholder’s name, transaction dates, the last four digits of credit card numbers, email address and account balances unprotected by encryption.

“While Google Wallet does a decent job securing your full credit card numbers… the amount of data that Google Wallet stores unencrypted on the device is significant. Many consumers would not find it acceptable if people knew their credit balance or limits,” the report said.

Google’s response (as far as I can tell from the article) was that the analysis by viaForensics was done on a rooted phone, not something your everyday user has.

Read more…

Smartphones and tablets were hot ticket items this holiday season – both on wish lists and under the tree. And it looks like one of the main things those happy recipients were doing with their new electronics was … more shopping? According to a report by IMB, sales transactions completed on digital devices on Christmas Day increased by more than 150% over last year! Check it out on TechCrunch:

It looks like consumers in the U.S. were shopping online alongside opening presents this year. According to IBM’s Coremetrics retail data, online sales on Christmas Day grew by 16.4 percent from last year. …

Sales completed from mobile devices grew, reaching 14.4 percent versus 5.3 percent on Christmas Day 2010, representing an increase of 172.9 percent. In terms of specific mobile devices, the iPad led all mobile device traffic to retailers at 7 percent, followed by the iPhone at 6.4 percent and Android at 5 percent.

What are you buying on Christmas Day? Everything you wanted by didn’t get? The report doesn’t mention if those sales numbers include purchases made within app stores/markets, which I assume would see pretty hefty traffic on a day like Christmas. TechCrunch uses the term “retailers” but there’s no further definition. Either way, that’s a drastic increase in only one year!

Read the whole TechCrunch article >>>

So you’re a developer or a tester working on a new app. All the functions work properly, user data is secure, you’ve even changed a few things around to maximize user ease. You have a killer app that will be the first of its kind of in the market – you can’t fail! Your launch is successful and you get tons of downloads. Fast forward a few months and all of the sudden even your friends who loved the app when they first downloaded it admit they’ve since forgotten about it. The problem? They have so many apps on their phone (an average of 65 in fact) that it simply gets buried in the clutter and when they search their phone using keywords (because who can remember every apps’ name?) it doesn’t come up. But a copycat app that piggybacked on your success does – because they optimized their app title for on-phone search.

Read about it in TechCrunch:

There are over 500,000 applications for the iPhone and iPad, 300,000+ on Android and thousands more on other platforms. The average user has 65 apps installed on their phone (source: Flurry). Many of us have more.

Entire businesses have been built to solve the problem of “app discovery” – that is, a way to supplement the limited app search mechanisms built into the vendors’ own application stores. This is primarily to benefit mobile app developers, who can’t get their apps found. The end results of these products are pitched to consumers as tools to “find new, cool apps,” “find apps your friends like,” or “find the best apps that do X.”

While these efforts are appreciated by app developers and end users alike, they don’t solve what is increasingly becoming a real problem: finding the apps you already have installed on your phone. …

Read more…

The Android App Market is famously lax in vetting new app offerings, and as a result there has been a recent rash of malware apps and poorly produced legitimate apps. Instead of putting in place an Apple-esque review process, Android is turning to developer education in an attempt to up quality. Read about it on Engadget:

Dust off your Trapper Keeper and strap on those brand new sneakers, because Android school is now in session. Yesterday, the Android Developers team announced the launch of Android Training — a set of online classes designed to help users create better apps. The tutorials, available for free, provide aspiring devs with step-by-step instructions and tips on how to implement effective navigation tools, optimize battery life and solve other “common Android development problems.” At the moment, the program is divided into 11 sections with a total of 34 individual lessons, though the team plans to expand its offerings “over the coming months.”