Mobile App Testing

Here with the latest installment in our mobile app testing “crash course” series is David Honeyball, who’ll discuss the basics for testing iPad applications. You can read the complete series in the uTest Forums (membership required, but it’s free). Enjoy!

The Apple iPad has become one of the most sought after devices on the market in the last year. Companies have since then created and released thousands of applications for the iPad. Due to this, more and more companies are now looking for skilled testers to help to test those applications to make sure they run smoothly. The rise of the iPad has shown that we need to keep up with the times in technology.

This course and its sections will cater for the following aspects:

• Checking your iPad settings
• Installing applications to the iPad for testing
• Testing techniques on the iPad

Checking your iPad Settings:

Checking your iPad Settings: There are a number of settings you can check on your Apple iPad by entering the ‘Settings’ icon. Of these settings, the main ones can be split into General, WI-FI and Mail, Contacts and Calendars. Additionally you should know how to obtain your UDID which will be needed for projects.

Settings Icon:

• Settings>General – Clicking on About menu item brings up information for iPad
• Settings>Mail, Contacts, Calendar – Set up Email addresses in this setting on the iPad

Finding UDID for your iPad:

• Launch iTunes on your computer and connect your iPad to your computer via your USB connection
• Select your iPad from the list of devices
• Click on the summary tab
• Click ‘Serial Number’ located next to the picture of your phone
• You should see the word ‘Identifier’ and an alphanumeric string
• Make a note of this alphanumeric string as this is the UDID for your iPad

Installing applications to the iPad for testing:

Installing applications to the iPad for testing: This course is split into various sections in order to show you how to install applications to your iPad:

Equipment needed before starting:

• A computer with the latest version of iTunes installed
• An Apple iPad
• A USB connector cable for the iPad

Step 1: Open iTunes on your personal Computer:

If you have iTunes installed on your computer then click the icon in your desktop or programs to open this application:

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Even though there are some built-in applications available with a phone, we also have the option of loading it with our favorite apps. A fantastic thing about  iPhone 4 apps is it that they can be synchronized with your iPad from Mac or PC. The App Store has a wide collection of mobile apps and the following are some of the most popular iPhone applications.

Movies

You can know all about the latest movies using the ‘Movies’ which is a location based free application. Using this application, you can know a lot about reviews, trailers, ticket information and ratings including the directions to your local theatres.

Pandora

Music lovers will find the Pandora feature extremely attractive. Pandora Radio is a free music application that can keep i4 phone users upbeat. You can listen to your favorite songs easily using this feature since it is coordinated with the web. By just naming the song, you can hear it instantly!

Loopt

With Loopt, you can easily understand what is happening around you. Using this application, you can know where your family and friends are and keep in touch with them easily. Loopt in short is a very useful geo-social application that can be of great use to i4 phone users.

Twitter

Another great application that can be used for free is Twitter originally known as Tweetie. You can easily stay connected with your near and dear ones any time of the day using this free application.

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Big news from the front lines of mobile app testing. As of yesterday, early-stage startups in the mobile space now have an easy, affordable way to get their applications tested and reviewed by a team of professional testers.

The service is called uTest Express, and it’s been built for all of the major mobile operating systems, including  iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry, WinMo and Symbian. Below are some more details from uTest CMO Matt Johnston, who announced the service yesterday on the uTest Blog.

Express makes it easy to get real-world testing and expert feedback that meets your needs and budget. Oh, did we forget to mention that plans start at only $499? That’s half of what you probably spent on Red Bull and Starbucks while you were building your location-based, freemium, socially-linked, caffeine-free, voice-powered, 3D, virtual reality, highly-addictive, semantic-searching, gaming-layered, hybrid-powered, native app, right?.

For each project, uTest handpicks members of its tester community from North America who best match the testing requirements and have the right mobile devices and operating systems. The customer’s mobile application is then tested professionally on real devices across real carriers, providing real-world testing results and expert feedback that aren’t possible with emulators, simulators or remote access.

At the conclusion of each project, customers receive a list of well-documented bugs, including screenshots and videos with steps to reproduce them. They also receive expert feedback from the testers about the application – including app ratings and feedback for interface design, usability, app performance and more. To learn more about how it works, watch this brief Product Tour.

Here are a few key features of the service:

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If you’re small company (or a lone developer) it would be wise to follow in the footsteps of giants. Consider Toyota’s mobile strategy. First came the idea: the company wanted to build an app that would let consumers shop among its 16 types of vehicles. They would be able browse more than 130 color options, find nearby dealers, and even take pictures of a vehicle identification number.

Next up, they would need to figure out which platform they would develop (and test) their application on. This is where the story gets interesting. Here’s a few snippets from a recent MacWorld.com piece:

What mobile device should Toyota design for? BlackBerry? That would not have been very kaizen. “If we had developed for RIM devices first and ported to the iPhone, you could have an argument that we were dumbing down our app,” says Michael K. Nelson, interactive communications manager at Toyota who handles Toyota.com. “RIM is not a very sophisticated platform at all.”

Toyota eventually delivered a mobile shopping app tuned for the iPhone, but then followed up with an Android app two weeks later and a BlackBerry app two weeks after that. Then Toyota added the VIN-photo feature to all three platforms. Today, Toyota is working on a tablet app that takes advantage of the iPad 2’s camera.

Companies looking to tap into the power of mobile apps often think they either have to develop a native app for a single platform or a vanilla app for multiple platforms. A native app leverages all of a platforms strengths yet risks the future if the platform falters. A vanilla app can run on and add features across platforms yet usually doesn’t offer a compelling user experience.

In the early days of smartphones, there was only one clear choice for app developer: iPhones. But the emergence of Android devices and all of its OS flavors has cast a harsh light on the issue. A recent Nielsen survey found that Android is the most popular smartphone operating system in the United States, surpassing both iPhone and BlackBerry; mobile app developers can no longer ignore the Android platform.

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The world of mobile apps can feel like the wild, wild west at times. This is especially true of mobile app testing. We’ve covered mobile app testing best practices before, and now it looks like the United Testing Initiative (UTI) is also getting in on the action.

Consisting  of AT&T, LG, Motorola, Nokia, Oracle, Orange, Samsung and Vodafone, the UTI has released the Best Practice Guidelines for Developing Quality Mobile Applications, a set of cross-platform guidelines that provide developers with a framework for driving quality into mobile applications. The document can be found here.

Here are some clips from an eWeek summary:

“Developers who make quality ‘priority-one’ are well-positioned to succeed in a mobile market where billions of applications are downloaded every year,” said Martin Wrigley, chair of UTI and director of developer services at Orange. “Whether an application is built using Java ME, Android or Symbian, the UTI guidelines serve as an important resource for helping developers deliver more high-quality apps to market.”

The guidelines feature a wide range of quality issues developers should address throughout the application development process. Topics range from routine to complex to provide developers with a comprehensive resource for addressing quality issues consistently. Developers downloading the guidelines will find recommendations that can be used to raise the quality of any mobile application in areas that include connectivity, messaging and calls, user interfaces, language, media, stability, data handling and security.

The Best Practice Guidelines for Developing Quality Mobile Applications are the first cross-platform guidelines UTI has released since becoming an independent organization last year. The guidelines will be updated on an ongoing basis as platform requirements change and based on suggestions from the mobile community. Also, with today’s release, UTI is issuing a call for input on the guidelines. Feedback may be submitted on the UTI blog at www.unifiedtestinginitiative.org/blog.

I urge all readers to take a look at the entire document, but for those of you who need a hard sell, here are a few excerpts dealing with device specific tests, stability and data handling:

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It’s possible, according to BGR.com. Here’s TechLand with the story of BlackBerry Messenger making it’s way to the iPhone and Android operating systems:

BlackBerry’s instant messaging service—fittingly called BlackBerry Messenger—may someday be available as a standalone application for iPhones and Android handsets, according to BGR.com.

In its current form, BlackBerry Messenger (or “BBM”) facilitates lightning quick back-and-forth between BlackBerry users with features like group chat, location sharing, the ability to share what music you’re listening to, and photo sharing. It’s kind of part instant messaging, and part text messaging—but without the character limits imposed by text messages.

It’s a closed circle, in that you add contacts via their identifying PIN numbers or by scanning someone’s unique barcode with your BlackBerry’s camera. There are a handful of social networking elements as well,  such as being able to update your current status for all your friends to see.

By extending the BBM service to iPhone and Android handsets, BlackBerry would be able to leverage functionality that it arguably does better than anyone else—quick, simple group messaging—and potentially get users of these other platforms hooked on it.

As far as what Android and iOS users can look forward to, we’ve been told RIM will offer stripped down versions of the BBM experience BlackBerry owners know and love. That way, Android and iOS users can communicate with practically anyone who has a smartphone using BBM, but they might not be able to share photos, location, or videos (when RIM crosses that bridge). Users who want the full BlackBerry Messenger experience will still need a BlackBerry smartphone to get it. At the same time, RIM could own the entire messaging app category on every major smartphone OS platform and could potentially draw new users in because it has given them a taste of what BlackBerry Messenger is all about.

The implications (and challenges) here for mobile app testers are as obvious as they are unique.

The following post was written by mobile app tester Dom Wolf as part of uTest’s “Crash Courses” series. You can read similar posts in the uTest Forums (membership required).

Background: The release of the iPhone in 2007 introduced not only a new product, but also a new dichotomy to the world of software testing. The iPhone was the first mainstream phone to feature a touchscreen coupled with a 3G/Wi-Fi enabled web browser; two things that caused web developers to consider not only how their sites would appear, but also how they would be interacted with in such a different way.

Approximately one year after the launch of the iPhone, the iPhone SDK and App Store were introduced. The popularity of the iPhone at this point spurred many developers to submit applications at an unprecedented rate. Some apps were simple utilities, easily to develop and easy to test. Some, on the other hand, made use of many frameworks built within the newly introduced iOS and were incredibly complex. As the store’s popularity grew, Apple found itself on the receiving end of criticism over the content, and reliability of applications being submitted. The latter point is where we come in.

So there are two deliverables that are typically evaluated through uTest – native applications and mobile sites (this includes so-called web-apps, which are basically extensions to a mobile or web site). For the most part, the same test procedures can be applied to both types of deliverable, and this is what will be covered in this Crash Course. There may be some forms of testing which are deemed out of scope for a particular project you’re working on.

It’s paramount that you check the scope before you start testing and raising bugs. Not doing so could lead to having bugs rejected, which may affect your eligibility to take part in future releases. So, assuming that nothing is considered ‘out of scope’, we could include testing of the following:

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From mobilebusinessbriefing.com:

Angry Birds was awarded ‘Best Mobile App’ at the GSMA Global Mobile Awards 2011 last week in Barcelona. Described by the independent judges as “an application that is simple, intuitive, incredibly addictive and perfect for ‘snacking’ consumption,” it was also claimed that the app has “underlined the importance of the applications market, and helped raise the credibility of small independent developers outside the mainstream.”

Rovio, Clickgamer and Chillingo were awarded the trophy for the Best Mobile App. Angry Birds topped the charts of paid-for Apple apps for months in about 60 countries including the United States and Britain, and reached 50 million downloads by December last year (12 months after the game was launched). It aims to reach 100 million downloads by mid-2011.

Meanwhile individual awards were given to the ‘App of the Year’ on the Apple, BlackBerry, Android and Nokia platforms. Angry Birds again won on the Apple platform; Research In Motion’s BlackBerry Messenger grabbed the award for App of the Year on the BlackBerry App World Platform; Google’s Google Maps took the prize on the Android platform, and Herocraft & InnerActive’s Zum Zum app scored top on the Nokia platform. The individual awards were determined by user choice and statistical analysis from Distimo.

Congratulations to all the winners!

Who says the iPad is all fun and games? Not Fortune 100 companies.

A recent story on PCworld.com highlighted the fact that 8 out of 10 Fortune 100 companies are currently testing and deploying the iPad for things like help desk automation, customer service and other legitimate business activities.

Here are the details:

Since its launch, the Apple iPad has defied criticism and claims that it is a mere consumer toy unsuited for legitimate business. Companies of all sizes are embracing–or at least considering embracing–the Apple tablet for a variety of roles. Now, the iPad can empower help desk personnel to be more efficient with the Zendesk for iPad app.

Apple claims that 80 percent of Fortune 100 companies are either testing or deploying the iPad right now, and Deloitte forecasts that a quarter of the tens of millions of tablets predicted to be sold in 2011 will be purchased by corporations. Companies that want more effective help desks now have one more reason to jump on the iPad bandwagon.

“The iPad is the perfect platform for customer service. It’s portable, easy to use and fun,” said Zack Urlocker, chief operating officer at Zendesk. “We built the most beautifully simple help desk application ever, so it’s a perfect fit for iPad. Now support agents can work anywhere instead of being chained to a desk. They are going to love Zendesk for iPad, and that means better service for their customers.”

The iPad app joins the other Zendesk options available for iPhone, Android, and BlackBerry, and compliments the Web-based help desk solution to enable help desk workers to stay connected and engaged with help desk traffic and workflow while roaming untethered to manage and respond to help desk inquiries.

I’ve said it before, this trend (of businesses increasingly using mobile apps and devices) has greater implications for mobile app testers than ANY other profession. That’s a fact. I can prove it with scratch paper and a pen.

A few days ago, I blogged about the testing challenges of today’s medical application developers – specifically those of Mobile MIM, who finally got approval from the FDA to take their radiology app to market. I wondered about the added layer of FDA approval to an already exhaustive testing process, and promised to get in touch with the makers of the app for more details.

So, here with some brief insight into the testing process for medical apps is CTO Mark Cain of MIM Software, who was kind enough to field some questions from yours truly (in bold).

After years of what I’ll call “App Store Limbo”, the FDA has finally given the green light to Mobile MIM, your state-of-the-art radiology app. Could you briefly summarize the FDAs biggest concern or contention this whole time? Was it privacy, safety or just a case of bureaucratic delay?

The FDA is not typically about privacy, and that was not an issue with Mobile MIM.  Safety yes.  Bureaucracy for sure, it’s a government agency, and it works like one.

A FDA 510(k) is a “clearance” to commercially market (sell) your medical device.  It is Class 2 and not a Class 3 (PMA) which is FDA “approval.”  The 510(k) process is what’s called a substantial equivalent (SE) process.  Our problem, of course, was showing that it does the same thing as a currently marketed device (like our workstation software) without any new safety issues.  That’s a gray area, because the smartphones and tablets were/are a new technology and to them that raised new issues of safety.   There were also many bureaucratic problems which have been documented here and here.

We recently read that the FDA reviewed your app on multiple devices, measuring luminance, image quality and other features as part of their approval process. What sort of test criteria did you put in place to ensure that your app would get approval for all of these categories? I’m guessing this must have been an exhaustive process, but I’d love to know some of the details.

Sorry,  we don’t plan on publicly explaining the details.  What the FDA stated was actually pretty good.

The main reason we don’t want to explain is because our competitors need to work through the FDA like we have.  We have already assumed a great burden of being first, and that will help them already because they will use our 510(k) as the predicate for their own 510(k).

It was exhaustive, but more than that it was a marathon. Each 510(k) required different clinical data. The first one we did what we normally did.  The second 510(k)’s clinical data was based on the fuzzy feedback that we received during the first 510(k) FDA meeting (face to face meetings are not that common when doing a 510(k)).  Turns out they didn’t like that clinical data so they rejected us and told us to do a PMA.  With a lot of communication with the FDA on the 3rd 510(k) we finally got it right.  We had a great lead reviewer at the FDA during our 3rd 510(k). Interestingly enough, the previous two lead reviewers were no longer in the FDA division we work through.

You obviously wouldn’t develop these apps if there wasn’t a huge demand from the medical industry. What’s been the early reaction from your user base?

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