Mobile App Testing

It’s been unusually tough (torch-erous, even) getting good info on BlackBerry’s new device this morning – despite the press conference, blog posts and articles. The best info so far has come from PCWorld.

We read:

The Torch will sport RIM’s BlackBerry 6 mobile operating system which includes a beefed-up mobile Web browser and what is being touted as RIM’s “next generation” messaging system. The new BlackBerry OS also integrates support for Twitter and Facebook and other social networking feeds. The new BlackBerry 6 OS includes MediaSych functionality supporting wireless syncing to a music library via Wi-Fi.

The BlackBerry Torch features a QWERTY keyboard and optical trackpad in a slider style phone. The Torch has a 3.2-inch (480×360) touchscreen, 5MP camera, and has over 1GB of combined RAM/ROM storage, 4GB memory, and sports 4GB microSD card. As for connectivity the Torch supports 802.11n Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and 3G connectivity.

The Torch weighs in at 161 grams, is 111 x 62 x 14.6 mm large comes equipped with a 1300 mAh lithium battery. The GSM talk time is rated at 5.5 hours and standby time is 17 days.

More details to follow once the news is fully digested.

Many have argued that if Microsoft is to catch up with the Apple’s and RIM’s of the mobile world, Windows Phone 7 might be their last chance. This past weekend, the new mobile operating system was unveiled on a select group of devices. Since this is only in the prototype phase, mobile testing remains at a critical juncture. InformationWeek’s Paul McDougall writes:

On Sunday, a company official revealed in a blog post that Windows Phone 7 has been undergoing extensive testing by Microsoft’s own employees. Terry Myerson, VP for Windows Phone Engineering, said more than 1,000 Microsoft workers have been using Windows Phone 7 devices “as their only phone” for the past several months. “We’ve been testing usability, battery life, network connectivity, and many other metrics for a long time,” wrote Meyerson.

Microsoft earlier this month made beta versions of Windows Phone 7 development tools available to application writers. Most of the tools are versions of standard Microsoft developer tools that have been modified for mobile environments.

For most companies, relying on in-house employees to test your mobile software is generally a very bad idea. That said, most companies don’t have 1000 employees to test their products. In other words, most companies aren’t Microsoft. So for that, we’ll grant them an exception.

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Loyalty doesn’t have to be something you earn. Sometimes, it’s easier just to pay for it. The Miami Heat proved this last week (with LeBron James) and now Microsoft hopes to do the same (with mobile developers). In today’s article from PCWorld, we learn that Microsoft is offering cash incentives to developers who build apps for its upcoming Windows Phone 7 mobile operating system.

The question for us then becomes: If they are successful in luring developers with cash and perks, how will this affect their need for mobile application testers? I think you know the answer to that.

Of course, testing will be one of many concerns for Microsoft as they play “catch-up” with Apple, Google and others. Daniel Ionescu explains:

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From MobileCrunch:

Big shake up in Japan’s cell phone industry (100 million mobile subscribers) today: NTT Docomo, the country’s leading carrier (55 million customers), is planning to make all of its cell phones SIM free as early as April 2011 (the start of the new fiscal year in most Japanese companies).

Docomo’s president Ryuji Yamada told Japanese daily The Nikkei in an interview that all that customers will need to do is to simply replace SIM cards when switching to another carrier. The move is a reaction to guidelines released by Japan’s Communications Ministry in June, according to which the country’s leading cell phone carriers (Docomo, KDDI au, and SoftBank Mobile) should “consider” selling just unlocked handsets in the future.

Read the entire article.

From the AppleInsider’s Daniel Eran Dilger:

“Readers report that Apple’s tech support forums originally confirmed that a iOS 4.0.1 software fix addressing the issue would ship early next week (as early as Monday), before the comments were subsequently taken down along with all the other related discussion about the matter.

The fix is expected to address a issue in iOS 4 related to radio frequency calibration of the baseband. Readers who saw the original forum discussions say that the issue is believed to occur when switching frequencies; because the lag is allegedly not calibrated correctly, it results in the device reporting “no service” rather than switching to the frequency with the best signal to noise ratio.

iOS 4 introduced some enhancements to how the baseband selects which frequencies to use, so it makes sense that the error may have crept into those changes. Additionally, this explains why iOS 4 has also caused similar problems for iPhone 3GS users.

Additional readers have shared other related experiences that also corroborate the idea that the issue is related to iOS 4′s software control of the baseband, including the fact that the issue seems easily reproducible when connecting to a WWAN 3G network but does not appear when connecting to a Microcell 3G. If the problem were simply hardware related issues of the antenna design, it should only affect iPhone 4 units with that new design and should occur at all times, regardless of the tower type. That is not being observed.

The core software problem is likely augmented by hand placement, as Jobs noted in pointing out that holding the new phone (or any mobile device) in such a way that attenuates the signal should simply be avoided.”

Read the rest of the article.

This one’s for the Seinfeld fans among us. Remember the episode where George bought a cashmere sweater as a gift for Elaine? The sweater was perfect – even better, it was highly discounted – with the only drawback being a small, red-dotted stain. Even though it was barely noticeable, it was enough to cause sit-comic chaos, before Elaine eventually “re-gifted.”

Like that great episode, the new iPhone 4 – a great gift in its own right – is being tainted by a small yellow discoloration on the screen.

Mashable has a nice summary of the issue, along with several other user complaints:

Several early iPhone 4 customers have discovered critical issues with the phone’s display and reception that could pose major problems for Apple’s newest mobile device.

Multiple Apple- and gadget-focused websites are receiving reports that the iPhone’s much-discussed “Retina Display” is susceptible to a yellow discoloration, either as a thin line of yellow or as a circular tint.

That’s not the only problem: There are now countless videos online that show how holding the new iPhone by its sides can decrease reception quality.

Here’s video showcasing the reception difficulties:

Have you gotten the new iPhone 4 yet? Have any bugs to report?

From the mobile-savvy folks at Telegraph.co.uk:

Agree or disagree?  Speak your mind!

Back in 2008, Opera’s web browser was ruthlessly banished from Mobileland (i.e. Nokia handsets). As it turns out, the small dev team responsible for its creation did not disband, as previously thought, but rather went underground to continue their work in secret.

Today, David Neal with the Inquirer (.net that is) wrote a story titled “Opera Previews Mobile Browser on Maemo”, which covers the browser’s triumphant return to Nokia handsets. This story is now all over the web. You can read more it on CNET, UberGizmo, as well as NetworkWorld – which details how Opera is now enabling testing of mobile sites on a desktop. More on this subject shortly.

In the meantime, here are two extracts from Neal’s piece, which contains several implications for mobile app testers:

The preview has not seen much in the way of rigorous testing, he said, but it does have a lot of new features. More casual users may baulk at statements like, “This also means that there may never be a ‘final’ release of Opera Mobile 10 for Maemo devices, since it’s just that much more fun to add shiny new features rather than fixing boring old bugs,” but hobbyists or developers might enjoy breathing new life into the Nokia mobiles.

Listed known bugs include no support for Adobe Flash, some screen tearing, non-working on-screen keyboards, and no power management features. This latter issue may be serious for anyone who uses the phone on the move. As Öhrn explained, “Power is drained even when Opera is running in the background and/or the screen is turned off.”

Users can report issues to the team using a bug wizard, and we expect they will encounter some.

Do you plan on testing this new browser? If so, send your bugs, reviews and thoughts to me at mikeb@utest.com.

Happy mobile testing. Much more on this development in the future….

From The San Francisco Chronicle:

Mobile video chatting, that fixture of forward-looking movies and pop culture entertainment, appears ready to finally become a reality. While the service has been available in Europe and Asia on phones for years, it’s been a no-show in the United States due to carrier restrictions and other hurdles. But the pieces are falling into place to bring video conferencing to mobile phones.

HTC and Sprint recently announced the upcoming EVO 4G, a new phone riding on Sprint’s 4G network that will feature a forward-facing camera, a necessary component for video calling.

Another Android phone, Motorola’s Backflip, which launched in March, also has a camera that faces the user. And if you believe the Gizmodo report about the upcoming iPhone, that too will have a forward-facing camera.

A few weeks ago, when I shared my thoughts on the iPad, I noted that while the iPad will run iPhone apps, they probably wouldn’t look that great. Instead, developers would have to create new iPad apps.

“That’s fine!” you exclaim, thinking that you’ll just uprez your widgets and artwork from your iPhone app to the new iPad screen size. Problem solved, right? Apparently Apple thought so too and tried creating iPad sized versions of their default iPhone apps. And apparently that idea sucked. From Daring Fireball:

It’s not that Apple couldn’t just create bigger versions of these apps and have them run on the iPad. It wasn’t a technical problem, it was a design problem. There were, internally to Apple (of course), versions of these apps (or at least some of them) with upscaled iPad-sized graphics, but otherwise the same UI and layout as the iPhone versions. Ends up that just blowing up iPhone apps to fill the iPad screen looks and feels weird, even if you use higher-resolution graphics so that nothing looks pixelated. So they were scrapped by you-know-who.

Think this is just an Apple problem? No, it’s a mobile device problem!

Desktop and web app developers have it easy. Most computer screens are large, and any variation in size can usually be glossed over by either the OS or web browser. Nobody really uses computer screens smaller than 640×480, while many people now have 48″ screens that leave HD in the dust.

Mobile is a totally different ball game. Apps are modal, meaning your app has to account for all of the screen real estate. If it’s too big or too small, it will either fail to display or display incorrectly. Even Engadget recently lamented how they had trouble getting apps to run on the Nexus One:

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