Mobile App Testing

Whenever a company has a major shakeup (like a change of ownership), it tends to set off a chain reaction throughout operations, affecting everything from marketing to sales, to development, and yes, even testing.

Case in point: Palm, which was recently acquired by tech giant HP, will continue to make the Palm Pre and other devices we all know and love. That much has stayed the same. But as we’ve seen from the new webOS2.0, that’s about the only thing that hasn’t changed.

Evidence can be found at PreCentral.net, which as the latest specs from the new mobile operating system. There’s plenty of new features that developers and testers should familiarize themselves with – so let’s start from the beginning.

• Palm’s multitasking ‘card’ metaphor is getting a refresh with Stacks
• Universal Search is getting majorly beefed up with ‘Quick Actions,’ will be opened to developers, and rebranded as Just Type
• Apps can have custom Touchstone at-a-glance views with Exhibition
• Synergy is opening up to developers
• HTML5 and Javascript support is much improved
• Hybrid PDK/SDK apps will be fully supported

Stacks
A new multi-tasking feature known as “Stacks” will enable users to quickly sort through applications in use. Interestingly, developers will not have to worry about about enabling the functionality themselves. Rather, the operating system will automatically sort them based on prior activities. So expect this feature to consume a greater amount of testing’s time, as opposed to that of developers.

Just Type
Back to the theme of major changes, we see that Palm is repositioning its search feature as “Just Type.” This feature will allow users to initiate a search from anywhere inside the operating system, from the homepage to individual apps. Again, something for testers to keep in mind.

Synergy
This feature will enable users to sync their device with existing contacts, calenders, messenger, as well as things like Twitter and Facebook.

JavaScript Services
Who says the mobile web is dead? In an effort to make the mobile web faster and more accessible, Palm is “standardizing on the Node.js runtime environment – a structure that should not only allow for faster data access but will also allow web developers to leverage more of the knowledge they’ve already built-up.”

There’s a few more important updates for mobile application testers and developers – including news around HTML5 and Hybrid PDK – so be sure to check out the entire article.

The bottom line: Don’t sleep on Palm. With HP at the helm, the beaten down device maker is likely to see a major resurgence in the new mobile wars. Stay tuned.