In recent years as we have seen a rise in consumers trying to be more green and conscientious of their carbon foot prints, so too have mobile technologies. With serious drains on power grids and major blackouts that have been experienced across the country, some research companies are trying to help bring big data, mobile capabilities and utility companies together. Take Pecan Street, a nonprofit research company headquartered at the University of Texas, Austin. Pecan Street is providing detailed data about consumers’ energy use to help utility companies manage the distribution of energy and help decrease overload on energy grids which cause blackouts.

With the introduction of smarter devices in the home, utility companies are looking to stay in touch with these developments. As an article in Mashable says, “(Utility companies) don’t want innovation to leave them behind.” The utility companies need to figure out how to interface with customers and their devices to being them the information they need to help manage energy distribution, and in turn help consumers to be greener and conscious of their carbon footprints.

[Brewster McCracken, president and CEO of Pecan Street] envisions a world of energy apps that could do everything from informing users when they need to update their insulation or helping them figure out what model of refrigerator would better suit their patterns of use. “These kinds of systems really hit their sweet spot in detecting problems that were really difficult to detect before,” says McCracken.

It will be interesting to see where these developments take us and the impact they can have on the increasing strain on our energy grids.

For more information on Pecan Street’s research read the full article on Mashable.

As an in-the-wild software tester your livelihood probably depends on your mobile device. As a human being, you’re bound to drop that device into a puddle at some point. Whether you get caught in the rain, lounging by the pool or just using the bathroom, we tend to drop our phones a lot, and when they fall into that puddle, it’s time to panic. But don’t! There are options to dry out your device before spending your hard earned money from testing projects on a new device. Check out this great video from cnet on some do’s and don’ts on drying out your mobile device, and keep your money in your pocket!

Citibank started offering text-message banking services in 2006 and quickly transitioned to a mobile website and app a year later. It now offers mobile apps for multiple operating systems that cover smartphones and tablets. With such a long standing dedication to mobile, Citi has gained some insight into how people feel about mobile banking (and mobile finance apps in general). Digiday recently spoke to Tracey Weber, Head of Internet and Mobile at Citi, about some of the challenges the bank faces when it comes to mobile – some of them might surprise you.

What’s the biggest challenge?
Consumer expectations. People are using retail apps and social networking apps that have a superb user experience, and that puts pressure on us. It sets a high bar in terms of the experience we have to provide. We spend a lot of time on that. And expectations are constantly changing and evolving. Capabilities are important as well, for customer-retention purposes. But most of all, customers want the mobile experience to be clear, fast and easy, and that’s a challenge.

Are people are ready to trust mobile with their financial information?
They are. We certainly saw with the Internet that it takes time for some people to get started with digital forms of banking. But because of the Internet, people aren’t as uneasy about mobile as we saw with the Internet. Yes, security is still a concern for some people. And it’s not just about the application or site being hacked. It’s the fact that you’re in public doing stuff, liking standing in line, and you don’t want people seeing you’re financial information. The key is providing capabilities that are really convenient. That usually gets people over the security hurdle.

How do you think about mobile relative to other digital channels?
We have been really thoughtful about evolving how people use different digital devices. Mobile is very on the go, and so we have quick access to tools that a person on the go would need. Tablets, on the other hand, are very lean back, so we provide more capabilities in our tablet apps. On the Web, we provide all of the capabilities. It’s important to keep in mind the different mindsets of consumers based on the device they are using. We are not trying to give mobile users every single capability.

Read the full interview at Digiday >>>

Unfortunately, Citi’s app users seem to think the bank needs to step up its game – both the iOS and Android versions have low Applause Scores.

With hundreds of thousands of mobile apps in the market – and most of the top 250 apps in both Google Play and Apple’s App Store coming from established developers – its clear that a great idea is not enough in itself:  you also need quality in delivery and effective marketing to succeed in today’s competitive app market.  The App Quality Alliance (AQuA), the mobile industry’s independent association for QA, has analyzed years of data on why apps fail to develop a range of free tools to help developers improve app quality. In this post, AQuA’s Executive Director Martin Wrigley  identifies the top reasons apps fail, and describes some of the free tools available to help developers avoid common pitfalls and stand out from the crowd.

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We’ve all seen that great looking mobile app, and read the reviews that say it is a great idea, but then found it just doesn’t work very well – or worse still crashes and is unusable.  If you’ve ever had that happen for one of your apps – well, you’re not alone!   Many developers, if not most, are great at development and producing a superb set of functionality, but aren’t experts at testing – and why should they be?

So what has AQuA found to be the top ten failures in apps over the years?

1. User interface inconsistency
   Make sure menu options, button labels, ‘soft keys’, menus etc are consistent and clear.
2. Lack of clarity of graphics and text
   Make sure that all the text is readable, clear and not cut off by the edged of the screen or overlapping other screen items
3. App browsing confusion
   Although the navigation through the app is obvious if you’ve been working on it for weeks or months, not everyone else may find it so clear.
4. Language inconsistency and spelling errors
   If you support multiple languages, make sure that it is consistent and you don’t have the odd label in English hidden away… And use a spell checker!
5. Privacy policy omission
   You must always have a privacy policy in the app, this is becoming a real area of concern for users
6. Hidden features
   Doing stuff behind the scenes without letting the user know will never win you any favors, even if your intentions are good.
7. App crashing
   You would be surprised how may apps can be made to crash when even some simple things happen on the device, memory cards, attachments, keyboards are common causes.
8. Help is not there
   Whilst it is obvious to some, other people like to read help information and so providing help is a must.
9.  Network connection: lack of notification
   Again, so many people don’t test the phone dropping out of coverage.  If you miss it and the app dies when the connection drops, the user ends up re-booting their device.  With new networks and more handovers between technologies this is going to be a new hot topic.
10. Screen orientation distortion
    Surely everyone checks this one? No sadly not.  Distorted images when changing from portrait to landscape and vice-versa still manages to hit our top ten simple errors that let apps down.

These top ten fails are all really problematic, as much to the developer as the user, and can impact the long term success of an app. Luckily they are also all quite easy to avoid through building a good QA process. AQuA aims to help developers achieve two of the three crucial elements required for a successful and financially sustainable app development business:

1) Good idea – ok, well that’s up to the developer, AQuA can’t help you there.
2) Quality in Delivery – you need to do your functional testing, but then use the resources to help you get it ready for market, such as AQuA’s test criteria.
3) Effective marketing – putting your app into the Quality App Directory is one thing you can do to help in this.

As a non-profit industry association is run and funded by its members, which include AT&T, Orange, Oracle, Motorola, Nokia, Samsung, Sony Mobile and LG, AQuA draws upon years of mobile industry experience.  With its members, AQuA has built up a set of best practice guidelines for producing a quality app and sets of platform-specific testing criteria to back them up.

Using the AQuA best practice guidelines and the test criteria gives an app developer a pre-defined set of tests that complement the functional testing that every good developer does as they go along.  In essence it defines the non-functional tests that many developers might not think to carry out, but things that real users do…like taking the memory card out of a phone whilst using the app, or receiving a phone call in the middle of watching a video…

More recently AQuA launched two new initiatives: a Quality App Directory and badge of endorsement for quality apps.  The directory isn’t a shop, and it won’t cost the developer to list their app but to be included the app must have gone through and passed a good QA process.  The badge is a stamp of independent recognition that developers can use in distribution channels and marketing.

For the numerous developers who utilize AQuA’s tools both in the QA process and in marketing their apps the benefits are significant.

If you’re in the process of developing a mobile app (or testing one), then chances are you have spent a great deal of time thinking about the optimal design. You’ve put yourself in the shoes of your “target audience” and made your decisions on what you think they would find useful.

As design firm Fjord explains, this is not always the best approach. Rather than design an app that requires the users’ full attention, you should instead design for the glance.

VentureBeat explains:

Last year Fjord created a new mobile app for the Swedish mobile phone operator 3,  which displays all the information about a customer’s bill and usage using  simple data visualizations. “If I want to know my own data usage, my carrier  says ‘You have used 320 MB out of 1,024 MB and it’s now Feb 25′. What do I do  with that information? I immediately have to go into system 2 to figure it out.”  3 itself offered over 200 different subscription models. My3 displays a visual  snapshot of usage and trends over the past six months as well as showing how the  bill compares to that of a typical customer. Hundreds of thousands of customers  now rely on the service.

Banks and payment companies are also starting to think simple. “Paypal and  Square have been brilliant at simplifying, although largely for merchants rather  than customers.” Fjord itself produced a new set of mobile applications for the Spanish bank BBVA  that now have 1.2 million users. Recent usage statistics show that customers log in 21 times a month on the mobile apps versus three times a month on the web site.

The next frontier in service design is what Fjord calls living services, where  the same service is delivered via a whole plethora of interfaces and becomes  ever more atomized. “We are already seeing financial services clients saying how  can we break up what they do into little chunks which other people can use in  discrete ways. Spotify, for example, will deliver the service in my car, through  my phone, through my PC, through my Sonos system at home mediated by Ford or  Apple or Android or Sonos.”

Read the Rest >>>

Research in Motion is relying on BlackBerry 10 to be its salvation. While the newest OS version has a lot of promise, everyone was waiting to see if consumers would respond. While it’s still a little early to tell, BB10 is taking some forward steps. From Marketplace Tech:

RIM, the company that makes BlackBerry, has been taking a beating on Wall Street because sales of its smartphones have slowed and it posted a loss in the first three quarters of the fiscal year.

John Butler, a telecom analyst at Bloomberg Industries, says analysts didn’t expect the fourth quarter to be much different.

“BlackBerry did surprise the street. What they did was sold 1 million BlackBerry 10 phones and it only shipped in the last month of the quarter,” says Butler.

The company reportedly lost users last year, so they have some catching up to do internally before they can start playing catch-up to the bigger mobile systems. Still, with the Blackberry Z10 just recently hitting the US market, this isn’t a bad position to be in as RIM moves forward. From Time:

The earnings provide a first glimpse of how the BlackBerry 10 system, widely seen as crucial to the company’s future, is selling internationally and in Canada since its debut Jan. 31. The 1 million new touch-screen BlackBerry Z10 phones were above the 915,000 that analysts had been expecting. Details on U.S. sales are not part of the fiscal fourth quarter’s financial results because the Z10 just became available there last week, after the quarter ended.

As we’ve said before, there’s money to be made in mobile apps, though not from ads or download fees, but rather from in-app purchases. And according to recent report by Distimo, in-app purchases have never generated more revenue.

Here’s TechCrunch with the details:

Though it’s well-known that many of today’s mobile applications generate revenue through in-app purchases, a new report released today shows how powerful this money-making mechanism has become. Last January, just over half (53 percent) of iPhone App Store revenue in the U.S. was attributed to in-app purchases, but as of last month, that number has climbed to a record 76 percent.

The figure varies by region, however. In Germany, for example, it’s lower – only 61 percent of revenue in February came from these in-app sales. Meanwhile, in Asian markets the number soars. In Hong Kong, Japan, China and South Korea, at least 90 percent of all revenue comes from in-app purchases.

Not surprisingly, Distimo found that the majority (71 percent) of apps were “freemium” applications, meaning that the app itself was free, but other features, virtual goods, extra levels, services, upgrades, and more are available for sale once the app is on the iPhone. Another 5 percent of apps using in-app purchases were paid applications, and around a quarter (24 percent) of iPhone apps in the U.S. were paid applications only, without in-app purchases involved.

As the use if in-app purchases increases, so too will the bugs associated with the feature. Bugs of this variety have a very quantifiable cost, so be sure to test your mobile apps extensively before, during and after launch.

In-the-wild testing is so important when it comes to mobile apps because there are just too many variables to cover in-house (and some you physically can’t reproduce in-house). If you follow this blog you’re keenly acquainted with those variables. But if you’re new, or need a reminder, check out these 10 reasons “why software testing for mobile applications is different,” from TestingGeek.

1. Supported Platforms & Devices – You have more combinations to test
2. Adaptability & Limited Space – Screen size is changing constantly
3. Complex User Interaction – More than one way to do everything
4. Application Type – HTML5, native or hybrid?
5. Dependency on Emulator/Simulator – Get devices
6. Security & Privacy – You can’t touch me but I can
7. Dependency on Network/Carrier – More variations
8. Installation, Removal and Upgrade – Would you come back?
9. Session Management & Interruptions – Who’s calling?
10. Mobile Specific Non-Functional Testing – And you thought it’s over

TestingGeek explains why each of these 10 points presents a unique testing challenge – it’s a good read if you’re just getting into the mobile game. Once you’ve consumed that information, check out uTest’s free eBooks and whitepapers that will help you build up your knowledge base on many of the same topics:

• In-the-wild Testing
• The Essentials of Mobile App Testing
• Mobile App Usability Testing
• Mobile App Security Testing
• iOS App Testing and Android App Testing
• Mobile App Analytics
• Tools that will help you test installing and launching your app or help you track bugs and crash reports

One of the big “problems” of the Windows Phone ecosystem was the so-called lack of apps. Understandable, considering how young the OS was (and is) and also considering how entrenched iOS and Android were in the space. Microsoft has done a good job luring developers with promotions and money, but many still see it as not being enough.

Blackberry chose to go another route. Instead, they made it incredibly easy to port over existing Android apps to their BB10 platform. So far, their bet is paying off:

BlackBerry’s App World now touts 100,000 BB10 applications. An impressive number for a platform just months old. But out of those 100,000 applications, roughly 20% are Android apps, simply ported over rather than being coded specifically for BlackBerry 10.

This is a win for BlackBerry. It’s a big win. Android or native, it shows that BlackBerry is successfully pulling developers into its fold. Even without the Android apps, App World still has roughly 80,000 native BB10 apps. As it sits right now, the Android ports are simply holding seats for big apps.

BB10 has a good selection of apps now, but it’s still missing key apps with Instagram and Netflix being two of the biggest holes. But don’t worry, there are Android ports available. And while they might not be native to BB10, these apps still work. That’s what matters at this point.

While the Android ports run just fine, most do not utilize BB10′s core services making them feel and respond different from native BB10 apps.

The last sentence of that quote has MAJOR testing implications. Think about it: An app that was developed and designed for one platform being used on another platform, with different gestures, functions and features. The strategy will work great, until the apps don’t work as expected for users. It’s going to happen. Guaranteed.

Lucky for them, there’s a mobile app testing solution that can help BB10 developers make sure their new apps are delighting users.

Here’s another thing to test when you’re doing mobile app usability testing – how easy the app is to use from different holding positions. According to UX expert Steven Hoober, there are three major ways users hold mobile phones. Of those he and his team members observed interacting with a mobile phone in-the-wild:

• 49% held the device with one hand
• 36% cradled the phone with one hand and used the other for actions
• 15% held it with two hands

The differences don’t stop there though. Steven observed at least two different ways users might hold a phone for each of those three categories. Here are some illustrations of how people might hold their phone and how it effects their reach. (Green means good accessibility, yellow requires a reach and red means the user will have to shift to reach the area.)

Of those observed holding their phones one-handed, 67% used their right thumb to touch the screen.

When users cradled their phone, 72% still used their thumb to perform actions. The remainder used a finger. Users were more likely to hold (or cradle) the phone with their left hand, using the right to navigate.

Though it offers better access to the entire screen, only 10% of those observed using their phone with two hands were using it in landscape position. Either way, users hold the device with their fingers and use both thumbs on the screen.

Learn more about Steven Hoobers findings at UX Matters >>>

It’s not something we think about often, but if you want to be a thorough mobile app tester try hold the phone in different ways to make sure the app is just as accessible.