“Certainly there’s a great deal of extra complexity to be dealt with in the mobile space, when we look at the number of different systems and functions through which a given bit of data passes, or the enormous number of platforms on which people want to run apps. Before Windows came along to abstract the hardware, there were drivers for each video card, each printer, each mouse, each network card times each operating system. But then each application program came with special drivers to talk to each kind of hardware. Developing and supporting all that stuff was completely nuts.
Since there’s a perception of lots of opportunity and lots of money in the mobile space, there’s a gold rush and lots of people are heading for the Klondike. Now there are competing mobile OSs, times all those versions of those OSs, times all those handsets and tablets and mobile browser versions and interconnecting apps and services. So in a way, we’re back to the late 80s and early 1990s, back in the DOS days, when I first got involved with programming and support and testing. Hey you kids, get out of my yard!”
Anyone with a Smart Cover can break into your “password-protected” iPad 2. This issue occurs in iOS 5, but we’re hearing uncorroborated reports of it also working in earlier versions of iOS 4.3.
What the flaw allows:
As you can see in our video above, a Smart Cover can essentially unlock an iPad 2. The person who unlocks your iPad 2 will not have complete access to your iPad, but will be able to gain entrance to whatever you locked your iPad 2 on. If your iPad 2 went to sleep in Mail, Safari, Messages, Contacts, or Maps, you can imagine the sorts of personal information that can be viewed on your iPad. If you left your iPad 2 on its Home screen, the person can view which applications you have on your device, control media from the multitasking bar, but not much else.
And perhaps testing, too. Here’s the story from msn.com:
Blackberry-maker Research-in Motion today said it will offer engineering students BASE (BlackBerry Application Student Entrepreneur) platform to enable them display their creativity in developing applications for its mobile phones.
The service, which will be available in Tamil Nadu, would help third- and fourth-year engineering students develop applications that would be used in AppWorld, BlackBerry Research in Motion India Head of Alliances Annie Mathew said.
AppWorld is the application store of Blackberry.
“It is an excellent example on academicia-industry collaboration. BASE would help them develop applications that will be made available in AppWorld,” she told reporters here.
She said this is the first time that such an initiative was taken by Research in Motion and the reason to select Tamil Nadu was it producing good number engineering graduates.
Thinking of using a simulator or emulator on your next mobile app testing project? Not so fast. Here’s an extract from an eBook on Launching Mobile Apps that discusses some of the pros and cons on the use of mobile simulators and emulators.
Pros: In many ways, the use of mobile emulators and simulators is essential for developing and testing a quality application. Such technology enables developers to verify certain functionality that is not specific to any device, carrier or operating system. They are also very useful in terms of usability, and especially design, including data input, screen size, button use, etc. – all from the convenience of their own laptop.
Although many mobile app companies rely on these tools to identify bugs at an early stage in development , they often fail to catch bugs at later stages. As we’ve seen, these type of bugs are always the most expensive to correct.
Cons: One of the biggest challenges for mobile developers is that the testing of applications is occurring in an environment far removed from the real world, where actual users run and interact with those applications ON their devices. Said differently, the gap between “in-the-lab” simulation and “in-the-wild” usage is far too great to ignore.
Consider, for instance, an application that is data entry intensive. To assume that it can be fully tested on a simulator (i.e. with full keyboard and mouse access) and be ready for release is a mistake mobile app developers have continually made for the past five years. The convenience of simulators and emulators has made it easier than ever to be lured into a false sense of security. But the advantages of such tools are limited in scope, and should never be considered a substitute for real-world, on-device testing.
If your organisation is still getting to grips with smartphone apps it may be in for a shock – an even newer class of app is bearing down, one which promises to cut multi-platform development hassles and hurdle compatibility issues. Say hello to the HTML5 mobile web app.
HTML5 is the newest specification of the software code that web pages are created in. It adds rich functionality to browsers – so it’s goodbye annoying plug-ins, hello natively streaming audio/video and more. This new specification turns the browser into a rich runtime environment, meaning web apps running within a browser can effectively match the functionality of, and even replace, native mobile apps.
“It’s an inevitable trend,” says Nick Dillon, analyst at Ovum. “We’re going to see much more stuff moving to web apps, and away from the native mobile apps which we’ve had of late. It’s a natural evolution.
The Occupy movement now has its own app when followers are feeling a bit … restrained.
The app for Android smartphones is called “I’m Getting Arrested.” It’s free, of course.
Protesters from Wall Street to Dewey Square in Boston can quickly and efficiently notify their loved ones (and legal team) when they’re being cuffed for taking their civil disobedience too far. The app, developed by New York-based software company Quadrant 2 Inc., fires off a predetermined message by SMS to numbers you’ve selected, simply by holding down a button on the screen of your phone.
Developer Jason Van Anden created it after his friend’s girlfriend was arrested while protesting in New York City with Occupy Wall Street.
The release of Apple’s latest iPhone iOS 5 software has been met with widespread anger and frustration from users as the tech giant struggles to cope with massive demand.
‘Error 3200′ even became a trending topic on Twitter as users were repeatedly confronted with the message as they tried to download the free package of updates intended to bring older iPhones into line with the functions offered by the iPhone 4S.
What makes the glitch so unusual is that Apple rarely struggles to cope with demand for its services.
Ironically, the inability of Apple’s servers to cope may be due to the power of social networks to spread news of yesterday’s release after ‘Downloading iOS 5′ became a trending topic.
eBay is set to roll out image-recognition technology for its mobile application that will allow users to scan an item and then automatically search the online marketplace for the appropriate product.
Announced at the Innovate eBay new developer conference earlier this week, the new feature will be available before the end of the year, though the company has yet to decide which of eBay’s multiple mobile apps will utilise the technology.
Sales via eBay’s mobile offerings have been significantly on the rise in 2011. TechCrunch reports that eBay has doubled the amount of sales compared to this time last year and claims the company is on target to rake in $4 billion.
The official eBay mobile apps for a variety of devices have been downloaded over 50 million times with over 700,000 new items listed via mobile applications on a weekly basis.
From my interview on the uTest blog:
