Mobile App Testing

Oh Black Friday – that joyous occasion when sleep-deprived, turkey-charged shoppers do battle at unholy hours of the morning. Smartphones and tablets are again at the top of many holiday wish lists and Black Friday is the day that promises excellent discounts on these pricey items. But before you wrap that new purchase (or lose the receipt) take a quick look at this list of “Dirty Dozen Smartphones” to make sure you’re not getting a bad deal:

• Samsung Galaxy Mini
• HTC Desire
• Sony Ericsson Xperia X10
• HTC Wildfire
• Samsung Epic 4G
• LG Optimus S
• Samsung Galaxy S
• Motorola Droid X
• LG Optimus One
• Motorola Droid 2
• HTC Evo 4G

Those 12 phones pose the highest security and privacy risks for users, according to Bit9, a company focused on software end-point protection. Interestingly, all 12 poor performers are Androids. Harry Sverdlove, Bit9 CTO, told PCWorld that the reason Android poses more of a risk than iOS is because of the wide-spread nature of Android over manufactures, models and carriers. Here’s what Harry had to say to PCWorld about how the study was done and why the results are what they are:

In compiling the list, Bit9 researchers looked at three things: the market share of the smartphone, what out-of-date and insecure software the model had running on it and how long it took for the phone to receive updates.

Read more…

I hope everyone is having a nice, restful and filling Thanksgiving. We’re going to keep things light and interesting today with this video of a robot being controlled by Kinect technology. Cool huh?

Is your mobile app accessible to a broad audience? Of course, there’s only one way to find out: testing!

Here with some accessibility pointers is The Guardian. Take a look:

Testing, testing
Talked to people with accessibility needs for point two? Test with them before (and after) your app is released. On iOS, developers are using services like TestFlight to put beta versions of their apps into the hands of testers before submitting them to Apple for approval – a golden opportunity to find out early if your app is falling short.

Meanwhile, once an app is released, it’s important to keep testing it, especially when there’s an update for the operating systems that it’s available for. Accessibility technology, and features in iOS, Android and the rest, are evolving steadily, so even if your app was accessible when it was released, don’t assume it can’t be improved after that point.

There are a few other great pointers for developing apps in general, but this one I found to be particualrly helpful:

Simplify wherever possible
Another accessibility principle with benefits beyond any particular group of users is simplicity. Cramming features, menus and on-screen prompts into an application is an easy road to go down, especially when you’re the developer, and so know your way around them.

Less options, clearer prompts and a well-defined pathway around the application are improvements that will pay off across the board, but they’ll be particularly appreciated by people using screen-reading technology, or just people who are fairly new to smartphones and apps.

Read the rest >>>

Twelve New York City startups are currently experiencing Microsoft’s Mobile Acceleration Week where “hand-picked startups can access hands-on support and training to build compelling apps for the Windows Phone platform,” according to TechCrunch. The startups ultimately have 60 days to push their new Windows app into the marketplace.

Jordan Crook, who wrote the TechCrunch article, choose four apps he’s particularly excited about. All the companies he highlights already have iOS versions of their apps and three of the four also have Android versions. Which leads me to the question of the day …

Seeing as how the companies are working on a set (publicly announced) timeline, does already having one or two versions of an app make it easier or harder to develop and test the new Windows Phone 7 app? Do you rest on your laurels and hope it works? Do you get so distracted by how you did it last time that it’s hard to see what needs to be done differently? Are you willing to change some the look and feel of the “old app” to make it fit the new device? How about the fact that the Microsoft Windows Phone Marketplace only has 40,000 apps versus the six-digit figures in the Apple and Android shops? Does that make you complacent or push you to make an even better app?

Or does none of that matter?

Developers? Testers? What do you think? Of course you should work hard to make each project the very best it can be, but what’s your gut reaction (before your better judgement wins over) to these questions? I’d like to see a lively discussion in the comments so let’s get this going!

And be sure to check out Jordan’s top picks from the NYC Mobile Acceleration Week at TechCrunch.com >>>

According to a new study by Piper Jaffray, developing apps for Apple’s iOS results in a much larger payday than focusing on Android apps. Business Insider breaks down the numbers:

Here’s one reason developers won’t be flocking to Android any time soon, even with its massive platform share: There’s more money playing in Apple’s sandbox.

According to Piper Jaffray, Android has generated just 7% of the revenue the iOS App Store has generated for developers. Android has generated $330 million for developers compared to $4.9 billion from Apple’s App Store.

Measured by dollars spent on mobile applications, Apple has 85%-90% of the market share. Just 1% of total Android app downloads have been paid, while 14% of total iOS apps have been paid.

Let’s recap: Apps that people paid to download only account for 1% of total downloaded Android apps (compared to 14% at Apple). Read the whole Business Insider story >>>

Read more…

When talking about mobile apps, iOS and Android clearly dominate the landscape. So I thought we’d give Windows Phones a little love today and take a look at their growing app marketplace.

According to a study by All About Windows Phones, the Microsoft Windows Phone Marketplace recently passed the 40,000 apps mark and is geared to top 50,000 by the end of January. Those numbers are still drastically below iOS and Android offerings, but it does mean that developers are paying attention to Windows apps. Here’s what CNet has to say:

Microsoft’s Windows Phone platform is apparently growing in popularity among app developers.

The software giant’s Windows Phone Marketplace now hosts more than 40,000 apps and games from more than 10,000 different publishers, according to a study conducted by All About Windows Phone. About 33 percent of those apps were added in the past 90 days.

Of the submissions made during the past month, 85 percent were apps, while 15 percent were games. Some 68 percent of those were free downloads, 23 percent were paid, and 9 percent were paid after the initial free trial period.

Apps are being added a rate of 165 a day, and the Windows Phone watcher predicts that the marketplace, which only launched in October 2010, will surpass the 50,000-app mark by the end of January 2012.

Read more…

Here’s a great quote from Etsy test architect Noah Sussman on how the company handles the challnege of mobile testing:

uTest: Does the introduction of mobile, social media or location-based functionality make testing more difficult for a company like Etsy? What are some of the specific challenges that come with these variables?

Noah Sussman: Automated test tools for the mobile Web are less mature and so working with them incurs a high research and development cost. Of course that’s part of the fun, because we get to help invent the future by figuring how to leverage new tools like GorillaPhone and Kif.

Social media integration just means hitting a bunch of external APIs that you don’t control. It can be frustrating when a test fails and you can’t immediately fix it, but that’s a lot better than not knowing that an external service has gone down. Nagios is a great tool for these kinds of automated checks.

Read the full interview here >>>

As any tester knows, the more variability you have, the more opportunity for bugs. In that light, Apple’s products are not only aesthetically streamlined, but they’ve also minimized the threat of bugs related to variations. Samsung, not so much.

That’s not even the full photo! Check out the complete image at MinimallyMinded.com (there are 134 phones in the Samsung photo … I counted).

iPhones and Androids have been quickly rising in popularity over the past few years but the Blackberry has managed to hold strong in its place as the supreme business smartphone … until this year. According to a quarterly survey by iPass, iPhones have now taken over in the world of enterprise. Wired has the scoop:

Crushed under an avalanche of Angry Birds, FourSquare check-ins, and Skype chatter, the BlackBerry is finally losing its grip on the enterprise.

At least, that’s what mobile services seller iPass found in its latest survey of people who use mobile devices such as laptops and smartphones for work.

Last year, mobile workers surveyed by iPass reported that more companies allowed BlackBerries than any other smartphone — nearly 35 percent, compared to 31 percent for the iPhone. Now the iPhone reigns supreme. This year, it was allowed in 45 percent of the 1,100 companies surveyed, compared to just 32 percent for the BlackBerry.

Google’s Android is making inroads too. The iPass survey found that Android usage had jumped from 11 percent in 2010 to 21 percent this year.

What’s going on? Corporate IT is loosening its grip on mobile devices, says Kevin Murray vice president of product marketing at iPass. “Back in the day the corporation bought your phone and they told you what you were going to have,” he says. Now fewer companies are provisioning smartphones. “They’re saying you can bring your iPhone in and we’re going to give you access.”

And it’s not just so that social media addicts can post Twitter updates from the water cooler.

Read more…

It’s no secret that smartphones (and mobile apps) have become an essential part of our everyday lives. Hence the need for real-world mobile app testing. But just how essential have they become? To find out, TeleNav conducted a survey of American smartphone owners to see what other “essentials” they would be willing to give before their devices. You can read the survey here, but this picture pretty much tells the story: