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Tag: mobile app testing

  • Tricentis Adds Device Cloud Service to Scale Mobile App Testing

    Tricentis Adds Device Cloud Service to Scale Mobile App Testing

    Tricentis has extended its cloud service for testing applications to include the ability to emulate multiple classes of mobile computing devices.

    Mav Turner, CTO for DevOps at Tricentis, said the Tricentis Device Cloud (TDC) eliminates the need for organizations to acquire multiple physical devices to test mobile applications at scale.

    Capabilities include the tracking of key performance indicators (KPIs) such as blurriness, slow downloads, HTTP redirects and network or connectivity issues that adversely impact the user experience, in addition to performance issues such as load times and excessive consumption of CPU, memory and battery resources.

    The grid-based service also uses machine learning algorithms to apply artificial intelligence (AI) to monitor application performance and detect video and audio quality issues.

    Overall, the goal is to make it simpler for DevOps teams to build and deploy mobile applications faster and make sure they are thoroughly vetted rather than waiting for feedback from end users to discover issues that could have been easily identified before an application is deployed, said Turner.

    The launch of TDC follows the company’s acquisition of Waldo, a provider of a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that provides IT teams with a no-code tool for generating mobile application tests. Waldo uses a virtual environment to simulate iOS and Android devices in a way that eliminates the need for physical devices to conduct tests. Instead, DevOps teams record their applications and then use the no-code tools to generate tests directly from within a browser.

    In the meantime, the debate over how far application testing should be shifted left toward developers continues to rage. In theory, the more developers test applications themselves the fewer issues there should be once an application is deployed in a production environment. However, there is still going to be a need for dedicated testing teams to conduct tests across multiple stages of the application development process to ensure quality. In fact, as more routine tests are conducted by developers, it should free up application testers to focus more on edge use cases that might otherwise not be tested before being encountered by end users, noted Turner.

    Testing mobile applications is more critical than ever because the cost of failure—in terms of impact on the business—is now much higher as more organizations depend on software to drive business processes. The challenge is that many of these app developers don’t have a software engineering mindset, so they need testing platforms that automatically create and run tests on their behalf in a way that can be customized for specific use cases. In time, many of those tests will be automatically created by artificial intelligence (AI) models that should reduce the cognitive load required to manage the testing process, added Turner. In effect, application testing will soon be democratized by AI, he noted.

    Over time, the quality of applications should steadily improve as many of the low-level mistakes that developers make are eliminated. That should improve everything from application security to the user experience before mobile applications are initially deployed and then continuously updated.

  • Considering Scriptless Automation: iOS App Dev in 2023

    Considering Scriptless Automation: iOS App Dev in 2023

    According to Statista, over 31,000 apps were released on Apple’s App Store in March 2023. As impressive as that is, it’s considerably smaller than the number of apps submitted to the Apple store during the same month.

    And it’s probably less than the number of apps removed from the App Store.

    Why?

    According to Apple, most submissions fail because of common issues like bugs, crashes, incompleteness, placeholder data and broken links.

    But getting app approval is just one of many challenges faced by iOS developers today.

    Contemporary iOS App User Expectations

    The truth is, even if you slip by Apple, there’s an even greater critic to be concerned about: Your audience. Users are much less forgiving and have high expectations. If your app isn’t perfect, you’ll lose your chance at meaningful adoption and your users will just go elsewhere.

    For iOS users, perfect is simply the status quo, and users have grown to expect it. In practice, this means that apps must be stable across devices and versions, see regular improvements. and provide a great user experience at all times.

    Seamless experience between devices, versions and iterations
    iOS users expect the same experience across multiple devices. From one iPhone to the next, from version to version and from screen size to screen size. It’s the responsibility of developers to prioritize a consistent experience across devices.

    Fast release cycles and regular updates
    Contemporary app users demand feature-rich applications that go above and beyond the simple functions they expect from an app. Given the statistics above, chances are that the competition is fierce. Achieving success usually requires an efficient and speedy release cycle with more planning, more deployments and more testing.

    Easy and frictionless user experience
    User experience (UX) and functionality are one of the big reasons iOS adoption is so strong. People have come to expect high quality from anything under the Apple banner: Users expect an intuitive and trouble-free user experience on every app with which they interact. Every user’s experience needs to be intuitive, issue free and consistent with other iOS applications.

    Challenges Abound

    Meeting those escalating user expectations comes with a wide variety of challenges. For example:

    Device landscape fragmentation
    With so many device types and form factors in circulation, how do you test across all of them? With dozens of iterations of the iPhone combined with an array of versions, screen sizes and configurations, app developers need a way to test on enough devices to cover the majority of their user bases.

    This leads many developers to turn to simulators and emulators to cover devices they lack access to.

    This poses another problem. Simulators aren’t perfect. A simulator doesn’t replicate the functions of the actual device; it can only mimic certain aspects of an iOS device. And it simply can’t effectively mimic hardware, component functionality or network.

    Using a simulator, you can’t test how an application will respond to factors like low battery, a rising network spike, or limited memory, not to mention GPS and camera functionality. You also can’t monitor usage metrics or run meaningful performance tests.

    Real devices present their own challenge. The vast majority of the time, developers will have to worry about the cost of acquiring, storing, maintaining and updating devices. In addition, they’ll have to centralize and control access to them. In an increasingly remote workforce, it’s not a great strategy.

    Manual tests
    Today, most organizations are over-reliant on manual testing. The result? Running test cases becomes the bottleneck that holds up releases. Sure, manual testing is unavoidable in some cases, but their ad-hoc, inconsistent nature leaves room for error. No matter how detailed the instructions may be, people test differently, and that’s a disaster waiting to happen in today’s complex software world.

    Maintaining complex test scripts
    If you’re automating test cases, you’ve experienced the pain of maintaining code-based test scripts. Every release requires coinciding updates to countless unit tests, integration tests and UI tests. The smallest changes can break test cases, causing false negatives and more deployment delays.

    On top of that, you’ve also got to worry about retaining talent that understands your language-specific testing framework. Given the economic uncertainties of today, that’s certainly not a good situation to be in.

    Constant iOS updates
    Each year sees Apple deliver iOS major releases and a variety of minor releases, patches and bug fixes. Organizations have to test after two release cycles: Their own and Apple’s. Failure to do so can lead to compatibility and App Store compliance issues.

    App store guidelines
    As I mentioned above, Apple maintains strict guidelines for any apps published on the App Store. Excellent testing can mean the difference between releasing an app or waiting another few weeks for the next approval. When time is money, this adds up fast.

    Security at scale
    As requirements change, scope increases and features add up, it’s easy to see how it can become more and more challenging to monitor for potential security flaws. In turn, testing needs to be continually updated to reflect the latest security risks.

    A Shift Toward Scriptless Solutions

    Scriptless automation is part of a growing industry of no-code automation tools, often dubbed the no-code revolution. It’s everything test automation is without the reliance on code-based frameworks.

    Scriptless test automation involves recording user interactions with app elements, asserting expected outcomes and assessing the results. The test is then automated, templatized and extended to test other scenarios.

    With scriptless test automation, you can walk through test cases step by step. Some tools even allow you to test on live devices and choose from real iOS devices that are hosted in the cloud.

    Scriptless testing allows you to:

    ● Easily reuse and templatize test scripts. Scriptless automation makes it easier to reuse test cases, create templates and compose new test cases.

    ● Enable faster time to value. Write test cases quicker, make changes without knowing how to write code and integrate directly with your CI/CD tool. As soon as you make changes to your application, your testing team is right there. Some no-code testing tools can analyze your source code and identify testing gaps so that you can address them right away.

    ● Untangle the web of code-based dependencies. With scriptless iOS test automation, testers don’t have to lift and shift their code every time they make a big change. Instead, the no-code framework provides a visual, easily-navigated UI that tells you simply what’s passing, what’s failing and what needs to be updated.

    ● Improve collaboration between teams. Scriptless iOS test automation improves collaboration between testers and developers by making it easy for all teams to visualize test cases.

    Real Device Testing

    When the pain points of fragmentation meet the shortcomings of simulation, developers are wise to test on real devices. At the end of the day, live device testing is the only way to accurately capture an end user’s experience.

    Yet it’s no secret that managing your own device lab is expensive and unrealistic for modern remote work environments. A real device cloud setup solves this problem: A device cloud hosts devices for you that you can access from your desktop, from anywhere.

    Given the ever-increasing complications of today’s mobile app landscape and the incredibly cut-throat mobile app landscape, it’s worth keeping in mind that you may only get one chance at making the right impression on your audience. Getting testing right is the key.

    Into the Future

    Everyone expects more. As a competitive organization, you have to do more with less: Fewer resources, less time and less room for error. Scriptless automation and real device testing won’t guarantee that your app stands out from the crowd, but it will certainly help.

  • Tricentis Extends Mobile Testing Reach

    Tricentis Extends Mobile Testing Reach

    Tricentis has added the ability to test native iOS and Android applications to its Testim software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform.

    Previously, the Testim platform was designed to test web applications, but is now being extended as organizations build and deploy more native mobile applications. Capabilities of the Testim Mobile platform include codeless authoring of mobile tests to eliminate the need to write and maintain Appium, Espresso or XCUITest scripts and the ability to set up, configure and manage mobile devices in minutes using the Tricentis Mobile Agent.

    Additionally, applications can be uploaded to the cloud to enable collaboration across testing teams as they opt to run tests on real or virtual devices. DevOps team can also customize tests with JavaScript, branch tests, and run tests from a scheduler or continuous integration (CI) build.

    Tricentis CTO Mav Turner said Tricentis is moving to implement a consistent set of mobile testing services across its entire portfolio of testing platforms now that mobile applications are equal, first-class citizens alongside web applications. The primary driver of that shift has been the COVID-19 pandemic, which saw more organizations relying on external-facing mobile applications to engage customers, partners and employees working remotely, he added.

    Testing those applications is more critical than ever because the cost of failure—in terms of impact to the business—is now much higher as more organizations depend on software to drive business processes, noted Turner.

    The goal is to make it simpler to test these applications as they are being developed to ensure quality, he added. The challenge is that many developers don’t have a software engineering mindset. Hence, they need to rely more on testing platforms infused with artificial intelligence to discover issues relating to, for example, scalability and security, said Turner.

    Most organizations are trying to shift more responsibility for testing toward developers as part of an effort to remediate issues earlier in the software development life cycle. It’s more challenging for developers to remediate issues after an application has been developed simply because they have lost context. Testing platforms infused with AI capabilities make it easier for developers to identify issues at the time they are writing code. In the future, Tricentis expects to take advantage of generative AI platforms to make it easier to author tests using a set of best practices that can be easily reused, noted Turner.

    That approach doesn’t necessarily eliminate the need for a dedicated quality assessment review, but it does allow testing teams to focus more of their time and effort on testing the application experience versus identifying lower-level errors that many developers routinely make.

    Over time, the quality of applications should steadily improve as many of the low-level mistakes that developers make are eliminated. That should improve everything from application security to the user experience as applications are continuously updated. In the meantime, organizations that embed testing within DevOps workflows are steadily reducing the number of issues that need to be addressed just before applications are supposed to be deployed.

  • Leveraging Automation for Secure, Cost-Effective Mobile App Delivery

    Leveraging Automation for Secure, Cost-Effective Mobile App Delivery

    As businesses mobilize their customers and employees, they need to develop innovative mobile applications that safeguard user trust. But secure mobile development and manual security testing can be expensive and time-consuming—a bigger challenge in slowing economies. However, the latest innovations in security automation for mobile teams can drive down security costs by half while speeding release time, getting quality mobile apps to market faster to grow revenue faster.

    With mobile dominating all digital time spent online versus the web, businesses cannot compromise the safety of their mobile users and mobile data. Security automation integrated throughout the development process empowers developer, QA and security teams’ efficiency, enabling faster release cycles with built-in security. This approach powers success for digitally enabled businesses that depend on mobile apps to generate revenue, engage customers and tap new markets.

    A single security vulnerability within a mobile app can instantly damage a business’s financial stability, brand reputation and customer trust. Even highly respected brands like UnderArmour and British Airways experienced serious issues after their mobile apps were breached. Business leaders should consider the benefits of adding security automation directly into the development pipeline to drive quality and protect users in a cost-effective manner.

    Faster, Lower Cost Developer Cycles

    Suppose a business creates a 12-week plan to develop, test and release a mobile app software update with a labor budget of $60,000 per week. The development team creates a schedule to write the code in 10 weeks and allocates a two-week period for a manual security pentest. After developers finish writing the code, they must wait for the pentest results to point out any security issues. When testing uncovers security issues, devs, security analysts and QAs must determine which issues need to be remediated. Then the devs can fix the issue, retest to ensure it is properly fixed, then release it. Most of the time, finding any issues delays the release by weeks or months, delaying the expected revenue generation and other business benefits by weeks or months, in turn.

    Instead, businesses can take a cost-effective approach by running security automation continuously through the development life cycle. Dev teams can write code, allow security automation to run during off hours, and have tickets with built-in remediation info sent back to devs the next day. This can remove weeks of testing and remediation delays to ensure teams release on time and on budget. Businesses can cut costs further by establishing common coding, testing and remediation policies in advance and then deploying an automated policy engine to focus on just those security requirements and issues relevant to the policy to operate at the fastest pace possible.

    Integrating automated security testing into development tools enables DevSecOps teams to build, test, fix and release faster with security built in. Not only does this strategy increase the security and quality of the mobile app, it drastically lowers development costs by improving team efficiency.

    Faster, Lower Cost Security Testing Cycles

    Every organization with a mobile app has different security requirements. Those with low-risk mobile apps may outsource their security testing once or twice a year. Those in highly regulated industries like healthcare and financial services may have internal security analysts and test as often as every release and event outsource pen testing quarterly. Whether testing internally or externally, security testing costs can become a major pain point for companies looking to manage their finances efficiently.

    The average cost of a full-scope, two-week outsourced manual pentest costs around $15,000 to $20,000 per test. If an organization tests its mobile app on a quarterly basis, its pentesting costs jump to $60,000 to $80,000 per year. Internal pentesting teams can potentially be cheaper, but organizations still need to pay for analysts’ salaries and the tools and resources they need to conduct tests. Whether a business has an internal security team or relies on outsourced manual pentests, leveraging security automation can significantly reduce costs.

    Businesses with internal security teams can use automation to test builds immediately after devs release code. By continuously assessing code quality from start to finish, security teams can eliminate their testing time and speed up release cycles. Businesses that outsource security testing can use security automation to cut costs by reducing the frequency of full-scope manual pentests. Instead of testing on a biannual or quarterly basis, continuous automation can help reduce the testing frequency to once or twice a year with comparable coverage.

    The most efficient approach possible is the hybrid security automation approach of guided testing that combines daily automated security testing as mobile apps are built with periodic human security analysts for coverage of the parts of the mobile app that automation can’t cover. Guided testing starts below $20,000 per mobile app for unlimited automated security testing integrated into DevSecOps toolchain with four periodic guided tests per year, slashing outsourced quarterly pentesting costs by more than 75%.

    Mobile apps play an important role in helping businesses generate much-needed revenue, but running fast and cutting corners without security built in ultimately places the business and users at risk. So business leaders should take extra steps to keep them secure, and securing mobile apps can be achieved without breaking the bank. By incorporating security automation and innovations like guided testing into the mobile app development process, businesses can maximize the speed of delivery while simultaneously reducing costs and improving quality.

  • 5 Unique Challenges of Mobile App Testing

    5 Unique Challenges of Mobile App Testing

    At first glance, testing a mobile app may not seem to be very different from testing a conventional desktop app. Mobile and desktop apps are often written in the same languages and hosted on the same servers. They must also meet the same basic user expectations in areas like loading speed and accessibility.

    But when you dive into the details, you realize that mobile apps are fundamentally different beasts from desktop apps–and that, by extension, mobile testing requires a unique approach. You can’t simply take a software testing strategy that works for desktop apps and graft it onto your mobile apps.

    This article breaks down five of the main reasons why mobile testing necessitates a different strategy from desktop application testing and which unique needs QA engineers should consider when testing apps.

    1. Mobile Configuration Variability

    Perhaps the biggest difference between mobile and desktop testing is that with mobile apps, engineers have a much wider set of possible configurations to contend with.

    In the desktop world, there are just two main operating systems – Windows and macOS – and a relatively small number of OS versions for each family. And although there are many types of PCs and laptops, they all conform to the same basic hardware standards.

    In contrast, there are over 24,000 distinct types of Android mobile devices out there – to say nothing of iOS devices, which add to the diversity of hardware. There is also a wider selection of mobile operating systems and versions.

    What this means for QA teams is that there are many more variables to test for with mobile devices. It also means testing must be more efficient so that engineers can test for as many potential configurations as possible without delaying software release cycles.

    2. Lack of Mobile Testing Standards

    With a traditional, web-based desktop app, there is a consistent set of standards that the app is supposed to comply with when rendering content – specifically, the standards set by the W3C, a consortium that advocates for a standards-based, interoperable World Wide Web.

    In the mobile realm, however, there is nothing equivalent to the W3C standards. Apps can render content in widely varying ways, many of which are device-specific.

    Here again, this increases the need for specific testing teams to account for more variations and edge cases. With desktop apps, ensuring that the app complies with the W3C standards is often sufficient, but mobile testing is not so simple.

    3. Unique Mobile Accessibility Requirements

    Accessibility testing, which ensures that accessibility features like the ability to increase text size function properly, is important for delivering a great experience to all users, whether they access apps using desktops or mobile devices.

    But with mobile devices, accessibility testing is harder, because there is more room for error when implementing accessibility features. For instance, the smaller screen sizes of devices – and the greater variation in average screen size – could mean that an increase in text size will cause the app to render some text off the screen. Or, a “nighttime mode” feature on a screen could result in lower-than-expected contrast between text and backgrounds, causing accessibility challenges for some users.

    A mobile testing strategy needs to be able to accommodate risks like these, which aren’t as pronounced for desktop apps.

    4. Mobile Environment Differences

    By definition, mobile devices may be used in a wide range of physical settings. Depending on the location from which a user accesses a mobile app, application performance could be impacted by a variety of environmental factors that don’t typically apply for desktop apps.

    For instance, limited network connectivity might undercut application performance when users who travel too far from cell towers. Or, energy-saving features on mobile devices that are running on low battery could decrease the speed at which apps render content.

    Once again, these factors create additional risks that QA teams need to address when planning testing routines.

    5. Higher Stakes for Mobile Testing

    It’s a best practice to strive to deliver the best possible experience to all users, whether they are on desktop or not. But the reality is that poor user experience in mobile apps tends to have a more negative impact on a company’s brand.

    The reason why is that it’s easy for users to highlight poor app performance by giving apps low ratings or leaving negative comments in marketplaces. They can’t do these things for most desktop apps, because, unlike mobile apps, most desktop apps are not downloaded through centralized marketplaces with user-rating features.

    This difference doesn’t make mobile testing more technically challenging, and to be clear, I’m not saying you can skimp on desktop testing because users will abandon your desktop apps if they don’t work as they should, but it does increase the stakes of perfecting a testing strategy. Businesses simply have more to lose, reputationally speaking, from delivering buggy apps than they do from low-quality desktop apps.

    Conclusion: The Need for Purpose-Built Testing Solutions

    All of the above is why we need more testing strategies and solutions that are designed specifically for mobile.

    Historically, QA teams have frequently tried to extend desktop testing strategies to address mobile as they’ve added apps to their catalogs, but that approach simply doesn’t work. Mobile apps and devices are too different in fundamental respects to be shoehorned into a desktop-centric testing routine. The sooner QA engineers realize this, the sooner they’ll optimize their user experiences.

  • Let the Machines Do It: AI-Directed Mobile App Testing

    Let the Machines Do It: AI-Directed Mobile App Testing

    AI has been in the news a lot lately. We’ve all heard a lot about ChatGPT and you’ve no doubt encountered the end result of a variety of other advances in AI technology of late, such as Lensa. But there’s also a much quieter and less visible shift happening behind the scenes during the development of your favorite apps—AI-directed mobile app testing. Let’s take a look.

    Behind the Scenes

    It’s no secret that every product, no matter the industry, goes through a gauntlet of tests before it’s unleashed on the general public. This goes for everything from a simple object like a cardboard box, for example, to a far more complex product, such as the latest electric vehicle.

    The same goes for the mobile apps on your phone. And if you haven’t given that much thought, then good! It means that the QA team behind the app’s functionality did its job, producing a seamless experience that functioned without a hitch, exactly as you wanted and expected.

    But that’s not always the way it goes, and mobile app testing is only growing more complex. That’s a growing problem that AI will eventually resolve.

    If your app didn’t perform as expected, you—and many other users like you—may delete it and move on to the next app that promises to do the same thing. While this may not seem like a big deal to you as the user, it’s a total disaster for the tireless teams working behind the scenes to ensure a successful app launch or update.

    The adage ‘You only get one chance to make a first impression’ is very true in the mobile app market. It’s a big, crowded and cutthroat mobile app world out there, and users simply have no incentive to put up with an app that doesn’t do exactly what it’s supposed to do. After all, for every single app, there are often several others standing by to scoop up your unhappy (former) users.

    This issue is by no means restricted to small development teams strapped for resources. I’m sure you can think of some high-profile software releases from major companies that have launched in a disastrous state over the past few years (particularly in the tremendously profitable arena of video games).

    So why is it that some teams cut corners when it’s time for testing, only to dearly wish they hadn’t?

    Well, the answer is pretty simple: Up until very recently, mobile app testing has traditionally been time-consuming, complex and bewildering, all too frequently delaying releases and flabbergasting QA teams.

    To understand this ongoing problem, let’s take a look at what this kind of mobile app testing entails and how this landscape has recently started to shift, as well as what’s on the horizon to make it all more efficient.

    Cutting Corners = Consequences

    Once upon a time—in an era that seems like it was really just yesterday—software testing was performed manually, entirely by hand. This was possible because quality assurance personnel only needed to consider a very limited set of variables: There were only so many use cases and form factors to consider, and programs were only expected to do so much.

    It’s hard to imagine testing a modern app manually and having the result be effective. The approach is only reasonable under very limited circumstances. Nowadays, teams use automated tests, which save them a tremendous amount of time, effort and resources.

    Yet these automated tests come with their own problems. Most of these automated tests are hand-coded, meaning that they must be set up and adjusted by specialists with a background in computer programming. Such specialists are not only costly and in demand, but they’re also needed for later aspects of the software development cycle, such as developing new product features and overseeing other aspects of production.

    And this is where companies start to cut corners and miss problems and issues, both large and small. Instead of what is known as shifting left (that is, testing as early in the cycle as possible), many teams, unfortunately, view testing as a burden or afterthought. Only when things go haywire and they have a full-blown crisis on their hands does the need for rigorous app testing become apparent.

    Testing, Machine-Made

    This is where machine learning and artificial intelligence enter the picture. For several years, we’ve known that testing performed by machines will be more and more necessary to handle increasingly complex apps, and it won’t be long before the cost associated with the complex testing scenarios will simply become too much for many developers.

    Fortunately, advances continue to appear on the horizon. These include the much-discussed no-code revolution, which abstracts away much of the noise associated with software development and opens the door to a much wider testing base.

    AI- and machine-learning-based testing is also on the horizon, yet there’s a significant challenge that must be overcome before this can happen at speed and scale. To develop mobile app tests with true intelligence and maximum efficiency, machines must be capable of autonomously completing the following steps:

    1. Comprehension: Draw from the ability to understand what’s changing in an app. For example, the machine must be able to detect differences and issues in a signup sequence or a checkout screen change.
    2. Impact analysis: The machine must know what test cases can cover that change. This sort of identification can be quite tricky.
    3. Test case generation: Next, the machine must possess the ability to generate test cases related to steps one and two. To do this, the machine must draw from several data sets. These include:
      1. Extent test collateral/test cases with product code
      2. Data from actual customer usage so that numbers one and two above may be identified
      3. What user environments look like, including information like how many users are active in the United States and in Europe
      4. Automatic execution: Perhaps the most crucial need is that the machine can perform testing entirely by itself. With the ability to self-execute tests, we’ll have reached a new era in testing.
      5. Reports: Before the testing cycle can begin again, the machine must be able to produce detailed reports that make sense to its human handlers. When it comes to test results, the more detail the machine can provide in as approachable a manner as possible, the better.

    Problems and Solutions

    Some testing platforms are now capable of many of the tasks I highlight above, and quality assurance teams that move away from self-coding tests and toward the future of testing stand to benefit from these solutions (particularly when their competitors do not).

    Partially enabled by AI and ML, no-code solutions provide a stopgap solution until machines can really get a handle on the above five steps. At this point, it’s really just a matter of time: We can already see glimpses of a wholly automated testing cycle where human input is limited and machines do the heavy lifting.

    It’s easier than ever to imagine a world where there’s no need for testing to be an afterthought and software disasters have become a thing of the past.

  • Applitools Extends Visual AI Testing to Native Mobile Apps

    Applitools Extends Visual AI Testing to Native Mobile Apps

    At its online Future of Testing: Mobile event, Applitools today previewed the ability to apply visual artificial intelligence (AI) to applications that run natively on a mobile computing platform.

    Accessed via a cloud service that is currently available for free on a limited basis, the Ultrafast Test Cloud for Native Mobile offering will extend the company’s visual AI tool for browser-based mobile applications to applications that run natively on Apple iOS or Google Android devices.

    Applitools CEO Gil Sever said that while most mobile enterprise applications today rely on browsers to make it simpler to build and deploy applications, in time, many more of these applications will be running natively on iOS or Google Android platforms, mainly because they provide a better user experience.

    That approach also eliminates the need to rely on cumbersome platform emulators to test applications because the Applitools AI tool can learn the nuances of each platform in a way that streamlines the application testing process.

    In fact, visual AI tools will not only make developers and testing teams more efficient, but they also will make it easier for end users to participate in the application testing process, Sever noted.

    The Applitools approach to AI testing also provides developers with more control based on the application’s use cases. Different settings can be applied to test, for example, a medical application that requires perfect alignment of pixels versus an e-commerce application that may not require as much fidelity. Developers can then resolve regression issues by employing root cause analytics.

    It’s not clear how broadly visual AI tools that use computer vision algorithms to automate testing will be employed. There is no doubt the current pace of application development is faster than most dedicated teams of testers can handle. As a result, more responsibility for application testing is being shifted left toward developers that, in the interest of time, might be more inclined to rely on AI and other forms of automation that can be accessed via a cloud service.

    The rise of AI testing tools might also go a long way toward ensuring more applications are thoroughly tested before being deployed in a production environment. One of the first steps in any application development schedule that gets compressed when a project falls behind schedule is testing. As more rote tests are automated, there should be more opportunities for dedicated testing teams to focus on improving the end user experience.

    It may be some time before most organizations are routinely employing AI to test applications. However, none of those organizations should expect AI to replace the need for humans to test applications alongside AI testing platforms that can see the actual application. After all, there’s a world of difference between seeing the changes that were made to an application and understanding why they actually needed to be made.

  • Every Millisecond Counts When Code-Testing Mobile Apps

    Every Millisecond Counts When Code-Testing Mobile Apps

    Whether a company is creating mobile applications for e-commerce, customer service or internally to boost employee productivity, the rapid development and effective deployment of mobile apps has become a business imperative.

    The global mobile application market was estimated at $106 billion in 2018 and is expected to hit $407 billion by 2026; an annual growth rate of 18.4%, according to Valuates Reports. Growth is being driven primarily by e-commerce, gaming and IoT, according to the report. “The advantage of having a mobile application, even for a small business, is that it improves brand recognition and offers a whole new level of e-commerce user experience, helps create customer loyalty, gathers feedback and helps [the business] stand out from the crowd,” the report says.

    Mobile App Developers Face UI Pressure

    Unfortunately, mobile application users are a tough crowd with zero tolerance for bugs or user interface (UI) issues. In fact, one-fourth of end users abandon mobile apps after their initial experience, according to the report. In this highly competitive environment, the ability to effectively test mobile apps prior to launch is critical, but many organizations face challenges when it comes to creating a suitable test environment.

    “Test environments and test data are the most cited challenges for core enterprise applications, as well as more fluid applications developed in short cycles, often deployed on smartphones, tablets or a web browser,” according to a recent Capgemini World Quality Report.

    The percentage of organizations struggling to keep pace with mobile app testing requirements is increasing, according to the report. Respondents cited a slew of issues, including not having the right processes, methods or tools to test mobile applications; not having in-house mobile testing experts; not having an in-house testing environment and/or not having enough physical devices on which to test.

    These challenges are pushing many organizations to cloud-based application testing platforms, which offer a way for developers to avoid common testing bottlenecks that slow mobile app deployment. The COVID-19 pandemic created another driver for adoption of cloud-based testing platforms, since mobile application testers lacked access to physical testing spaces where they could access and share an inventory of mobile devices.

    Accelerating Demand for Mobile Apps

    The shift to agile software development and continuous deployment methodologies is another factor ratcheting up pressure on developers to create new apps in weeks, or even days, without sacrificing quality.

    Unlike traditional apps, mobile applications need to be tested on dozens, sometimes hundreds of devices to ensure they run anywhere. The proliferation and ubiquity of mobile devices means developers need to test on more than 350 devices just to cover 90% of the mobile device market. In a present-day enterprise BYOD scenario, for example, each employee might use three to five different devices – a number that’s only expected to increase as wearables and IoT gain mainstream adoption. Development teams must prove the app is hardware agnostic and functions as expected; otherwise, imagine the fallout if the company launched a BYOD app that didn’t run properly on the CEO’s smartphone, for instance.

    This is where the value of cloud-based application testing platforms becomes clear. Cloud-based app testing platforms enable developers to manually test applications on an unlimited number of mobile devices, and to perform crucial measurements and tests of functionality like screen rendering. Mobile applications must seamlessly render in the tester’s browser without lag or latency to avoid poor user experience.

    Beyond that, there are time considerations to think about. A large enterprise organization could have hundreds of testers working around the clock to validate an application, and a slowdown of even a few milliseconds per screen rendering could cost  thousands of dollars a day in lost productivity. That’s why every millisecond matters.

    Selecting a Mobile App Testing Vendor

    Selecting a vendor that can deliver a cloud-based testing platform without lag or delay is critical, but there are other factors to consider, as well.

    Some solutions use emulators or simulators to test application performance, but nothing can replace the real thing. Look for a vendor with the ability to perform tests on real, physical devices. Since most organizations operate in a hybrid world, look for a vendor that gives customers the flexibility to combine both cloud-based and on-premises testing.

    Automation is also a major factor to consider in vendor selection. According to one survey of more than 350 mobile developers and software testers, 55% said automation would improve software quality, but the majority of respondents, 76%, are automating fewer than half of all software tests.

    Look for a vendor with the capability to take an initial manual test and automatically create scripts for all of the devices under test, without requiring developers to write new code. Test automation scripts can be created and executed exponentially faster than manual efforts, which enables businesses to get to market faster with better quality mobile apps.