Mobile Application Testing

IDC predicts that the volume of

Smartphones is estimated to reach
over 500 million shipments by 2014.
mobile
handsets
has
many
applications embedded in it
Some of the applications today are
using the power of cloud to
communicate. In such situations, the
data security is of importance

Types of Mobile Testing

There are broadly 2 kinds of testing that

take place on mobile devices:
1. Hardware Testing
2. Software/Application Testing

1. Hardware testing:
The device including the internal processors,
internal hardware, screen sizes, resolution,
space or memory, camera, radio, Bluetooth, WIFI
etc. This is sometimes referred to as, simple
Mobile Testing.

2.Software or Application testing:

The applications that work on mobile devices
and their functionality is tested. It is called the
Mobile Application Testing
Types of Mobile Applications
a)Native apps:A native application is created
for use on a platform like mobile and tablets.
b) Mobile web appsare server-side apps to
access website/s on mobile using different
browsers like chrome, Firefox by connecting to
a mobile network or wireless network like WIFI.
c) Hybrid appsare combinations of native
app and web app. They run on devices or
offline and are written using web technologies
like HTML5 and CSS.

Key Challenges in Mobile Application Testing

1.Variety of Mobile Devices- difference in screen
sizes, input methods (QWERTY, touch, normal) with
different hardware capabilities.
2.Diversity in Mobile Platforms/OS- The major
ones areAndroid,IOS, Symbian,Windows Phone,
and BlackBerry.
3.Mobile network operators- like GSM and CDMA.
Frequent updates (like android- 4.2, 4.3, 4.4, iOS-5.x, 6.x)

4.Scripting- The variety of devices makes executing

the test script (Scripting) a key challenge. As devices
differ in keystrokes, input methods, menu structure
and display properties single script does not function
on every device.

Need For Mobile Application

As with any application, Mobile
application testing is also very
important, as client is usually in
millions for a certain product and a
product with bugs is never
appreciated. It often results in
monetary losses, legal issue and
irreparable brand image damage.

Types of Mobile Application Testing

1.
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3.
4.

5.
6.

7.

To address all the above technical aspects, the following types of

testing are performed on Mobile applications.
Compatibility testing
Interface testing- Testing of menu options, buttons, bookmarks, history,
settings, and navigation flow of the application.
Services testing- Testing the services of the application online and offline.
Low level resource testing: Testing of memory usage, auto deletion of
temporary files, local database growing issues known as low level resource
testing.
Installation tests-Validation of the application by installing /uninstalling it
on the devices.
Laboratory Testing- Laboratory testing, usually carried out by network
carriers, is done by simulating the complete wireless network. This test is
performed to find out any glitches when a mobile application uses voice
and/or data connection to perform some functions.
Memory Leakage Testing- Memory leakage can result in poor
performance of the application and the overall slowdown of the system. As
mobile devices have significant constraints of available memory, memory
leakage testing is crucial for the proper functioning of an application.

8. Interrupt Testing- An application while

functioning may face several interruptions like
incoming calls or network coverage outage and
recovery. The different types of interruptions are:
Incoming and OutgoingSMSandMMS
Incoming and Outgoing calls
Incoming Notifications
Battery Removal
Cable Insertion and Removal for data transfer
Network outage and recovery
Media Player on/off
Device Power cycle

An application should be able to handle these

interruptions by going into a suspended state and
resuming afterwards.

9- Certification Testing- To get a

certificate of compliance, each mobile
device needs to be tested against the
guidelines set by different mobile
platforms.
The Certified Mobile Application Tester
popularly known as CMAT certification
exam is offered by the Global Association
for Quality Management (GAQM) via
Pearson Vue Testing Center worldwide to
benefit the Mobile Application Testing
Community.

10.Usability testing- Usability testing is carried out

to verify if the application is achieving its goals and
getting a favorable response from users. This is
important as the usability of an application is its key
to commercial success(it is nothing but user
friendliness). make sure that the mobile app is easy to
use and provides a satisfactory user experience to the
customers
11.Installation testing- Certain mobile applications
come pre-installed on the device whereas others have
to be installed from the store. Installation testing
verifies that the installation process goes smoothly
without the user having to face any difficulty. This
testing process covers installation, updating and
uninstalling of an application.

12.Functional Testing- Functional testing ensures

that the application is working as per the
requirements. Most of the test conducted for this is
driven by the user interface and call flows.
13. Performance Testing--- This testing process is
undertaken to check the performance and behavior
of the application under certain conditions such as
low battery, bad network coverage, low available
memory, simultaneous access to applications
server by several users and other conditions.
Performance of an application can be affected from
two sides: applications server side and clients
side.

Mobile Application Testing

Strategy
The Test strategy should make sure that all the quality and
performance guidelines are met. A few pointers in this area:
1) Selection of the devices-Analyze the market and choose the
devices that are widely used.
2) Emulators The use of these is extremely useful in theinitial
stages of development, as they allow quick and efficient checking
of the app. Emulator is a system that runs software from one
environment to another environment without changing the
software itself. It duplicates the features and work on real system.
Device Emulator- provided by device manufacturers
Browser Emulator- simulates mobile browser environments.
Operating systems Emulator- Apple provides emulators for
iPhones, Microsoft for Windows phones and Google Android phones

3)After a satisfactory level of development

is complete for the mobile app, you could
move to test on thephysical devicesfor a
more real life scenarios based testing.
4) Consider cloud computing based
testing:Cloud
computingis
basically
running devices on multiple systems or
networks via Internet where applications can
be tested, updated and managed. For
testing purposes, it creates the web based
mobile environment on a simulator to access
the mobile app.

Two kinds of automation tools are

available to test mobile apps:
1. Object based mobile testing toolsautomation by mapping elements on the
device screen into objects. This approach is
independent of screen size and mainly used
for Android devices.
Eg:- ranorex, jamo solution

2. Image based mobile testing tools- create

automation scripts based on screen
coordinates of elements.
Eg:- Sikuli, Egg Plant, RoutineBot

 6) Networkconfigurationis also
necessary part of mobile testing. Its
important to validate the application
on different networks like 2G, 3G, 4G
or WIFI.

Test Cases for Testing a Mobile App

In addition to functionality based test cases, Mobile application
testing requires special test cases which should cover following
scenarios.
Battery usage- Its important to keep a track of battery
consumption while running application on the mobile devices.
Speed of the application-the response time on different
devices, with different memory parameters, with different
network types etc.
Data requirements For installation as well as to verify if
the user with limited data plan will able to download it.
Memory requirement- again, to download, install and run
Functionality of the application- make sure application is
not crashing due to network failure or anything else.
Mobile-Application-Sample-Test-Cases.xls

 Designing the right test strategy,

choosing the right mobile simulators,
devices and mobile testing tools can
make sure that we have 100% test
coverage and help us include
security, usability, performance,
functionality and compatibility based
tests into our test suites.

Cross-Platform (Android and iOS)

1.Appium- Mobile device automation for functional testing (http://appium.io)
2.Calabash- Mobile device automation for functional testing (http://calaba.sh)
3.Perfecto Mobile- Mobile device automation for functional testing (
http://www.perfectomobile.com)
For Android
1.Android Lint- This is integrated with Eclipse IDE for Android. This will point out
potential bugs, performance problems (
http://developer.android.com/tools/help/lint.html)
2.Find Bugs- This is an open source library for static analysis in Java code (
https://code.google.com/p/findbugs-for-android/)
For iPhone
1.Clang Static Analyzer- An open source tool for running static analysis for
iPhone code (http://clang-analyzer.llvm.org/)
2.Analyze code from XCode- done during compile time (
http://matthewmorey.com/automatic-static-analysis/)