Hands-On Mobile App Testing: A Guide for Mobile Testers and Anyone Involved in the Mobile App Business / Edition 1

by Daniel Knott

Overview

The First Complete Guide to Mobile App Testing and Quality Assurance: Start-to-Finish Testing Solutions for Both Android and iOS

Today, mobile apps must meet rigorous standards of reliability, usability, security, and performance. However, many mobile developers have limited testing experience, and mobile platforms raise new challenges even for long-time testers. Now, Hands-On Mobile App Testing provides the solution: an end-to-end blueprint for thoroughly testing any iOS or Android mobile app.

Reflecting his extensive real-life experience, Daniel Knott offers practical guidance on everything from mobile test planning to automation. He provides expert insights on mobile-centric issues, such as testing sensor inputs, battery usage, and hybrid apps, as well as advice on coping with device and platform fragmentation, and more.

If you want top-quality apps as much as your users do, this guide will help you deliver them. You’ll find it invaluable–whether you’re part of a large development team or you are the team.

Learn how to

• Establish your optimal mobile test and launch strategy
• Create tests that reflect your customers, data networks, devices, and business models
• Choose and implement the best Android and iOS testing tools
• Automate testing while ensuring comprehensive coverage
• Master both functional and nonfunctional approaches to testing
• Address mobile’s rapid release cycles
• Test on emulators, simulators, and actual devices
• Test native, hybrid, and Web mobile apps
• Gain value from crowd and cloud testing (and understand their limitations)
• Test database access and local storage
• Drive value from testing throughout your app lifecycle
• Start testing wearables, connected homes/cars, and Internet of Things devices

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780134191713
Publisher:	Pearson Education
Publication date:	05/18/2015
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Daniel Knott has worked in software development and testing since 2003. After launching his career as a trainee at IBM, he studied computer science at the University of Applied Sciences in Wiesbaden, Germany, where he quickly developed a passion for testing. He has worked at companies in diverse industries, with responsibility for testing Web, desktop, and mobile applications. He has also developed fully automated testing frameworks for Android, iOS, and Web applications. Knott is a well-known mobile expert, a speaker at conferences throughout Europe, and founder/organizer of two local software testing user groups. He blogs on software quality at adventuresinqa.com.

Table of Contents

Preface xiii

Acknowledgments xvii

About the Author xix

Chapter 1: What’s Special about Mobile Testing? 1

User Expectations 2

Mobility and Data Networks 3

Mobile Devices 4

Mobile Release Cycles 6

Mobile Testing Is Software Testing 8

Summary 9

Chapter 2: Introduction to Mobile Devices and Apps 11

Overview of Mobile Networks 11

Mobile Devices and the Year 2007 14

The Big Two 16

What Types of Apps Exist? 19

Business Models of Mobile Apps 23

App Stores 25

Summary 27

Chapter 3: Challenges in Mobile Testing 29

The Customer 29

Mobile Platforms and Fragmentation 32

Sensors and Interfaces 37

System Apps 44

Internationalization (I18n) and Localization (L10n) 45

Mobile Browsers 47

Summary 48

Chapter 4: How to Test Mobile Apps 51

Emulator, Simulator, or Real Device? 51

Manual Testing versus Automated Testing 52

“Traditional” Testing 53

Mobile-Specific Testing 56

Checklists, Mnemonics, and Mind Maps 84

How to File Mobile Bugs 93

App Quality Alliance 103

Summary 103

Chapter 5: Mobile Test Automation and Tools 105

The Flipped Testing Pyramid 105

Different Types of Test Automation Tools 109

What Should Be Automated? 113

Emulator, Simulator, or Real Device? 115

How to Select the Right Mobile Test Automation Tool 118

Current State of Tools 120

Continuous Integration System 136

Beta Distribution Tools 138

Summary 139

Chapter 6: Additional Mobile Testing Methods 141

Crowd Testing 141

Mobile Cloud Testing 147

Cloud-Based Test Automation 152

Summary 152

Chapter 7: Mobile Test and Launch Strategies 155

Mobile Test Strategy 155

Mobile Launch Strategy 172

Summary 177

Chapter 8: Important Skills for Mobile Testers 179

Skill Set of a Mobile Tester 179

How to Improve Your Mobile Testing Skills 185

Summary 198

Chapter 9: What’s Next? And Final Thoughts 199

Internet of Things 199

Wearables 203

Health Apps 205

Final Thoughts 207

Summary 209

Index 211