EuroSTARonline: The Current State of Mobile Testing with Stephen Janaway

[Daragh]

If you would like to ask Stephen any questions, or discuss his EuroSTARonline presentation, you can do so here.

I look forward to seeing what you have to say 🙂

You can view the slides and webinar recording Here

[Stephen]

Hi everyone,

I’m here and available to answer questions.

Stephen

[Dan]

Morning Stephen (again),

Sorry I missed a chunk of your work. Personally, I need a device that will handle business functions as well as leisure functions…i.e. i do work, and play a lot of games too. As testers, do you have some suggestions how we can adapt our testing to suit or emulate these different usage profiles?

[Stephen]

Understanding users is really important. Without giving too much of my Eurostar talk away, I will say that think about adopting different persona’s before and as you test.

Also, some devices are starting to offer two distinct profiles, one for business and one for pleasure. Blackberry 10 was the first to do this.

[Chris]

Hi Stephen,

Do you have any experience with eggPlant (from TestPlant) for mobile automation testing? We are using this tool at the moment and considering other options.

[Gita]

Can you please tell me if there are any tools that would test battery life?
Also any tools you use to test app integration with other external resources (like website, database etc)?

[Stephen]

I must admit I’ve not used eggPlant but I’ve heard people are using it.

[Sean Wilkinson]

HI Stephen,

I enjoyed your presentation but, as an old skool QA type of guy, one comment pricked up my ears. You mentioned testing on trains as a great way, now I understand the variety of issues that can occur but how do you maintain some form of consistency alternating between release/version/device/etc ?

[Stephen]

The best tools for battery life testing are normally apps. In Android, for example, the one in the OS is perfectly good. Or there’s lots to download from the app stores.

Testing app interactions – best bet is to put a proxy in the middle using Fiddler or similar, and monitor traffic. Or test the APIs on the server directly rather than using the app.

[Gita]

Thanks, Stephen.

I would also like to know what are your views on uTest or similar crowd testing. Would that be a good way to replace internal testing and reduce testing time?

[alt]

you had cool phrase there i will quote from now on: “Don’t test application just by using it from within” 🙂 Love it.

#1 question regarding lingo -> what does dog fooding” stand for?
#2 In graphs – what is hiddne under other OS and Unknown OS?
#3 remark – i fed the idea of open device labs to Riga TechHub there is a chance we also might get one 😉 – hurray to me
#4 thanks for mentioning MobiSec on OWASP
#5 what hands on experience do you promise on your mobile training in November (ministry of testing)?

-^. ^=-
~~ ~~

[Marc]

Hi Stephen,

How do you see the role of testing in production for mobile app testing?

[Stephen]

They are good if you want to fill in gaps in your testing, or maybe you are releasing into a market that you don’t know very well.

[Stephen]

#1 question regarding lingo -> what does dog fooding” stand for?

Dogfooding is using your own software before it is released. For example, at Google the whole company uses versions of their apps which are 2 weeks ahead of us.

#2 In graphs – what is hiddne under other OS and Unknown OS?

Lots of smaller manufacturers and their own OS’s.

#5 what hands on experience do you promise on your mobile training in November (ministry of testing)?

At least 2 exercises 🙂 When I ran the course in March we found some great live bugs.

[Stephen]

It’s increasingly important, but it’s important to also note that when you release an app then it can go to millions of people straight away. So be careful 🙂

Beta programs are a better interim step.

[Calum]

Hi I really enjoyed your presentation as I am new to testing in general so was great to hear about mobile testing with what you should test and a few things that you should look out for in mobile testing.

so my question would be would you recommend any books or information on the subject?

[Gary]

Hi Stephen,

Enjoyed the talk. What’s your opinion on the Google Mini Mobile Device lab? I’m currently looking in to getting that set up at our office in some form as I like the idea of firing off a URL to multiple devices at once.

[Marc]

Hi Stephen,

Thanks for your reply on testing in production. In your presentation you focussed on everything before going into production. My point is: when is a mobile tester finished. Should he continue when it is in production, because the test environment is so different from the test environment?

[Andy]

Hi, I also really enjoyed your presentation. Are there any testing tools that you would recommend for testing the security of mobile applications and what security considerations would you consider when undertaking a mobile testing strategy?

[Stephen]

This is a good book – http://www.kohl.ca/2012/tap-into-mobile-application-testing-book-now-available-in-beta/

This is also good, a little out of date tho. I know Julian is working on a new one at the moment – http://books.google.co.uk/books/about/A_Practical_Guide_to_Testing_Wireless_Sm.html?id=–I7AOTpRWYC

Perhaps I should write one? 🙂

[Stephen]

Gary – it’s a great idea. There are a few other solutions that do the same thing as well.

[alt]

No examples for those other ones 🙂 – i was a sucker for Meego so i have hopes for jolla yet they are really small in their market share 🙂
i’m still thinking – but perhaps i’ll jump into your course as well 🙂

-^. ^=-
~~ ~~

[Stephen]

Hi Andy,

Your best bet is to checkout the mobile section of the OWASP site. They have the best and most up to date information. I love the MobiSec VM for practicing my security testing. Also follow Bill Matthews on Twitter – he knows a lot more than me.

[Calum]

If you wrote one I would most certainly acquire it 🙂

[Stephen]

Alt – you should. I go into way more detail than the webinar.

I used to work at Nokia – Meego was great. Hope it comes back with Jolla but they face a big battle to get market share 🙁

[Stephen]

Alt – others can include things like Samsung’s own feature phone OS, Tizen (their Intel OS), Nokia series 30, windows mobile (not windows phone although their market share is really small too).

Unfortunately we’re in an effective duopoly at the moment – Android and iOS. Smaller players don’t get a look in, in the smartphone world, and the feature phone world is still dominated by Microsoft (Nokia) S40 although that’s losing market share fast to low cost Android devices.

[Louis]

Hi Stephen,

I really enjoyed the presentation and just had a quick question on the Open Device Labs. Do you think there is a big demand for them? At the moment there is only one located in Scotland, that being in Edinburgh. So you do you think another one in Scotland would be utilized?

[Stephen]

Hi Louis,

I’ve seen demand in London, and I think as more people learn about them then there will be more demand I hope. They are a great idea.

Steve

[alt]

Stephan – than perhaps we might have more friends in common 😉 i had my hands on N9 with qwerty – that phone/that OS 😀 and after it you become terrible at using any other phone 😀

low cost devices – probably the two rising stars are adding their share ( Oppo and Meizu if not mistaken) Ok it’s my guess they run with Android 😀 i have no idea actually 😀

-^. ^=-
~~ ~~

[Andy]

Thanks Stephen

[Author]

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