Last month, we introduced a brand new UI for Apphance, our mobile quality tool that makes it easy for mobile app developers to understand how their apps are working across a wide range of mobile devices, carriers and locations. After making so many improvements to the UI, we’re ready to turn our attention to the other half of the Apphance software stack – the SDKs. Today we’re launching a new and improved version of the iOS SDK, version 1.8.8, that adds several features and enhancements our users have been asking for. Let’s take a look at a few of the big ones:

Two-Finger Swipe Bug Reporting

One of Apphance’s coolest features is in-app bug reporting. You simply shake the device and Apphance responds by taking a screenshot and allowing the user to write a complete bug report right on the device itself. Our customers love this feature because it allows them to see bugs in the same context as they were discovered, along with important details and information about the device and app state.

While most users prefer to trigger bug reports by shaking the device, some of our customers have asked us for an alternative. Many of them use the accelerometer for other purposes, or they’re developing fitness apps where the device is always in motion. With this new update, we’re introducing an alternative (and optional) bug reporting approach that relies on swiping your fingers upwards from the lower corners of the screen.

Instructions for changing the bug reporting mechanism are available in the Apphance help topics. By default, Apphance will still trigger bug reports using the accelerometer, but switching to the two-finger swipe method can be accomplished by adding just two lines of code.

Read more…

In August, we introduced Apphance, a new mobile quality tool that makes it easy for mobile app developers to understand how their apps are working across a wide range of mobile devices, carriers and locations. Over the past several months, we’ve spent a lot of time watching our customers use Apphance in their daily lives – learning what works well and what doesn’t. With this new knowledge, we began working on a goal of making Apphance as easy to use as possible.

Today we’re pleased to announce the result of all this effort – a big update to the Apphance platform’s user interface. When you next login to Apphance’s web platform, you’ll be greeted with a totally rethought UI that emphasizes improved usability and easier access. We’ve also made the panel very mobile friendly, meaning you can use Apphance on screens as wide as a plasma TV and as narrow as a smartphone.

Some of the improvements you’ll notice include:

• Easier build management and distribution
• Clearer lists of bugs and crashes
• Better presentation of session information
• Improved team notifications and announcements

Each of these improvements are designed to make your testing more efficient and to improve your app’s quality. You can learn more about the new Apphance UI in the Apphance help topics.

Live Reports

With this new UI, we’re also launching new live reports.

Many of our customers are also asking for more visibility into the data behind how their apps are used. Apphance tracks an enormous amount of data, and now you can see that information on your app’s overview page. The live reports are updated in real-time and let you toggle between pre-production and production data. You can tell at a glance how many times your app has been used, installed, or crashed.

Wrap-Up

If you’re interested in learning more about Apphance, check out the Apphance homepage or watch this quick introductory video.

The Apphance developers are not done. More new features are coming very soon, and we have some exciting stuff cooking. Have a great idea for our future product releases? Drop us a line and tell us what you think.

Last summer, we announced Apphance – our new mobile quality tool. One of Apphance’s biggest features is crash reporting, which gives developers unparalleled information about app crashes that happen in-the-wild.

But for iOS developers, interpreting crash reports can sometimes be difficult. Before submitting an app to the App Store, developers must remove the symbols from their builds. While this makes their build files smaller (and easier to distribute), it also makes it impossible to read the stack traces when the app crashes. To overcome this limitation, iOS developers must add the symbols back to their stack traces after the fact. This process is called symbolication, and it’s necessary for properly interpreting any crash reports from an iOS production application.

In the past, symbolicating a crash report was time consuming, sometimes taking almost an hour to complete. Today, we’re introducing a new and improved approach to symbolication in Apphance that makes the process nearly instantaneous. When Apphance receives crashes, they are symbolicated almost immediately and made available in the Apphance panel. That means that you’re seeing crash reports when they happen, and not after a significant delay.

This new symbolication process is straightforward and simply requires pre-processing your build using a special script, which can be downloaded from the Apphance help topics. Simply download the script, pre-process the iOS app archive for your build, and upload the outputted symbols file to Apphance. From that point forward, any new crashes from that build will be symbolicated automatically.

If you’re uploading builds to the App Store, then you should definitely use Apphance for crash reporting. And now with instant symbolication, you can have complete symbolication of your crashes nearly instantly. Get started by checking out the symbolication article in the Apphance help topics.

Wrap-Up

Symbolication is one of many great features we have coming soon. Have a great idea for our future product releases? Drop us a line and tell us what you think.

From the very beginning, we’ve never stopped thinking about how to make the uTest Platform more usable and effective for our customers, testers and internal staff. Last Spring, for instance, we launched an entirely new HTML platform for our customers with an updated look and feel, as well as new features to support continuous build deployments and testing.

Since then, we’ve been secretly preparing for the tester HTML platform. Well, semi-secretly actually, as we gathered feedback from many of our top testers in the uTest Community throughout the design and development phases. Today, we are pleased to announce that the wait is finally over – the next generation uTest Platform for testers has officially launched!

For some of our testers, this announcement is merely a preview of things to come. While we’ve rolled out to most of our active testers, we will continue to roll this out to our entire community within the next few weeks. For those who are still waiting patiently, here’s a brief preview to hold you over:

New Dashboard of Test Cycle Progress and ‘To Do’ Action Items

One of the challenges our top testers face is how to easily organize and prioritize their uTest project work. With the new dashboard, it is easy to review the overall status of an individual test cycle, as well as their respective progress, or lack thereof. As a result, testers can easily assess which test cycles they may want to become more active in, without needing to jump in and out of test cycle details.

Additionally, there is now a ‘To Do’ list of action items on this page, detailing messages that need to be responded to and test cases that need to be submitted, just to name a few features. And directly below this section, there is a streaming list of updates pertaining to your most recent activity. This includes your test case being approved, your issue requiring more information, or even a notification that there is more work available on a test cycle you’re currently participating in.

Navigation and Workflow Improvements

Staying up-to-date on the latest test cycle information is critical to uTest success. If the customer has updated information to testers through test cycle chat, the notification should be easily accessible. To that end, we have incorporated ‘test cycle chat’ into the default view, regardless of which page you’re on, making it easy for testers to be notified of new messages. Additionally, there is a dedicated column for test cycles you’re working on to enable you to jump from one to another with one simple click.

Aside from default view changes, the process to claim test cases is more intuitive. When you click on an available test case, a list of remaining environments that match your profile will expand immediately below, allowing you to select and claim with ease. And finally, all of your submitted reports will reside in an ‘Issues’ tab, where you can easily filter and sort based on the testing type, report type, approval status, and more.

Alas, Back to HTML

We realize that it’s 2012 and Flash is considered ‘old school.’ On that note, we’re delighted to announce that the platform is entirely HTML-based (again). And while we have yet to optimize layout and performance on mobile devices, at least you won’t receive an error message any longer. More about mobile device support in the coming months.

What’s Next?

Launching this new tester platform is only the beginning. In the coming months, we’ll be rolling out more features that further increase productivity, as well as optimizing our support for various testing types. For these updates and more, please visit the Platform Feedback and Updates section of the uTest Forums. We look forward to your feedback as we continue to roll out new features to the uTest Platform!

In August, we introduced Apphance, a new mobile quality tool that makes it easy for mobile app developers to understand how their apps are working across a wide range of mobile devices, carriers and locations. Since then, we’ve been steadily making improvements – both by adding new features and fixing bugs. Today, we’re pleased to tell you about three big new changes that we think are pretty cool.

Before we get started, you can always get the latest version of the Apphance libraries from the Apphance Help Topics. Or jump right to the libraries for iOS, Android, or Windows Phone.

Improved User Feedback

User feedback is one of the most compelling features in Apphance because it allows app developers to get feedback from their users right within the app itself. The feedback feature gives users of the app a new channel for telling the developer what’s on their mind, meaning they’re not as likely to write a negative review in the app store.

We’ve been working very closely with our own users for the past few months, and one of the biggest pieces of feedback we’ve heard is that developers want more control over the feedback flow within the app. Because feedback is a feature for production apps (those that have been launched to customers in an app store), developers want to be able to customize the feedback process to match their brand and app style.

Today we’re launching new versions of our Apphance libraries with a new and improved user feedback process. These new libraries allow developers to either use Apphance’s built-in feedback UI or create their own. In addition, where and how the UI window is triggered is entirely up to the developer. For example, it’s easy to place a feedback widget in the app flow, add a “Send Feedback” link to a menu, or include a feedback section in your app’s about page.

This new user feedback process is available in the latest version of the Apphance libraries (version 1.8 or newer). Download them from the Apphance help topics or read more about the new user feedback features.

Application Kill Switch

Another feature we’ve heard many customers ask about is some way to disable testers from using an app. Some of our customers are concerned that a testing version could leak into the wild or that people could install fully featured versions of an app without paying. Other customers are worried about how many people are using their app with their Apple Enterprise license.

The kill switch feature allows Apphance users to disable an app on their testers’ devices. Just click a single button in the Apphance control panel, and Apphance will prevent that version of the app from loading on any device.

Like feedback, the new kill switch feature is available in the latest version of the Apphance libraries (version 1.8 or newer). Download them from the Apphance help topics or read more about managing app versions with Apphance, including how to use the kill switch feature.

Windows Phone 8 Support

Of course, we’re also pleased to announce that our Windows Phone libraries fully support Windows Phone 8. Developers who are interested in the Windows Phone platform can use Apphance on any Windows Phone 7 or 8 device.

Wrap-Up

We’re excited by these new features and we have plenty more coming down the pipeline. Have a great idea for our future product releases? Drop us a line and tell us what you think.

It’s time for a chat… with testers, that is. uTest is excited to introduce a new feature that enables you to connect with your uTest testing team better than ever before. All uTest customers can now utilize in-platform real-time chat.

With real-time chat, customers, testers, Project Managers and Test Team Leads participating in a test cycle can post comments, questions and notes for each other. You can now stay up to date on the progress of a test cycle with quicker access to the action than ever before. You can even add individuals to your contacts list for private conversations.

And you don’t have to miss a moment. You can control the notifications you receive. If you’re a customer, you have the option to receive emails about chat room activity in real time (we can send you emails every 30 – 60 minutes while there’s an active conversation) or in digest form, throughout the day. You can also choose to mute individual rooms from within the platform.

Real-time chat also allows customers, Project Managers and Test Team Leads to post important announcements and pin interesting replies within any chat room window so everyone can always quickly see what’s important.

Check out our help topics (Customers | Testers) on real-time chat and start chatting in your test cycles today.

With the release of Google’s Robot Framework 2.7.4, countless software testers have been asking questions about this tool. From what it is and how to implement it, to reasons for using it, there is much discussion surrounding this new framework.

So, what is it?

“Robot Framework is a generic test automation framework for acceptance testing and acceptance test-driven development (ATDD). It has easy-to-use tabular test data syntax and utilizes the keyword-driven testing approach. Its testing capabilities can be extended by test libraries implemented either with Python or Java, and users can create new keywords from existing ones using the same syntax that is used for creating test cases.” http://code.google.com/p/robotframework/

How do you implement it?

There are many different libraries to implement with Robot Framework. One of the most common is the Selenium Library. Brian Rock, one of our gold rates automation testers, took the time to share with us best practices for using Selenium 2 Library with Robot Framework.

Check out the recording below and feel free to join the conversation on our forums!

I’m waiting for the iPhone 5, is probably something you’ve heard all over – or perhaps your waiting yourself. iPhone 4S sales were huge last year, so what does this mean for the iPhone 5? We all know that phone sales in general are down right now, due to the fact that so many consumers are holding out for the long awaited iPhone.

The iPhone 5 promises an improved experience with new features, but mostly fixes to all the inaccuracies that disappointed users in the iPhone 4S. Analyst William Power of Robert W. Baird predicts that based on a recent survey of 2,000 customers Apple could sell 50 million+ iPhone 5 devices in only the U.S. This is much, much more than the 37 million iPhone 4S devices that were sold worldwide last year during launch.

Devindra Hardawar of VentureBeat says that the survey also found some other interesting findings:

“The Baird survey found that 39 percent of respondents were eligible for a phone upgrade (6 percent will be eligible in three months), and of that cross-section 45 percent planned to purchase an iPhone. Meanwhile, only 22 percent of potential phone buyers wanted an Android device (and 31 percent were still undecided)…

Power’s survey also found that iPhone users were the most loyal to their platform, with 77 percent saying they’d buy another iPhone. Only 48 percent of Android users said they’d be sticking with Google’s platform. Notably, 17 percent of current Android owners were interested in jumping ship to the iPhone.

Read more…

As we mentioned earlier today, uTest is pleased to announce our acquisition of Apphance. While Doron already wrote about what led us to acquire Apphance, I wanted to cover some of the details about what you can do with the product.

Apphance rolls up a powerful mobile quality toolkit into something that works on nearly all the major mobile platforms. Things that used to require several tools, or simply didn’t exist on certain platforms, now become easy with Apphance. Developers have access to features that add value during development (pre-production) and after launch (production). That makes Apphance a must-have tool for anyone writing a mobile app, whether they’re just getting started of if they’ve already published their app in the app store.

Let’s go through some of the major features and see what they can do:

Over-The-Air App Distribution

This one is huge for anyone developing a mobile app where build updates happen frequently. With over-the-air app distribution, you can upload a new build and your testers will be able to download an update either within the app or via email. That means they’re not wasting time testing an out-of-date version of your app or trying to get updates installed on their device.

While app distribution is just for pre-production apps, having Apphance track your builds can be very useful for everyone from pre-production to production users. Apphance will keep track of your different builds, so it can tie crash reports and bug data to individual app versions. That means that you’ll be able to see how a given version of your app is performing in testing and in-the-wild. You can even choose to ignore reports from older versions of your app and just focus on data from the latest builds, which is perfect for production apps where there are always users who forget to upgrade from their app store.

Crash Reporting

Nobody likes it when their app crashes, but figuring out why it crashed can be incredibly challenging. Even if the developer is holding the device in their hands, the exact reason the app crashed may not be apparent without extracting the buried system and crash logs.

Apphance solves this by detecting crashes and sending crash reports to the Apphance servers in the cloud. Developers can not only see which versions of their app have crashes, but they can even see the details about why the app crashed. Apphance also lets the developer manually log their own status messages, making it easy to track activities that are significant to individual apps. A developer can then go back and review the steps leading up to specific crashes.

Along with the crash report, Apphance will also send some additional data about the state of the device and the app. The exact data it sends depends on whether Apphance is running in pre-production mode or production mode. In pre-production mode, Apphance will send as much detail as possible, while in production mode Apphance sends a more limited amount of detail out of respect for the users’ privacy. You can learn more about the exact details Apphance sends from our help topics.

In-App Bug Reporting

When testers discover bugs in mobile apps, it can be difficult to capture the needed screenshots, write notes about the steps to reproduce the bug, and then enter all that into a bug tracking system that’s usually opened on a completely separate device. Apphance changes all that, allowing testers to report bugs from within the app itself. All the tester needs to do is shake the device (or any other mechanism the developer can specify), and Apphance will begin the bug reporting process. Apphance will take screenshots and get the details from the tester, all without ever leaving the app.

When the bug gets submitted, Apphance includes the same information as a crash report. That means developers can see the state of the device and the app, along with any additional logging information they add manually.

User Feedback

Even the best apps can have frustrated users, and inevitably frustrated users write negative reviews. Apphance gives developers a new tool to listen to user complaints from within the app. When a user is frustrated or having trouble, they can send their concerns directly to the developer using Apphance’s user feedback feature.

Conclusion

All this adds up to Apphance being one incredible mobile quality tool. Developers for iOS, Android, Windows Phone, Kindle, and Nook now have a tool that can distribute their builds to testers, track crashes and bugs in the wild, and get feedback from customers. To learn more about Apphance, check out the website or read the online help topics.

There’s only a few things that can happen when a user downloads your mobile app. Unfortunately, most of them are bad. Here are a few common outcomes:

• The app crashes
• The app hangs
• The app stalls
• The app works exactly as expected

The point is this: Without proper testing, you’ll never really know how users are experiencing your mobile app. This is particularly true of the Android operating system, with its seemingly countless permutations of devices.

So to help make the mobile app testing process a little less complex, uTest is pleased to launch a new tool that we hope will help you catch some of these problems before your users do. We call it AppGrader, and today we’re launching it as a way to quickly test your Android apps.

What is AppGrader?
AppGrader is a free online tool that can be used to quickly test your mobile application on a variety of common devices. With AppGrader, you can load your application on several devices and get basic reporting about bugs associated with installing, loading and running your application.

Why Does It Matter?
As a proponent of in-the-wild testing, we believe that an application is only properly tested once it has been evaluated by real users, with real devices, in a wide number of locations. AppGrader is a way to provide a taste of in-the-wild testing, by accessing the real devices component (albiet in an automated fashion).

Those who are interested in what AppGrader has to offer will likely appreciate uTest’s full suite of testing services.

What Do You Get?
With AppGrader, you can get a custom score for your application. You’ll also receive a comparison of how well your app works compared to dozens of other popular apps on the same devices. If your app should crash on the device, you can quickly download a crash log to get a deeper look at the problem.

What Devices Does it Cover?
At this point in time, AppGrader is just for Android devices (and yes, we do have plans to launch this service for other mobile operating systems). Devices tested include:

• Samsung Galaxy Nexus
• Samsung Galaxy S II
• Google Nexus S
• LG Nitro HD
• Samsung Galaxy Tab
• HTC Thunderbolt
• Sony Ericson Xperia
• Motorola Droid X2
• T-Mobile My Touch

AppGrader will also evaluate your application on devices across several popular carriers, including AT&T, Verizon Wireless and Sprint.

What Does It Cost?
Only your soul. Just kidding. It’s free.

How Do I Get Started?
To get started, simply fill out a brief form and upload your Android APK. Once your results are ready, you’ll be notified by email within minutes.

So what are you waiting for?

Try AppGrader Today >>>