Software Testing Blog

In my recent post with my thoughts on the iPad, I noted that while the iPad will run iPhone apps, they won’t look that great.  Instead, developers will need to create new iPad apps.

“That’s fine!” you exclaim, thinking that you’ll just uprez your widgets and artwork from your iPhone app to the new iPad screen size.  Problem solved, right?  Apparently Apple thought so too and tried creating iPad sized versions of their default iPhone apps.  And apparently that idea sucked.  From Daring Fireball:

It’s not that Apple couldn’t just create bigger versions of these apps and have them run on the iPad. It wasn’t a technical problem, it was a design problem. There were, internally to Apple (of course), versions of these apps (or at least some of them) with upscaled iPad-sized graphics, but otherwise the same UI and layout as the iPhone versions. Ends up that just blowing up iPhone apps to fill the iPad screen looks and feels weird, even if you use higher-resolution graphics so that nothing looks pixelated. So they were scrapped by you-know-who.

Think this is just an Apple problem?  No, it’s a mobile device problem!

Read more…

Over in Barcelona at the Mobile World Congress, 24 of the world’s leading wireless carriers and mobile OEMs announced their plans to create the Wholesale Applications Community (WAC) — a unified platform which developers can use to build a mobile app once and have it run seamlessly on any handset, OS or carrier.  Among the impressive roster of backers are mobile heavyweights like AT&T, Verizon, Orange, LG and Sony.  Sounds like a utopia for mobile developers, right?  It could be… if it works.

There are more than a few skeptics, including Jason Kincaid (@jasonkincaid) over at TechCrunch.  As Kincaid states (with a bit of help from Google’s Andy Rubin):

If it sounds too good to be true, that’s because it probably is. Andy Rubin, Google VP of Engineering (and the man in charge of Android) has already shared his skepticism, saying, “There is always a dream that you could write [a program] once and [have it] run anywhere and history has proven that that dream has not been fully realised and I am sceptical that it ever will be“. To put it another way, this is a pipe dream from carriers looking to loosen Apple’s stranglehold over mobile applications and there’s very little chance that it’s going to work.

The reasons Kincaid thinks the WAC won’t work out include:

Read more…

Nick Jones over at Gartner wrote a great piece about the current state of mobile apps.  It’s a must-read for mobile app developers and marketers.

His post is written about the iPhone, but it applies equally to Android, Blackberry or Symbian apps.  It also helps to explain why mobile apps have been the fastest growing segment of the uTest biz (phenomenal growth + still evolving market = a lot of testing to do).

Here are a few realizations from his recent trip to his local Apple store that seemed especially relevant for our readers (bullet points are his and the running commentary is mine) :

Read more…

Pundits are predicting a breakout year for Android in 2010.  The upstart mobile OS (if you can call anything Google does an ‘upstart’) is earning rave reviews from mobile app developers, and is growing rapidly.  And while the Android Market and it’s 20,000 apps have a ways to go before catch up with iPhone and it’s 100,000 approved apps, the growth has been impressive.  As we’ve seen time and time again, he who wins the hearts & minds of the development community, wins the battle.

Also helping Android’s case are some great new smartphones from manufacturers like HTC, Motorola and Samsung.

Robin Waulters from TechCrunch wrote a great piece today detailing the milestone and making some predictions for 2010:

2010 is going to be a big year for the Android operating system, with many new handsets finding their way to stores around the world (including Google’s own phone) and an increasing number of developers building tools, games and the likes for the fast-growing platform.

One way of noticing that the OS is poised for a big breakthrough at the expense of Windows Mobile, Symbian and other operating systems designed to run on various mobile devices, is the number of applications already available for download in the platform’s own application store, Android Market.

Waulters cited recently published data from AndroidLib, which showed an wildly impressive growth line for the Android Market (see the chart after the jump):

Read more…

By now, it’s painfully obvious to all of us that the market for mobile apps is BOOMING and shows no signs of slowing down.  But I was still amazed by the stats/news that back up the hype. Within the past few months, GigaOm has reported the following mind-blowing proof points:

• Apple users downloaded 2 billion apps
• Android’s Market will come pre-loaded on Verizon phones
• Microsoft launched its Windows Marketplace for Mobile
• Apple will hit shelves in China, the world’s largest market
• Research In Motion (RIM) expanded with its new App World
• Palm introduced premium apps for its webOS
• Verizon is opening its own app store later this year

And the list goes on and on…

Read more…

We hear it over and over from countless customers, QA managers and testers:  getting mobile apps tested is tough.

Compared to mobile, the worlds of web and desktop apps are mature and stable:  standards have emerged, the OS and browser universe is more mature, testing tools and best practices have been established (even though they’re always evolving).  Mobile, on the other hand, is still early in its overall lifecycle, so development and testing aren’t yet fully baked.

With that in mind, I came across an article from CNET yesterday titled, Testing the iPhone 3Gs (or why the phone gods hate product testers.  This piece underscores the difficulties that confront companies (even the well-equipped experts at the CNET labs) when trying to test mobile devices and apps.

Eric Franklin, a senior tech editor at CNET, was trying to test the talk time on the new 3Gs… sounds simple enough,  right?  Well, in Eric’s own words, he encountered a number of “roadblocks” and was “slapped back to reality” on more than one occasion.

Read more…

I know… these two words aren’t seen very often in today’s world.

As a marketplace, uTest builds supply (testers) and demand (customers) for software testing services.  And since we have 15,000+ testing pros from 152 countries around the world, we usually have more than enough supply.  But as uTest grows, we do run into scenarios where demand grows faster than supply.

This is exactly what has happened in mobile during 2009.  In the past three months, dozens of companies have come to uTest to get their mobile apps tested.  And, while we have a lot of mobile testers around the globe, we need more.  So consider this a very public announcement that uTest has mobile app testing work available and we are actively looking for more testers to keep up with demand.

If you are a testing pro (or if you know someone who is) who wants to make some extra money for testing iPhone, Blackberry and Android apps, sign up as a tester today.  For our current crop of QA pros, update your profile to tell us which mobile devices you own.

In many cases, mobile testing offers bigger payout than web or desktop app testing.  For example, a recent Blackberry app release is paying a guaranteed $100 for a completed test script, plus $20 for each approved bug.  While payment varies by release, the point is a tester can make good money in just a few hours of heads-down testing.

Currently, our most urgent need for mobile testers is in Europe, but with the way demand has been growing, we are soliciting mobile testers in the US, Canada, South America and Australia as well.

If you know of QA pros or developers who are willing and able to test mobile apps, send them a link to this post.  Likewise, if you know of websites, message boards, forums or e-newsletters where uTest can advertise to find more mobile QA professionals, drop me a comment.

Last week we announced that, during the first few months of ‘09, we’ve observed tremendous growth in mobile application testing within the uTest marketplace.  Since then, we’ve received a surprising number of requests for more info from mobile developers and members of the media.  It seems that testing and quality is a bit of a hot topic among those who spend their days & nights working on (or writing about) mobile.

One of the most common questions is whether our QA community has coverage for a range of mobile platforms like iPhone, Android and Blackberry.  The answer to all of the above is ‘yes’ (the answer to the multi-location, multi-language question is ‘yes’ as well).

This announcement has already resulted in several great articles from top-shelf tech sites, including eWeek and TechTarget, and got reported by mainstream media outlets such as MSNBC, MarketWatch, TMC.net and StreetInsider.

Over the weekend, as I pondered why this simple announcement resonated with so many mobile app companies and journalists, two thoughts came to mind:

1.  Shut up.  Don’t overthink this — just ride this wave!

2.  Testing for mobile apps is a widespread and serious problem with few viable solutions.  In fact, getting mobile apps properly tested is even tougher than web apps because the space is more complex and less mature.

And I guess that’s where a global community of professional testers plays nicely into the mobile app equation — because the hardest thing to build (global coverage across locations, languages, handsets, carriers, operating systems, etc.) is baked right in.  And the fact that our community can test mobile apps quickly, efficiently and on-demand doesn’t hurt either.

I’d love to hear from mobile app developers about how they test today, or from testers about the challenges that are unique to mobile. It’s a topic that’s going to be top-of-mind for the next year or more (just wait ’til mobile really clashes with the enterprise), so let’s start the discussion now.

In the past few months, we’ve been providing QA services on a bunch of mobile apps.  As a result, we’ve had the good fortune of meeting some really cool, creative entrepreneurs and developers who are building top-shelf apps for the iPhone, Blackberry, G1 and others.

So I’ve been keeping my eyes peeled for articles from leading mobile app entrepreneurs.  And while perusing Alley Insider, I came across an article from Dan Frommer.  Frommer highlights a fantastic first-hand account from mobile app veteran Craig Hockenberry, maker of iPhone hits such as Twitterrific and Frenzic.

Hockenberry’s 2,000 word piece is a must-read for aspiring iPhone app developers.  Frommer was kind enough to summarize it as follows:

- Learn how to develop Web pages for Mobile Safari so you know how to think about designing apps for a mobile device.
- Buy a Mac. You can’t make iPhone apps from a PC.
- Sign up for Apple’s developer program.
- Watch the “getting started” videos in the iPhone dev center.
- Goof around with some of the sample code on Apple’s site.
- Check out a few of the better iPhone coding books.
- Read up on a few of Craig’s old posts.
- Go for it!

In particular, Hockenberry mentions a few books iPhone app dev books:

If you’re just starting out, I’d highly recommend Beginning iPhone Development: Exploring the iPhone SDK by Dave Mark and Jeff LaMarche. The best thing about this book is the step-by-step approach it takes to working with Xcode, Objective-C and the iPhone APIs. They’ll lead you through the basics and you’ll be building your own apps in no time at all.

As you get more comfortable with the tools and AppKit/UIKit frameworks, I’d recommend you take a look at Erica Sadun’s iPhone Developer’s Cookbook: Building Applications with the iPhone SDK. This book presumes a bit more knowledge about the SDK, but is a very handy reference both to the official and unofficial APIs.

Since you’re going to be working with Cocoa Touch on the iPhone, you’ll also want to start thinking like a Cocoa programmer. Every great iPhone and Mac developer has nothing but wonderful things to say about Cocoa Programming for Mac OS X by Aaron Hillegass.

If you have previous development experience with C, C++ or Java, you’ll want to read this mailing list post by Erik Buck that enumerates some of the difficulties that you’ll have coming up to speed with Objective-C and Cocoa.

As we come across more of these practical, hands-on resources, we’ll share them here.  If you know of other helpful articles or posts, please send them our way.  For you future mobile mavens, I hope some of these resources are helpful.

Interested in building an iPhone App?  If so, there’s a must-read article over at Mashable.  In their words:

Ten23 Software has created an entire 37 page guide to the development process (below), decisions they made and what they learned during the creation of their PhotoKast app. Their hope is that the document might provide insights for other developers when they start out on iPhone App development projects.

Have experience building mobile apps for the iPhone, Blackberry, Android or other mobile platforms?  If so, drop us a note and share your experience and tips.