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…

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.

We all know that developers love iOS but it’s interesting to read that, based on a study from earlier this year, iOS crashes MORE than Android per app launch.  Of course, iOS 5.0.1 accounts for 28%+ of the total crashes, which certainly skews the numbers.

A few important excerpts to note:

…Many people apparently take their time updating their iPhone software or never update it at all.

…People often don’t update their apps–just as they don’t update their operating system. (Android, unlike iOS, allows users to auto-update their apps, which can eliminate some of the problems.)

The very top Android apps are achieving a crash rate that, at least in this time period, the best iOS apps can’t match.

Interestingly, when we crawled 250,000 apps across iOS and Android we found that the average app store rating for Android and iPhone was 3.58 and 3.56, respectively – nearly identical.  The larger gap is that Android users complained more about performance and crashing than iPhone users.  Then, in March, we tested the SXSW App across iOS, Android, Windows and RIM and we found that iPhone & iPad had the highest overall scores and the best Application & Performance data.

Read more…

For the second year in a row, uTest will be making an appearance at SXSW, the world-famous music/film/interactive conference in Austin, Texas. Unlike last year – where we spent most of our time eating, drinking and schmoozing with storm troopers – we have  some new, big plans in store.

The obvious difference is that we’ll be cruising around Austin in the RVIP Lounge, hitting up hotspots, giving rides, singing karaoke (poorly) and playing host to SXSW attendees throughout the week. More to come on that, but you can follow @InTheWildTest for deets on our adventures, and real-time locations if you’re at SXSW..

The other difference is that, instead of just talking about the merits of in-the-wild testing, we decided to show a real-world demonstration. So, over the last 36 hours, we assembled a select group of US-based testers to put the official SXSW mobile apps through their paces. In-the-wild testing means live testers, real devices, imperfect connectivity… basically, true real-world conditions. So we went to work testing SXSW’s official apps for iOS, Android, Windows Phone and BlackBerry. For iOS and Android, we also included tablet testing, to bring the comparison total to six.

Below are some top-level results (note that each category ranged from 1-5):

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% of Total Bugs	17.7%	18.3%	18%	6.6%	23%	16.4%
Overall Score	4.1	4.0	4.6	4.7	3.8	4.2
Usability & Design	4.2	4.1	4.6	4.8	4.1	4.2
Features & Functionality	4.1	4.1	4.7	4.7	3.2	3.9
Application & Performance	3.3	3.2	3.9	4.0	3.5	3.7

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Of course, these figures only tell part of the story. As the apps were tested in terms of functionality, performance, design, connectivity and other factors, several issues popped up on more than one occasion. Here were a few areas where some notable bugs were uncovered:

• Incorrect time displays
• Sync issues with registration and deleted items
• Crashes on various tablet OS versions
• Issues with installation
• Social media integration
• Issues with rating and uploading photos

It should be noted that despite these issues, the overall reaction from our community was positive for each of these applications. In fact, the overall ratings you see above are substantially higher than the industry norms, so kudos to the respective dev teams.

Anyway, if you’re at SXSW and want to learn more about In-The-Wild Testing, be sure to stop by the RVIP Lounge. If you’re not able to attend, then head on over to inthewildtesting.com.

It’s the industry’s premiere event, attended by some of the biggest names and brightest stars in the world…and it’s not the Academy Awards. I’m talking of course about Mobile World Congress, which kicks off today in Barcelona, Spain. While mobile enthusiasts convene to see what’s new and what’s next, we here at uTest decided to take at look at the current state of mobile app quality, which brings us to the following infographic. Below is an in-depth a look at the state of user satisfaction in the top two mobile ecosystems: iOS and Android.

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Happy New Year!  Yes, 2012 is upon us and, if you believe the pundits (or the Mayans), we’re all gonna die in about 11 1/2 months. And while that really takes the pressure off of watching your 401k or worrying about global warming, it amps us the urgency to get that killer new app launched.

So with that in mind, here are 12 questions whose  answers will shape the app universe (and thus, the testing landscape) in 2012:

1. Will we finally find a better way to vet apps than app store ratings?
2. Is Flash really and truly dead in the mobile app space?
3. What’s the next big wave in the ever-growing sea of SoLoMo?
4. Web-enabled TVs:  here or hype?
5. Will Android keep winning such rapid market share from iOS?
6. Is this the year the mobile wallet hits the U.S. mainstream?
7. How will netizens find what they need — search or social?
8. Can developers finally forget about IE6?  How about IE7?
9. Will Amazon’s app store plans fly or flop?
10. Where do tablets go from here?
11. Which direction will the IPO and VC markets turn?
12. After watching Uber battle taxis, and AirBnB take on hotels, which mature industry will be next to get disrupted in a big way (fwiw, my money is on medical and education, though the latter may take longer)?

So what’s your take — which of these issues will have the biggest impact on devs, testers and users in 2012?  Put on your fortune telling hat and share your prediction to that question in the comments below.

And happy 2012 to us all. Let’s enjoy this next (last?) year in the apps universe!

Leading up to (and following) the release of the iPhone 4S, Apple was heavily pushing Siri – hands down the most innovative new feature since the touch screen. I don’t really remember seeing commercials leading up to other iPhone releases but I’ve definitely seen this one more than a few times.

Exclusive new features are a major draw when you’re choosing one phone over another and Siri is something you can only get one place … for now.

One month after the iPhone 4S was released, mobile app developer Applidium cracked the Siri protocol and discovered exactly how it works. PCWorld summarizes Applidium’s process (emphasis added):

Applidium achieved this crack by using its very own HTTPS server and faked SSL certificates (which sounds like a nasty security issue to us). And along the way, the French software makers found out a few tidbits about how the voice service works. Applidium claim that Siri sends compressed audio data over the network to the server. … According to Applidium, theorhetically, “anyone could now write an Android app that uses the real Siri.”

 PCWorld goes on to point out that just cracking the protocol isn’t enough to enable developers to convert Siri to Androids and other phones (they’d still need an authentic, unique Apple UDID).

Circumventing Siri’s protocol is a “nasty security issue” on Apple’s part. But according to Applidium, there are significant security measures in place:

Read more…

I found myself deliberating on something unexpectedly the other night.  I was thinking about buying the iPad–which I’ve wanted for a long time–and it occurred to me: What’s the future of Apple?

Previously, the issue was whether I should I invest in iOS and start the conversion over from a lifetime on Windows.  After all, my dad was a 30-year IBM vet, which put food on the table and paid my tuition.  I grew up seeing mammoth mainframes, punchcards…glowing green DOS.  No Apples of any color in our Big Blue household.

But on this occasion, it wasn’t a question of brand loyalty. It was the obvious: the loss of Steve Jobs.

I still find myself processing his passing both emotionally and practically. I remember how the AP alert popped up on my phone and it literally felt like someone had punched me in the stomach.  I admired him for living authentically, taking billion dollar gambles on ideas, picking himself up after billion dollar failures, and holding steadfast (stubborn?) to his vision.

I’m convinced his near-religious zeal over every minutiae of product design stemmed from the same social ethic that led to Apple’s creation:  to make computers so easy and user-friendly that everyone could benefit from computing’s powerful potential.  Not just the technical, highly-educated and elite. Computers for Everyman.

Attention to detail.  Risk-taking. Singular focus. These are among the core values of the Apple brand. As I considered buying the iPad, I wondered:  Are these values sufficiently infused in Tim Cook and the company DNA to continue on without Steve?  Or will Apple employees slowly lose direction like followers of the North Star left without guide over too many cloudy nights?
Read more…

After the conclusion of this year’s Apple WWDC conference, Gene Munster of Piper Jaffray released the results of an informal survey he performed among conference attendees who were also iOS developers. In it, he asked them what their plans were for developing on different platforms, including Apple’s own OS X. The results were surprising.

iOS developers love iOS (of course), and as recently as 2008, 50% of them were also OS X developers. But today, that percentage has dropped to 7%, and most iOS developers are now actively developing for other platforms instead (including the iPad). This makes a lot of sense – the skillset for developing a mobile application has become more and more specialized, and the developers who can do that well may not have the skills or interest in developing for a desktop platform.

But the data holds other clues as well. For example, almost half of iOS developers also develop for Android. And even though all the developers think iOS is the best platform for monetization (they were attending WWDC after all), 40% of them thought Android was the platform with the greatest potential for future growth. By the way, that question included iOS as an option as well, meaning that 40% of iOS developers attending WWDC actually thought Android was going to grow faster than iOS.

What other platforms did these developers think would have any chance of growing in the coming years? The only other one that made the list was Windows Phone 7 with 9% of respondents. That’s small, but interesting. Microsoft could have something good on their hands.

More details from Fortune and Macrumors.

According to Mashable and research firm Canalys, Android overtook Symbian to become the world’s most popular smartphone platform in Q4 2010.

Out of the 101.2 million Q4 worldwide shipments of smartphones, Android claimed 33.3 million compared to Symbian’s 31 million. Apple’s iOS took the bronze with 16.2 million smartphone shipments, followed by RIM with 14.6 million, and Microsoft rounds out the list with 3.1 million devices shipped.

There is no denying that, just as Apple’s iOS revolutionized the smartphone category, Android has come on the scene and made major waves as well. Take a look at the graphs and the article here, both courtesy of Nielsen, to see this impact in vivid color.

How will the recently launched Verizon iPhone impact smartphone market shares? It’s not clear right now, but if pre-order reports are any indication, it could be quite significant. And what about the impact of Windows Phone 7 OS? Still too early to tell.

What is clear, is that some of the one-time industry leaders are being challenged and even surpassed. Unless they respond with new and better versions, they’ll be left on the sidelines to watch as the new kids on the block (no, not the real NKOTB) take over. All we can say for those who are looking up at the leaders is to keep “hangin’ tough.”