Software Testing Blog

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…

Of course, as soon as the iPhone enters the wild it seems like a flood of bugs emerge.  As of earlier this week there were already close to 100 iPhone 4S’ in the community (and growing rapidly) so I’m curious to hear what else our testers have seen.

The most recent complaint is the battery drain, but there are others, as documented in this YouTube video and listed below.

• iPhone 4S Battery bug
• Audio Bug

Add your iOS 5 bug list in the comments below.

P.S. – Apple, did you know we’re giving away free test cycles?

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?
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Robert Scoble just published his list of “Must Have iPhone Apps” on Quora. It’s well over 100-apps long but it’s pretty exciting to see so many uTest customers listed (dare I say that it reads like a “Who’s Who of uTest Customers”?)

It’s pretty extensive but we know there are more “Must Have Apps” out there – for me it’s…

• Nike+ GPS – best run tracking app yet with a lot of social interaction (i.e. play “tag” against friends, get live cheering from Facebook friends). Plus it’s compatible with DailyMile.com which is my go-to exercise tracker.
• TWC (The Weather Channel) – It’s the best weather app I’ve seen yet.
• Weber’s On The Grill – its summer.  How can you not have this downloaded?
• ESPN’s FFL app – With the pending lockout this might be pretty pointless come fall but I’m optimistic that I’ll have a chance to take some friends money.
• HBO Go – Free access to all HBO content for existing HBO customers means I watched all Entourage episodes in a couple weeks on the iPad. Curb Your Enthusiasm is next.

Scoble’s list after the jump. You know you want to see it….

Read more…

We love studying bugs when they come up, and this past week we’ve seen a few big ones go by. When bugs happen, there’s always a lot we can learn from them. Here’s a quick roundup of four different bugs that were recently in the news:

Apple iPhone Tracking – First up, we learned last week that iPhones store their location in a file that never gets deleted, and then backup that file to iTunes each time the phone syncs. That means that anyone with access to a laptop belonging to an iPhone owner could see where they had been as long as they had owned their phone. (For the record, my iPhone says I spend a lot of time in Southborough, MA at the uTest headquarters.)

After a few days of silence on the issue, Apple announced that this was the result of a bug in iOS – three bugs actually. 1 – the iPhone keeps the location data for too long and should instead periodically purge it. 2 – this data is backed up to iTunes and should not be. 3 – the data is not deleted if a user disables location services. Apple has plans to fix all three bugs and to also begin encrypting the location file on the iPhone.

Why were they tracking this data at all? Apple uses this information (anonymously) to improve their location services and make it easier for iPhones to determine their location without having to resort to GPS (which is slow). But they only need a small amount of data at a time rather than the entire location history the iPhone was storing.

Do you have an iPhone? Are you curious to see where you’ve been? Here’s a clever app that will plot your location history on a map. If you’re into fancy statistical analysis, you can also use this add-on to plot your location using R.

Read more…

With the vast majority of mobile apps being developed by startups, wouldn’t it be great if there was an easier, more affordable option for young companies to get professional testing under real-world conditions? We thought so, which is why we had the testing gnomes in our research lab cook up uTest Express.

Designed for startups, Express helps young companies validate the quality & performance of their mobile apps, as well as speed up their app store approval process. Think of Express as a time machine for mobile app developers: they can transport a month or two into the future to see what type of ratings their apps will likely receive and if there are any major defects — before they launch.

Whether you’ve built an app for iPhone, iPad, Android, Blackberry, WinMo or Symbian, Express makes it easy to get real-world testing and expert feedback that meets your needs and budget. Oh, did we forget to mention that plans start at only $499? That’s half of what you probably spent on Red Bull and Starbucks while you were building your location-based, freemium, socially-linked, caffeine-free, voice-powered, 3D, virtual reality, highly-addictive, semantic-searching, gaming-layered, hybrid-powered, native app, right?.

For each project, uTest handpicks members of its tester community from North America who best match the testing requirements and have the right mobile devices and operating systems. The customer’s mobile application is then tested professionally on real devices across real carriers, providing real-world testing results and expert feedback that aren’t possible with emulators, simulators or remote access.

At the conclusion of each project, customers receive a list of well-documented bugs, including screenshots and videos with steps to reproduce them. They also receive expert feedback from the testers about the application – including app ratings and feedback for interface design, usability, app performance and more. To learn more about how it works,  watch this brief Product Tour.

Here are a few key features of the service:

• Cost-Effective: With three testing packages available, uTest Express offers mobile app testing to fit any startup budget;
• Easy-to-Use: A simple interface walks customers through a series of questions to identify their testing needs and facilitate the creation of the testing project;
• Professional Testers: Testers are selected from our community of 35,000+ professional testers;
• Real Devices and Carriers: Testing on real devices and real carriers – no emulators, simulators or remote access
• All Major Mobile Platforms Available: uTest Express is available for all mobile operating systems including iOS, Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile and Symbian;
• Accessible 24/7: Customers can access their testing projects on-the-go, using uTest’s downloadable app for the iPhone and iPad, or through the traditional browser-based interface.

The launch coincides nicely with our trip to CTIA Wireless – one of the largest mobile technology events in the world – so we’ll be spending the next few days talking to some of the most promising names in the business about this unique new service.

In the meantime, if you’re early-stage startup looking for an easy, affordable way of testing your latest mobile app (or your latest version), look no further than uTest Express.

Readers of the uTest Blog should know that ecommerce software (retail apps in particular) are a familiar topic of discussion. We also recently published a whitepaper on the subject, see Optimized E-Commerce. Today, guest blogger Michael Koploy of SoftwareAdvice.com offers up a list of the most useful retails apps for the iPhone and Android operating systems. So without further delay, here is this month’s guest post. Enjoy!

Whether you own a small retail chain or sell items out of your brother’s apartment, there’s an app for that. Developers are beginning to produce mobile tools to help retailers operate their businesses. These apps help with everything from clocking in to checking out a customer to creating sales reports.

But sorting through hundreds of apps and finding those true gems that can help run your business is difficult. iTunes doesn’t have a retail category — in addition to being far from search friendly. Meanwhile, the new web-based Android Marketplace is a little more search friendly, but the lack of a retail category again stands as a roadblock.

So, we put together a list of the best mobile apps for retailers. This list was the product of multiple keyword searches across various app categories, from productivity to business. Data of how many reviews, star-ratings, and approximate number of installs are provided, as available.

Be sure to let us know if you’ve found a helpful retail app that we’ve left off the list.

iPhone / iPad Apps

Cash Register (MyAppIdea) – 3.5 stars with 33 ratings | $1.99
Developed for iPhone. Keeps track of your inventory and acts as a virtual checkout. Simple interface tracks all transactions so you can easily total your sales and e-mail them to customers. Sales can also be exported to Excel. Can supports multiple businesses.

LightSpeed Mobile – 3 stars with 6 ratings | $4.99
Developed for iPhone. Mobile retail extension of the LightSpeed Point of Sale system for Mac. Connects with LightSpeed database to act as a mobile checkout. Works jointly with Linea Pro hardware to scan barcodes and swipe credit cards. Can support multiple businesses.

Ring it Up – 4 stars with over 300 ratings | $29.99
Developed for iPhone and iPad. Point-of-sale application that interfaces with numerous popular credit card applications and the RedLaser barcode app to act as a complete checkout terminal. Can send HTML & .PDF receipts/invoices to customers, import/export .CSV files, and backup/restore data. Can support multiple businsses.

Read more…

When we relaunched our testing platform last year, we chose to build it in Flex. It allowed us to build a nice web UI, but it also meant that iPhone and iPad owners couldn’t connect to our platform directly. An Apple iOS user had to find a regular computer to report bugs when testing an iOS app.

Well we’ve heard their pleas, and we’re happy to announce something that should help: the uTest iOS app. With a native interface for both the iPhone and the iPad, it’s now possible for testers and customers to test on the couch and on the go.

If that’s enough to make you want to download the app right now, then don’t let me stand in your way. Just click (or tap) on that image to the left and go get it. It’s free, you know.

If you’re still wondering what makes our app special, let me tell you about some of the awesome new things that both testers and customers can do.

For Testers

Customers and testers can start testing with the uTest iPhone app.

iPad users have a native interface that makes full use of the iPad layout.

It goes without saying that the uTest iOS app lets you participate in test cycles and that our app makes it easy to submit bugs right from your iPhone or iPad. But what’s really cool is that if you’re testing another iOS app, you can submit screenshots and videos of your bugs directly from the uTest app. You can even use your camera to take pictures for upload – handy if you need a screenshot of a bug on another mobile device.

In addition to all that, you can do all the other things you would expect while testing, like view the bugs submitted by other testers, reply to tester messenger conversations, and even check out your uTest earnings.

Of course, all this assumes you’re already a uTester. Because if you’re not, you can actually signup for a tester account right there in the app. It will even help you setup your iPhone or iPad as your first testing device on the uTest platform.

For Customers
If you’re a uTest customer, you’re going to love the uTest app. Why approve and reject bugs from a boring old computer when you can do it from the beach? And if you don’t have a beach nearby, how about the comfort of your couch? In fact, you can now review your test cycles from anywhere you like (assuming there’s a phone or wireless signal, of course).

With the uTest app, you’ll also be able to review attachments and even ask testers questions with tester messenger. Everything you need to keep an eye on a test cycle is available at your fingertips.

Wrapup
Of course, our community rigorously tested our iOS app and they discovered over 60 bugs before launch. Their diligence made this app super solid, and that helped us to get approved by Apple for the App Store in record time without having to resubmit.

Now that we’ve launched our first iOS app, we’re hardly finished. We want your feedback and ideas about how we can make it even better. uTest community members can join our tester forums and check out our Platform Feedback section. Customers can contact their project manager directly or drop us a line.

We write a lot about the latest and greatest apps on smartphones, tablets and other devices. But what about enterprise apps? We haven’t taken a look inside the enterprise for signs of a mobile app uptick (support or implementation) in quite sometime. That’s why this study conducted by Kelton Research really struck a chord.

Yesterday, Kelton Research announced the results of their study on mobile enterprise apps, and I think they may shock you. According to Kelton, a whopping 90% of U.S. and UK IT managers surveyed will implement new mobile apps in 2011! 250 IT managers in the U.S. and UK at companies with revenue of $100MM+ were polled.

At first, I thought these stats seemed slightly inflated, but the more research I did, the more surveys I found that indicated that 2011 is indeed the year of the mobile enterprise app. In fact, ABI Research expects worldwide enterprise mobile data revenues to reach $133 billion by 2014.

With new apps for BlackBerry, iPhone, iPad, and Android making deep in-roads in healthcare, finance, education, media, and retail, employees are using mobile apps to access everything from CRM systems, to financial results, to marketing campaigns, to tracking orders, etc.

Another very interesting finding in the Kelton study… Saving money is the most popular reason (63%) for deploying mobile apps (chart above). I agree with Eric Lai of ZDNet who said, “It’s heartening, as it shows that mobilizing appears to be a fiscally sound strategy, not something with a pie-in-the-sky ROI.”

Some other interesting stats from the study include:
Read more…

Here in the United States, iPhone users have long complained about the quality of service from AT&T. Being the nation’s largest GSM carrier, AT&T was the logical first choice for the iPhone when it launched. Apple could reach a large population of Americans and then expand globally, all using the same device.

But AT&T has a mixed track record of keeping up with the demands of the iPhone. In some parts of the country, their service is great. In other parts, it’s pretty terrible. Many AT&T customers have long wanted to switch to America’s other big phone network: Verizon. The problem with Verizon is that it uses a completely different cellular phone standard called CDMA. Using the iPhone on Verizon required a different hardware design, and that was only after Apple got out of their exclusive deal with AT&T for selling the iPhone.

Today both Verizon and Apple finally delivered: the long awaited CDMA iPhone. Starting February 3, Verizon customers can start using the iPhone on America’s other big network. Are you planning to get a Verizon iPhone?

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Verizon owners will mostly have the same phone experience, but with a few small changes. Read more…