A few months back, we told you all about our then-new partnership with Appcelerator. Since then, Appcelerator’s 300,000+ mobile developers have had seamless access to uTest’s suite of mobile app testing services – including functional, usability, localization and security testing – as well as our community of more than 60,000+ professional testers in 190 countries.

Now, we’ve decided to promote this partnership in-the-wild, where people work, live and….drive. We’ve unveiled a new low-tech strategy to reach commuters wondering why their apps aren’t performing as intended as they travel to and from work – a highway billboard! Appcelerator and uTest now greet people as they sojourn to and fro on California’s Highway 101.

The design is simple and eye-catching and promotes our partnership with Appcelerator succinctly.

So next time you’re driving down Highway 101, remember – we care enough about mobile app quality to distract you while you’re driving 75 MPH. California commuters, you’re welcome.

Greetings, uTest Nation and its followers, I’m back to serve in my role as the guy who does that thing that we don’t like to do too much of around here at blog central – talk about ourselves.

Well, not really. I’m actually here to share an excellent interview that STP‘s Rich Hand conducted with uTest’s Chief Marketing Officer Matt Johnston. In the interview, Hand and Johnston discuss ways in which the current burgeoning app economy has elevated the game for the way enterprise businesses conduct mobile app testing. Johnston also describes the importance of testing mobile apps in the wild and what it means for QA professionals.

The interview comes just a few weeks ahead of Johnston’s Mobile-themed keynote at the annual STP conference in Miami.

Listen to the interview today and look for more updates on uTest’s busy fall conference schedule in the coming weeks!

So while it’s not all that common for those of us here at blog HQ to talk about our overseers at uTest, this week we had no choice. In case you haven’t heard or visited this blog this week (and if so, then FOR SHAME), uTest announced on Wednesday that it has acquired Apphance in a seven-figure deal.  That very same day uTest also launched its new product for mobile developers, uTest Apphance, making it free to all for the rest of 2012.

I’d like to say if you missed the news, you’re not alone. But in this particular instance, it’s likely you are indeed pretty lonely. And while I’m sad for you (sitting there all uninformed and stuff), I’ve taken steps to make sure you catch up on all you’ve missed.  Our announcement was reported by numerous business and tech publications, and even landed uTest CEO, Doron Reuveni, on Bloomberg TV’s “Money Moves” for a live interview with Deirdre Bolton.

Check out some highlights below and, for the complete list of articles about uTest Apphance, peruse the uTest Press Room’s “In the News” page. And keep an eye out for some more major news next week! That’s what my blogging mentor, Mike Brown, calls a “teaser.”  Enjoy!

Bloomberg TV’s Money Moves with Deirdre Bolton: How to test a new mobile app

Tech Crunch: uTest Acquires Apphance In 7-Figure Deal As Mobile Developer Tools Consolidate

Boston Business Journal/Mass High Tech: uTest makes 1st acquisition, approaches $40M run rate

Business Week: uTest buys Apphance for a few million dollars

BetaKit: uTest Acquires Mobile App Testing Startup Apphance to Take on TestFlight

SD Times: uTest buys Apphance

Fortune: Term Sheet M&A: uTest acquires Apphance

ZDNet: uTest snaps up Poland’s Apphance in seven-figure mobile apps deal

Bostinno: uTest Acquires Apphance Mobile App Testing Tool for Seven Figures

Sure today may be uTest blog Czar Mike Brown’s birthday (rumors that he’s a content-producing super-cyborg notwithstanding), but tomorrow is the day we really care about here at uTest HQ. The Fourth of July is of course special to us living in the good ol’ US of A. It’s a day for Americans to show patriotism and celebrate the independence of our young nation.

You may recall that, back in May, our own Jamie Saine regaled us with a collection of must-have summer apps. Now, to prepare those of you in the states for our nation’s 236^th birthday (and to entertain and educate those of you in other countries), I offer you my top 5 must-have mobile apps for the Fourth of July:

• The U.S. Constitution (Android & iOS) ­– Sure the Fourth of July celebrates the Declaration of Independence, but it’s the Constitution that set forth the rules by which the USA would be governed. Download it for free and have it at the ready at the family cookout to thwart your uncle’s claims that he has the right to avoid paying taxes because he loves Jesus.

• Revolutionary War Site Locator (iOS) – I grew up in Massachusetts, so I grew up with the spirit of America. Whether you’re a New England native, a Midwesterner visiting the bay state, or a history buff who wants to check out the sites where the battles were won that helped the U.S.A. achieve independence, this app serves as a comprehensive guide. Read more…

People love to choose sides. In the world of sports, Red Sox fans loathe the Yankees and the feeling is reciprocated in kind by denizens of New York. Back in the 80’s we (or our parents) argued whether Miller Lite’s best feature was its taste or the fact that it was less filling. More recently, Twilight fans were asked if they were on Team Edward or Team Jacob (If I recall, my wife abstained, deeming both “scrumptious.” But I digress…).

Nowadays, in the world of mobile development, the argument du jour revolves around whether or not – with the onset of HTML5 – mobile web will one day reign supreme over native apps.

Last week our own inimitable Jamie Saine wrote a post citing a prediction that both content and businesses’ desire to be found easily in browser searches are what will ultimately help mobile web dominate in the long run, if not now.

Yesterday, the newest member of our well-heeled uTest team, Katherine Slattery, offered a slightly more virulent rebuttal, citing numerous sources and pointing out that the native app ship has sailed and we’re all aboard. (There are also unverified rumors that Kate issued dismissive comments about the notion of mobile web surpassing native apps. We’re currently awaiting confirmation as to whether there were utterances of “Oh, come on…” or an insincere “Mmm-hmm, sure.”).

So now we ask you our loyal readers – what do you think? Do you feel mobile web will one day prevail? Or do you feel that native apps are going to remain supreme forever? Take a minute to (re-)read both posts and then choose your final position once and for all! (Or, you know, give us thoughtful, nuanced insight into the values presented by each position.) Either way, let us know your thoughts in the comment section below.

To say the Appcelerator #GenMobile Party last Wednesday night was a success would be an understatement!  As one of Appcelerator’s newest partners, uTest was thrilled to sponsor their annual Apple WWDC  bash along with Box, InMobi and VentureBeat. Given Appcelerator’s reputation for throwing “the” party of the conference, tickets sold out far in advance.

Starting with a rush at 6:00pm, more than 500 mobile professionals starting pouring out of Moscone Convention Center and packing into Jillian’s in the Metreon for a night of celebration.  Folks from every facet of the mobile ecosystem mingled, hearing about each other’s latest projects and cool innovations in the works.

The diverse crowd included developers, project managers, and executives from companies including Groupon, SAP, Twitter, and Klout, as well as investors from firms like Google Ventures.  Plus, mixed among the familiar faces from VentureBeat were tech stalwarts like Don Clark of the Wall Street Journal, Ryan Lawler of TechCrunch, and Emily Price of Mashable.

If you couldn’t make it to the party, check out this video highlight reel and the photo gallery on Appcelerator’s Facebook page.  And of course we can’t forget about the photo booth!  Too many great photos to be able to pick favorites…

Thanks again, Appcelerator and to everyone that joined in the fun.  See you next year!

While many call the San Diego Comic-Con the industry’s “Nerd Prom”, E3 (the Electronic Entertainment Expo) in LA is also known as the video game industry’s “Gaming Christmas”. Each year E3 not only begins with a series of announcements from all the major game companies, but also with a ton of high expectations from gamers themselves. E3 has always been mainly about consoles, and ten years ago, consoles were only about gaming. Hardcore gamers or “core gamers” as they are frequently called, were the most desired audience and everything catered to them.

Then the Xbox 360 and PS3 consoles ventured online, set up online networks and everything changed. Some things for the better, some for the worse. Nintendo went out and dragged an all new audience of “casual” console gamers into the spotlight, and the video game  industry was altered forever.

The “core games” segment of the market, while still huge, has become somewhat of a niche market when it comes to “news-making announcements” and PR.  If you are loading up an E3 presentation this week in your browser and expecting a feast of core-gaming news, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. While serious gaming veterans may turn their nose at the mention of streaming video services, premium content, mainstream franchises, and celebrity endorsed games all they like – these are all elements of the modern video gaming business now. Love it or hate it, that is the current state of the industry.

Fortunately for every soul-crushing Usher performance there’s an amazing Watch Dogs video. Gaming caters to everybody and that still includes core gamers. So don’t throw your controllers out the window every time a publisher unveils a dance game or licence that you’re not interested in.

The other trend that is prevalent at this year’s E3 is of course, the iPad though it might always be mentioned by name. Tablets are part of every developer/platform/publisher’s strategy, and there’s no argument that the iPad is the elephant in the room when it comes to gaming on a tablet. Microsoft is introducing “SmartGlass” to move its gaming initiative beyond the Xbox 360 and onto Windows 8 tablets. Nintendo has a more closed eco-system approach with the Wii U gamepads becoming eerily similar to tablets themselves. While Sony is using a different approach and is hedging its bets by integrating it’s Playstation 3 with its portable Playstation Vita and the Playstation Mobile network on Android tablets.

With so many different strategies companies are taking to make consoles offer more than just gaming in the living room and taking on the tablet market, gamers still have a lot to look forward to. For software testers, this means an unbelievable variety in apps and platforms to test. There is no slowing down in the mobile app testing market, and this week, the video game industry just poured gasoline on the bonfire.

Hamish McKenzie over at PandoDaily wrote an amazing piece about the “Age of Mobile” being in full swing and causing the death of Web 2.0 – and any companies that can’t keep up.

The main influencers in his theory are the meteoric rise of Instagram, the raging success of mobile first companies and the substantial falterings currently being experienced by Facebook and Google. It’s definitely worth a full read, but in the mean time here are a few of my favorite points:

• There are more than 500 million Android and iOS devices on the market, and giant countries like China and Indonesia are only just getting started in their smartphone and tablet push. Global mobile 3G subscribers are growing at over 35 percent, year on year, and there’s a lot more room to move – there are 5.6 billion mobile subscribers on our fair planet.

• Steve Jobs brought the first iPhone into the world in 2007. Android soon followed. The iPad is only two years old. Google, on the other hand, has been around for 14 years. Facebook: eight. They’re veritable geriatrics. And that’s why they’re behind on mobile.

• [From Facebook's S-1 filing] We do not currently directly generate any meaningful revenue from the use of Facebook mobile products, and our ability to do so successfully is unproven. Accordingly, if users continue to increasingly access Facebook mobile products as a substitute for access through personal computers, and if we are unable to successfully implement monetization strategies for our mobile users, our revenue and financial results may be negatively affected.

Read more…

Do you play a lot of games on your SEMC Xperia Play? Are you a news junkie with an LG Optimus 2X? How do sports apps work on your Samsung Infuse 4G? Ever get frustrated with the music app on your HTC Thunderbolt? In our newest uTest Infographic we let the Android Market app reviews do the talking to find out which devices reign supreme (and which fall flat) in the  major app categories.

The No. 1 country in the world for both iOS and Android activation is also the country with the fasting growing app session statistics … and it’s not a native English-speaking country. China has recently surpassed the U.S. in terms of new iOS and Android activations and in the past year the number of app sessions has grown by more than 1,000%. From TechCrunch (emphasis added):

New data from mobile analytics firm Flurry indicates the incredible growth potential of the Chinese smartphone market. The country, which ranked 11th place at the start of 2011 in terms of iOS and Android activations, has now climbed into the number one spot, beating out the U.S., now number two.

In addition, looking at data from Q1 2011 to Q1 2012, Flurry found that China led in app session growth as well, increasing 1,126% year-over-year. And the growth is especially notable because China was already the world’s 7th largest country by the end of Q1 2011. …

What this data means is that the gap is now closing between the two countries in terms of installed base, and China, already the world’s second largest app economy, may soon overtake the U.S. as the country with the largest number of smartphone users, too. China today is estimated as having twice the size of the next largest smartphone install base, the U.K., notes Flurry.

Another means of measuring China’s growth comes from examining app session growth. Here, China leads the world with the staggering 1,126% jump on this front over last year. Other emerging markets where app session growth has been climbing, include (in order) Argentina, the Philippines, Russia, Belgium, India, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and Turkey.

Flurry also looked at the numbers of app sessions over the past year. Since Q1 2011, the number of sessions in the U.S. has more than doubled, however, its share of total sessions has declined from 56% to 46%. This is a reflection of the U.S. market’s maturity, to some extent: it’s still growing, but other countries are growing more quickly. When combining the #2 through #10 ranked markets (China, the U.K., South Korea, France, Australia, Canada, Japan, Germany and Spain), sessions have collectively increased 3.4 times from Q1 2011 to Q1 2012, and session share has gone from 27% to 30%. The rest of the world combined has gone from 17% to 24% during the same time, or 4x growth. …

Read more…