Software Testing Blog

The Twitter bird has been seen a lot more than the Fail Whale in the past few month — a testament to the company’s investments in infrastructure. But now, a third species has jumped into the Twitter spotlight: the bug.

And while this particular bug has since been squashed by Twitter’s engineers, it’s still an interesting defect. As all of the major new media heavyweights noted, this Twitter bug briefly enabled the brevity-challenged among you to stretch your legs and break free from the shackles of 140 characters. To put it more plainly, let’s bring in Alexia Tsotsis (@alexia) from TechCrunch:

The Twitter bug which has left many befuddled is exploiting a length limit flaw in the new t.co URL shortener, allowing users to tweet out non-URL links of outrageously more than 140 characters

If you’d like to reproduce the effect, and it seems to be catching, you can visit http://twitter.com/share?text=&url=yourtext, add whatever you want in place of “yourtext,” copy and paste your new t.co URL to Twitter and long tweet away.

Update: Looks like the nimble engineers at Twitter have disabled the feature within the hour this post went up, much to everyone’s dismay. Scripting News’ Dave Winer went so far as to create a web app for the Fat Tweets.

For those of you who follow Twitter (sorry, couldn’t resist), check out the entire TechCrunch article, as well as Mashable’s take.

So maybe it wasn’t AT&T’s fault after all.

Apple recently revealed that there is a fundamental flaw in their method for calculating how many signal bars to display.  And we have the iPhone 4 (and its “learn to hold your phone the right way” fiasco) to thank for bringing this software snafu to light.

CNN Money shares the following details from Apple:

“Upon investigation, we were stunned to find that the formula we use to calculate how many bars of signal strength to display is totally wrong,” Apple wrote in a statement posted on its website. “Our formula, in many instances, mistakenly displays 2 more bars than it should for a given signal strength.”

That means, for example, that iPhones sometimes display four bars when they should be displaying two. Apple said users reporting a significant drop in bars when they hold their iPhone 4 are probably in an area of “very weak signal strength” but were unaware of that because the phone displayed four to five bars.

“Their big drop in bars is because their high bars were never real in the first place,” the company said.

Perhaps most surprising, Apple disclosed that the problem is not confined to the iPhone 4.  The faulty formula has been present in every iPhone model since the 2007 original.  Questions remain about whether the issue is strictly software-related, or if it also involved hardware problems.  However, Apple has said it will release a free software update in the next several weeks to fix the glitch. It will use a new formula recommended by AT&T.

Apparently once just wasn’t enough.  In the spirit of skinny jeans, New Kids on the Block, Pez dispensers and the VW Bug, the browser wars are baaaack.

Yes, the storm clouds are gathering.  Off in the distance, we can see Safari 5, IE9, Chrome 5 and Firefox 4 in various stages of envisioning, development or launch.  And just like the good ole days, the combatants aren’t wasting any time in taking aim at the competition.  MG Siegler over at TechCrunch outlines the initial skirmish in what figures to be a protracted battle among 800 lb. heavyweights.

For those who haven’t yet waded in and taken a side in this looming battle, here are a few product reviews (or previews) from some well-respected sources:

• Safari 5 review from ars technica
• Chrome 5 review from ComputerWorld
• IE9 preview from CNET
• Firefox 4 preview from Wired’s WebMonkey

We’re just beginning to experiment with the betas here in the uTest offices, but I’m curious to hear if any testers or devs have started using these new versions yet.  If so, drop us a comment and share your thoughts. What’s clear is that the latest round of browser wars will be fought along the lines of speed, tab management & placement, extension management and HTML5 support.

For most software companies, user feedback generally comes in the form of emails, surveys, bug reports and the like. For Facebook, it recently came in the form of an entire South Park episode (warning: spoiler alert!).

Earlier this week, South Park lampooned the social media giant (along with Jim Cramer, chat roulette, Tron and Yahtzee) in an episode with major usability undertones. You can watch the entire episode here, but in case you’re at work, here’s brief synopsis from Wikipedia:

When Kyle, Cartman and Kenny make Stan a Facebook profile without his knowledge, he becomes frustrated with everyone asking him for friend requests. After he gets fed up with Facebook, Stan tries to delete his profile but is sucked into a virtual Facebook world. Meanwhile, Kyle starts trying to find ways to get more friends on Facebook after he drastically starts losing them due to his befriending of a third-grade friendless Facebook user, who everyone thinks is a loser.

Compared to other South Park “guests”, Facebook made it through the episode relatively unscathed, and for that they should be thankful. That said, it’s still South Park, a place where weaknesses must be exploited. So, here are a few feedback items I was able to relate to typical user feedback:

Read more…

If media coverage equaled market share, then I’d be writing this post from my iPhone (I’m not) and every single one of you would be reading it from your shiny new iPad (you’re not).  In case you haven’t been near a TV… or a computer… or a radio… or people… you’re aware that Apple launched a new product last week called the iPad.

And with the apparent ubiquity of the iPhone, one can only assume that Apple’s mobile market share hovers somewhere between 97% and 109%.  Unless, of course, you look at those pesky “statistics”, which is exactly what the fine folks at Comscore do each month. As  Jason Kincaid (@jasonkincaid) discussed recently, the latest mobile market share stats might surprise you:

Read more…

Between our office March Madness bracketology and the Bug Battle of the TV Networks rocking the headlines, it’s been an exciting week here at uTest! The Q1 Bug Battle peaked the interest of several leading pundits and bloggers, including TechCrunch’s Robin Wauters (@robinwauters), VentureBeat’s Robert Mullins (@SiliconMoon) and BostInnovation’s Kyle Psaty (@bostinnovation):

• uTest Finds 908 Bugs In Web Apps Of Major U.S. TV Networks

• uTest Rates Best TV Network Web Sites, And Catches Bugs

• uTest Finds 1,000 Bugs in Web Properties of TV Networks

• “Battle of the TV Networks” Uncovers Nearly 1,000 Bugs

Additional press coverage includes Radio Business Report, NewTeeVee, Broadcast Newsroom and VentureFizz.

Thanks again to all of our cunning uTesters for exploring these web and mobile apps voraciously and hunting down some very crafty bugs. And congratulations to all the winners of the Bug Battle of the TV Networks!

Until the next Bug Battle, happy bug hunting!

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…

Mobiles’ 2009’s impressive growth storyline continues in the early days of 2010. By now, you’re probably familiar with the impressive growth in the number of mobile app:  100,000+ approved apps in Apple’s store, nearly 20,000 Android apps, and yesterday, InformationWeek reported that Palm’s app catalog has surpassed the 1,000 mark.

And while it’s widely accepted more apps = more users = more impressions = more revenues, how about some updated financial figures that are closer to the top line?  Well, Jason Kincaid over at TechCrunch outlines a recent report from AdMob that shows that the number of mobile ad impressions doubled in just TWO months:

Some more stats from AdMob’s latest post:

• Increased device diversity: In December, 7 devices generated more than 3% of requests each: the Motorola Droid, HTC Dream, HTC Magic, HTC Hero, Motorola CLIQ, HTC Droid Eris, and the Samsung Moment. This is up from only 3 devices in October (HTC Dream, HTC Magic, and HTC Hero).
• Droid Invasion: The Motorola Droid is already the leading Android handset in the AdMob network and generated 30% of requests in December.
• US leads Android adoption: 90% of Android traffic was in the US in December, up from 84% in October. Top countries by requests are the US, UK, Germany, France, and Canada, respectively.

It’s an understatement to say that mobile was hot in 2009 — from our vantage point, mobile app testing was the fastest growing segment of uTest’s business.  But a growing number of trends are pointing to 2010 growing at an even faster rate.

Is it possible that this year will make ‘09 look like the quaint, simple, slow times in the world of mobile apps?  Based upon what our customers (hundreds of app developers of all shapes and sizes) are telling us, the answer is a definitive ‘yes’. What say you?

UPDATE 1/5/10: And if all the above stats didn’t convince you, Apple just hit the 3 billion download mark! In just over 3 months, Apple went from a record 2 to 3 billion downloads by iPhone and iPod Touch users. Simply incredible.

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…

Catching up on my reading and came across an interesting article on the App Store from Jason Kincaid over at TechCrunch.  Ostensibly, this piece is about Apple’s overly strict and seemingly random App Store approval process and a high-pressure NSFW rant from a high-profile developer, Joe Stump, whose popular app has a new version that is on the outside of the app store, looking in.

Stump outlines a problem that he had with Chess Wars, the Facebook Connect-enabled chess game that came out in July. After catching a show-stopping bug soon after the initial release, his company Blunder Move promptly issued an update. Soon thereafter they noticed another bug, which they quickly released a fix for. Unfortunately, this second update has sat in App Store purgatory for many weeks now, and Apple has gone silent on when it will be approved.

What struck me — other than the string of bad press that Apple has earned via the lousy treatment of its developers — is that THIS is a new cost of bugs.

Not to lay blame at Stemp’s feet.  We, of all people, know that bugs happen.  Plus he mentions utilizing 50 beta testers and 200 unit tests, so they’re doing more testing than many.  But IF these showstopper bugs had been caught in the initial version or even in the 2nd version of Chess Wars, then Chess Wars wouldn’t have its nose pressed up against the window of the App Store, waiting for the powers-that-be to bless the new version.

Chalk it up as another real-world reason to achieve maximum professional testing coverage to eradicate all quality, security and privacy defects before your app goes live.  Have other stories of software bugs causing havoc in interesting, scary or funny ways?  Drop us a comment and tell us about it.