How Google tests mobile apps

Today I found a really interesting blog post by the Google+ team and how they test the Google+ app for iOS and Android. In this post Google describes their mobile testing strategy. The team created 5 general rules, which they follow during the development and testing the Google+ app.

The rules are:

  1. Understand the platform. Testing on Android is not the same as testing on iOS. […]
  2. Stabilize your test suite and test environments. […]
  3. Break down testing into manageable pieces. […]
  4. Provide a hermetic test environment for your tests. […]
  5. Unit tests are the backbone of your mobile test strategy. […]

Android

The Google+ team tests the Android app in 3 different steps. The first tests they perform are Unit tests. The next tests the team is executing are hermetic UI tests. A hermetic ui tests is running without external dependencies or external web service calls. Google is using the tool Espresso. And last but not least they use Monkey tests to stress test the next release version of the app.

iOS

For the iOS version of the Google+ app they do the same 3 steps, with other tools. For unit tests they use OCUnit or GTMSenTestcase. For the hermetic tests they use KIF. For monkey testing they have their own monkey test tool.

Backend

Besides all the app client testing they also test the communication between the mobile devices and the backend servers. For that they build a replay system with golden requests and responses.

I really like the post from google and to see how other companies find their strategy for mobile testing. Find the full post here.

What is your mobile test strategy?