A couple of posts ago, I blogged about “How to File Mobile Bugs“. One part of this post was a screen recorder video that can be attached to a bug report in order to provide more useful feedback to the developers. If you search the app stores for screen recorder apps you will find lots of them offering recording features. However, nearly all apps require a rooted device in order to use the screen recording function but using a rooted device for mobile testing is not recommended.
With Android 5 (Lollipop) the situation has changed. Android 5 is offering an API for the developers to add screen capture capabilities within an app without rooting the device.
One of the first companies who provide a mobile screen recorder that requires NO device rooting is ilos. ilos is providing an Android and iOS app. However, only the Android app can be used to record the current screen to capture bugs in your app. The iOS app is only able to get access to already taken videos from your account. As soon as Apple provide such a feature in iOS ilos will also offer the screen recording feature for the iOS version.
With the Android version you are also able to comment the current recording session in order to describe to bug on the screen. ilos is using your microphone to record the audio as well.
Have a look at the Android ilos product video:
Providing screen capture videos within a bug report can be really useful and I recommend to try it out in your next mobile testing session. However, keep in mind ilos is only available for Android 5.0. If you want to capture screen videos of older Android versions use another device camera to record a video or use a camholder.
Thanks to my colleague Thomas Layh who showed me this app.
Happy Testing!