Mobile Testing

The Mobile Release Train

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Mobile Release Train

In one of my last blog posts, I wrote about the Mobile Bug Matrix and how to use it to identify bugs that are worth doing a hotfix. Today, I write about the mobile release train and how to use this approach to release apps to the different app stores.

The release train concept is nothing new and is part of the scaled agile framework. It describes how to deliver software in a specific way. The concept of the mobile release train can be used by small and/ or bigger distributed teams who work on one app, but in different teams. Usually smaller app developer teams/ companies release an app whenever there are enough bug fixes or new features that make sense for their users. However, apps that are developed across multiple teams need an aligned approach to plan releases in advance. If more than one team is developing features they may depend on each other and can’t release without the changes from other teams. In this case, it is not possible to just push the release button to upload an app, this approach will fail.

The Mobile Release Train

Let’s take a look at a mobile release train. In the following picture, you see a simple one. It has a defined development phase in most cases 2-4 weeks. On a defined day and time let’s say on a Monday at 3pm, there is a code freeze happening. Until this time, the teams have the time to review, test and merge the features to the master branch that should be part of the train. At 3pm someone will create a release branch from master branch, either manual or in an automated way. This release branch will get a final integration testing phase. In this phase, all team members should check that the new features are working as expected. If there is a problem on the release branch the bug will be fixed on the release branch and later merged back to the master branch.

Mobile Release Train

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Efficient Test Coverage for Mobile Apps – Brian Hamilton

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Test Coverage - TL_mobilecoverage

At the start of my testing career ten years ago, I chose to tackle the challenge of mobile device test coverage. At the time, I tested multiple apps that had been developed for BlackBerry devices. Each carrier in North America had their own set of BlackBerry devices with their own unique version of the BlackBerry OS. It was important to verify that the app functioned properly on both GSM and CDMA carriers, so testing one hardware/OS combination on one network would not be enough as there were multiple screen sizes, not to mention multiple versions of the OS on the same hardware. The combinations were endless and it was quickly realized that, without a QA team of a hundred people and an endless and varied supply of hardware, we were going to have to make some tough decisions about where to focus our testing.

Today, this problem is even more evident. With literally thousands of hardware/OS combinations of Android devices, it’s just not feasible to test each of them and expect to release a product in a timely fashion.

7 Considerations To Achieve The Best Test Coverage

Let’s assume you are developing a mobile app for Android and iOS. Where do you start when it comes to identifying the hardware/OS combinations to focus on? I have identified seven things to think about when working to maximize your test resources.

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Webinar Follow-up: New Testing Battlefields

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The new testing battlefields: Mobile, IoT and beyond sounds like a nice movie but was a webinar I participated as a guest speaker with three other mobile testing experts on June 15th hosted by Progress and Telerik. If you missed the webinar, don’t worry this is a follow up post with my highlights of the webinar including the slides and the live recording of the event.

In this webinar I had the chance to talk about mobile, IoT and beyond with Jim Holmes who was our host during the webinar keeping the discussion going. Jim is currently working as software tester in the automotive industry. Next to Jim, Richard Bradshaw was another guest speaker. Richard is a well known testing trainer and consultant. He is the creator of whiteboard testing on YouTube and is one of the main organizer of the upcoming TestBash Manchester. Last but not least Iliyan Panchev was the fourth speaker. Iliyan is a former tester and currently working as a program manager for Test Studio at Progress.

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Win a Copy of Hands-On Mobile App Testing

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Hands-On Mobile App Testing Cover - Adventures in QA

Time flies, my book Hands-On Mobile App Testing was published in the printed edition one year ago. Since then so many people wrote me via mail, twitter, facebook, XING or LinkedIn that they like the book and that they found it really useful. This kind of feedback feels really good and makes me happy.

In June last year I posted the following picture on twitter after I received a huge box of books :).

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ADB Idea

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If you are working as mobile tester in an Android team or you are an Android developer you know the pain of installing apk files to your test devices and you should have a look at ADB idea, which may solve your pain. Next to installing or uninstalling apk files from test devices, it is somethings necessary to kill your app, start it or even to clear the app data in order to have a fresh version of it. Usually you are using the known adb commands for that and execute them in the console or you open the device settings to clear the app data. However, this is time consuming if you are doing this several times a day.

If you are using Android Studio or Intellij IDEA you can use a very nice plugin called ADB idea to speed up your testing and development time. ADB idea is written by Philippe Breault and can be installed via the IDE plugin section, e.g. Preferences/ Settings -> Plugins -> Browse Repositories or you can download it manually from the JetBrains plugin page and install it via Preferences/ Settings -> Plugins -> Install Plugin from disk.

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