A Practical Guide to Testing Wireless Smartphone Applications

Testing applications for mobile phones is difficult, time-consuming, and hard to do effectively. Many people have limited their testing efforts to hands-on testing of an application on a few physical handsets, and they have to repeat the process every time a new version of the software is ready to test. They may miss many of the permutations of real-world use, and as a consequence their users are left with the unpleasant mess of a failing application on their phone. Test automation can help to increase the range and scope of testing, while reducing the overhead of manual testing of each version of the software. However automation is not a panacea, particularly for mobile applications, so we need to pick our test automation challenges wisely. This book is intended to help software and test engineers pick appropriately to achieve more; and as a consequence deliver better quality, working software to users. This Synthesis lecture provides practical advice based on direct experience of using software test automation to help improve the testing of a wide range of mobile phone applications, including the latest AJAX applications. The focus is on applications that rely on a wireless network connection to a remote server, however the principles may apply to other related fields and applications. We start by explaining terms and some of the key challenges involved in testing smartphone applications. Subsequent chapters describe a type of application e.g. markup, AJAX, Client, followed by a related chapter on how to test each of these applications. Common test automation techniques are covered in a separate chapter, and finally there is a brief chapter on when to test manually. The book also contains numerous pointers and links to further material to help you to improve your testing using automation appropriately. Table of Contents: Introduction / Markup Languages / Testing Techniques for Markup Applications / AJAX Mobile Applications / Testing Mobile AJAX Applications / Client Applications / Testing Techniques for Client Applications / Common Techniques / When to Test Manually / Future Work / Appendix A: Links and References / Appendix B: Data Connectivity / Appendix C: Configuring Your Machine

Auteur

Julian Harty is currently a senior test engineer at Google, UK. Over the past 3 years his main focus has been testing mobile phone applications, particularly in the area of test automation. He has presented a number of tutorials in this area in Europe, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Julian is also actively involved with the British Computer Society's Specialist Group in Software Testing (BCS SIGIST) in the important area of non-functional testing. Prior to joining Google he ran his own successful software testing consultancy company (Commercetest) in the UK. A frequent author and speaker at software testing conferences and workshops on specialist subjects including: mobile, productivity, non-functional, performance and security testing, Julian is an internationally respected and sought-after software tester.