blog posts

Mobile phones are one of the most typical and most used gadgets these days. They have become the need for every person, starting from students to adults and even the older population. The usage of mobile phones has increased exponentially, and Statista has stated that this usage may rise and reach 7.26 billion across the globe by 2023.

A mobile phone with no app installed on it is considered useless. A plethora of applications for different purposes is available today to install on your mobile devices. Mobile applications have made human life easier and cozier than ever before. For example, you can connect and communicate with your friends, family members, or colleagues through messaging apps, like WhatsApp, Signal, Snapchat, etc.

However, people love using a reliable and scalable mobile application. Therefore, even if an application is extremely cool, but if it lacks functionality, users are more likely not to use it. Many mobile applications get poor reviews due to their poor performances, battery drainage issues, and crashes.

Therefore, many companies today have invested in mobile application testing to deliver flawless, cross-platform, and reliable applications to end-users. This article shall discuss what mobile application testing is and some top mobile application testing tools.

What is Mobile Application Testing?

Mobile application testing is a method of executing multiple tests against a specific mobile application to ensure that it is fully functional, usable, meets a user’s requirements, and is ready to launch in the market. In other words, a mobile application is tested for its consistency, usability, and functionality.

Mobile app testing is essential to reduce typical issues in hybrid and native mobile applications, like poor performance, loading issues, unresponsive elements, etc. Any mobile application that results in bugs and lags after it gets launched may end up getting more negative reviews on Apple Store or Google Play Store.

In addition, people do not use apps that have negative reviews or one-star or two-star ratings. Therefore, mobile application testing is the only way to rank an application in the Google Play Store or Apple Store.

Types of Mobile Application Testing

Below are different types of mobile application testing that every mobile application must undergo before getting launched in the market.

• Functional Testing

Functional testing in mobile application testing ensures that a mobile application functions as per the user’s requirements.

• Performance Testing

Another type of mobile application testing is performance testing. It is carried out to ensure that an application behaves and performs well under specific conditions, like low memory availability, low battery, bad network coverage, etc. The two significant parameters that affect an application’s performance are the client’s and the server-side.

• Laboratory Testing

Network carriers perform laboratory testing in mobile application testing. A network carrier provides all wireless communication services and possesses the necessary components, like wireless network infrastructure, radio spectrum allocation, backhaul infrastructure, provisioning computer systems, billing customer care, etc.

The primary goal of laboratory testing is to detect pitfalls when a mobile application utilizes data connections and voice to carry out some functions.

• Interrupt Testing

Any mobile application may face multiple interruptions while it is functioning. These interruptions can be battery removal, incoming or outgoing MMS or SMS, network outrage and recovery, incoming and outgoing calls, device power cycle, incoming notifications, media player on or off, etc.

Interrupt testing ensures that a mobile application can handle all the above interruptions by going into a suspended state while it is working. Then, after handling all interruptions, it resumes its work.

• Usability Testing

As its name suggests, usability testing is carried out on a mobile application to ensure that it gets commendable responses from users and achieves its objectives. The usability of an application is one of the most significant factors that contribute to an application’s commercial success.

Additionally, usability testing is performed to ensure that the user experience of a particular application is uniform across all devices. This type of mobile application testing also ensures that it does not possess errors in its functionality when used on different devices.

• Memory Leakage Testing

Memory leakage testing is one of the most important testing types in mobile application testing, as it ensures that an application functions properly within the given constraints of memory.

When an application or a computer program cannot handle or manage the allocated memory, it offers poor performance. In addition, the device on which the program or application is installed may slow down. Such a condition is referred to as memory leakage.

• Certification Testing

Certification testing is another significant mobile application testing type carried out to get the compliance certificate. Every mobile device has to be tested for the certificate of compliance against some rule sets defined by different mobile platforms.

• Load Testing

When a user tries to perform all these activities, like download, install, load, and use an application simultaneously, there are strong chances of crashes or slow load times, causing the user to abandon the application. Therefore, load testing is carried out on a mobile application to ensure that it can handle load under different conditions.

• Security Testing

Security testing is performed on a mobile application to check its vulnerabilities to data security, hacking, session management, authentication and authorization, and many other security standards.

Benefits of Mobile Application Testing

Here are some significant advantages of performing mobile application testing on mobile devices.

• Proper Functioning

One of the primary objectives of any application or software testing is to ensure an application or software is functioning seamlessly with any glitch. In addition, testers check whether an application works correctly under the specified requirements, like changing networks, load conditions, etc.

• UI/UX Usability

Mobile application testing enables testers to think from the end user’s perspectives and develop an application that offers a great experience to them. In addition, they check the logic applied to create an application and verify whether it’s convenient to follow. Testers must run UI and UX tests throughout the development of an application to provide impressive results.

• Enhanced Customer Loyalty

If an application functions seamlessly and has an impressive UI and UX, people will undoubtedly use it and recommend it to other people. Hence, a good application helps you to enhance your relationship with customers. In addition, you can even gain more potential customers and reach a wide range of audiences.

10 Best Mobile Testing Tools for Android and iOS

We know that millions of applications are available on the Google Play Store and Apple Store for Android and iOS devices. Mobile application testing is executed to ensure that these applications provide a top-notch user experience. Below are some popular mobile application testing tools that help testers improve the accuracy, efficiency, and coverage of testing for Android and iOS devices.

1. Kobiton

Kobiton is one of the most used mobile application testing cloud platforms, enabling users to perform manual and automated tests on various hybrid, native, and web Android and iOS applications. In addition, Kobiton allows users to perform testing on real devices and does not use emulators.

Kobiton’s Device Lab Management (DLM) feature enables users to develop a perfect mobile testing cloud. This DML feature allows users to create their local test cloud and connect on-desk, on-premises, and local devices to their private clouds. In addition, Kobiton has made test automation seamless and more manageable. It is the only mobile application testing tool that supports scriptless automation.

The Scriptless Automation feature of Kobiton helps users generate automated test scripts and run them on several devices parallelly. Another desirable advantage of using Kobiton is it resolves all test failures efficiently and accurately.

Pricing

Kobiton offers a pricing plan for every team. There are five different plans – Startup, Accelerated, Scale, Growth, and Enterprise. The Startup plan charges $50 per month and $500 annually, Accelerate plan requires $200 per month and $2,000 yearly, Scale charges $700 per month and $7,000 per year, and Growth is available at $1,400 per month and $16,000 per year. Unfortunately, the price for the Enterprise plan is not available. However, you can fill in your details and communicate with the vendor to know the detailed cost.

2. TestComplete Mobile

TestComplete is a comprehensive mobile test automation platform, enabling users to create and carry out UI tests on any mobile phone. In addition, it supports the execution of UI tests on real iOS and Android devices. Another crucial benefit of using TestComplete is it supports executing one mobile test on different devices, having different resolutions and sizes.

Additionally, TestComplete helps users speed up cross-platform mobile testing. It supports various types of frameworks, such as Flutter, Reacts Native, Xamarin, and SwiftUI. With TestComplete, you can generate test scripts from the beginning and record them for further purposes.

When you TestComplete for mobile application testing, you do not have to jailbreak your tablet or mobile phone. In addition, it supports running tests across different operating systems and devices simultaneously. Finally, it has built-in integrations for defect management tools, source control systems, and management solutions.

Additionally, TestComplete seamlessly integrates with API testing tools, like ReadyAPI and SoapAPI, allowing testers to check whether APIs used for different operating systems and devices work according to the expectations. Moreover, TestComplete provides complete access to the mobile device’s sensor data, like accelerometers, GPS, and gyroscopes.

Pricing

TestComplete offers two different pricing packages – TestComplete Base and TestComplete Pro. The price for TestComplete Base for desktop applications starts at $6,096. For mobile applications, the pricing starts at $6,908, and for web applications, it starts at $6,095. However, you can get TestComplete Base for all desktop, web, and mobile applications starting at $12,320.

TestComplete Pro is available at a price starting at $9,479. However, if you wish to have intelligent quality, the price starts at $10,738. Moreover, TestComplete offers a UI Test Plus Bundle pack that supports cross-browser testing.

3. Test IO

Test IO is one of the most outstanding Software-as-a-Service platforms for crowd testing and is yet another powerful platform for mobile application testing. Many renowned companies have chosen Test IO as their vendor for crowd testing. In addition, the Test IO platform is powered by skilled human testers to perform continuous testing of mobile and web applications using real devices.

Test IO helps testers to test on real devices. In addition, it allows them to expand their test coverage to a large number of real-world platforms, devices, and people. There is only one condition for using Test IO is that your application should be compatible with Android and iOS operating systems and their every version.

As Test IO is a human-driven testing platform, all testers here are NDA-compliant testers. They test your application and find all bugs that the development team may not uncover. In addition to mobile testing, Test IO supports other testing types, such as black-box testing, exploratory testing, usability testing, functional testing, regression testing, website testing, wearables testing, and beta testing.

Pricing

There are three different packages offered by Test IO – Starter, Professional, and Elite. To know the exact price of these packages, you need to fill in all personal details and get a demo.

4. Appium

One of the widely used and open-source frameworks for test automation is Appium. This framework is free and supports automated testing for hybrid and native mobile and web applications on Android and iOS platforms. It uses the WebDriver Protocol to drive applications on different operating systems, like Windows, iOS, and Android.

The primary philosophy of Appium is that testing any mobile application should not require recompiling it or modifying it to automate. Instead, while testing a mobile application, one should choose the desired framework, practices, tests, and tools.

In addition, Appium does not allow users to stick to a specific programming language or framework to develop and run tests. Instead, it enables users to develop test code in different programming languages, like Java, Python, PHP, JavaScript, Ruby, etc. Additionally, you can reuse test code between Windows, iOS, and Android test suites.

One of the most crucial advantages of Appium is that it enables users to automate any mobile application from any test framework using any language. In addition, it allows testers or users to access the test code’s databases and back-end APIs.

Pricing

Free to use and open-source.

5. 21Labs

21Labs is another Software-as-a-Service test automation platform. It is also an analytics platform for applications running on Android and iOS systems. As it is a SaaS platform, it does not require any installation. In addition, there is no need for devices needed to develop and run tests. With 21Labs, users can access hundreds of devices hassle-free.

More than 664 mobile applications have test and try this, and more than 890,878 tests have been execute. Using 21Labs since it was There to use. With 21Labs, testers can provide immediate feedback to developers, test a mobile application as early as possible, and reduce the cost required to fix bugs in later stages.

Additionally, there is an AI in 21Labs that pre-build tests. These tests are customizable and require little-to-no code. 21Labs supports different frameworks, like React JS, Android, iOS, IONIC, Flutter, etc.

Pricing

21Labs offers three affordable pricing plans – Free, Base, and Pro. The Free plan allows users to run five tests daily, supports one device and one project. And comes with AI authoring. Next, the Base plan allows a single user to perform 300 tests per month, supports multiple projects and one device with AI authoring.

21Labs’s Pro plan is comprehensive. It supports 5000 tests per month, unlimited users, multiple projects, and custom devices with AI authoring.