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No amount of numbers or figures can justify the popularity of smartphones. To be specific there are 6 billion smartphone subscriptions across the world, which is more than half the world population. As per sources, the mobile application usage has been steadily increasing, especially after covid. Infact as per Statista, In 2025, consumers are projected to download 187 billion mobile apps from the Google play store .Therefore, today the importance of high-quality mobile apps is growing in the market and there is a cut-throat competition among the organizations for providing the best user experience to their customers.
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To provide great user experience and a seamless transaction, organizations need to employ mobile application testing. Mobile application testing ensures that all the features function as intended, eliminates bugs, and provides the best user experience. Mobile application testing has become a necessary aid for the organization to maintain their apps to deliver good performance and retain their customer base.
In this blog we will thoroughly study about the mobile application testing, its importance, its challenges and strategies to overcome the challenges.
What is Mobile Application Testing ?
In Mobile App Testing a mobile app (Android or iOS) is validated for its functionality and usability before releasing it to the market. Mobile application testing helps to verify whether the app is working as intended and meets the expected user’s and client’s requirements.
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For successful mobile app testing, QA teams need to test applications across various OS-device-browser combinations, screen resolutions and network conditions. Basically the app must be tested across all the possible situations to measure its stability. This helps to ensure that the app performs flawlessly for any given situation and across various device combinations .
Why is Mobile Application Testing important ?
Mobile application testing ensures that the mobile app works as intended and it’s essential to maintain the quality of mobile application in the long run. Following are the major reasons why mobile application testing is important for your businesses
Helps in achieving consistently functional apps:
The main aim of mobile app testing is to ensure that the app functions as expected. This testing method helps to improve the overall functionality of the application and it’s important to execute the testing cycles regularly to maintain the quality of the application.
Uplifts brand image:
Mobile app testing helps to deliver high-quality apps to the customers. It ensures that the application functions as intended irrespective of any complicated situation . A good performing mobile app keeps the customers engaged and increases their trust in the brand, which in turn uplifts its brand image in the market.
Improves the app UI:
UI testing ensures that the UI looks and performs exactly how specified by the client. Additionally, the testers test the app from the end-user’s perspective and assess the overall app experience it delivers to the users. Testers also validate the compatibility of user interface (UI) of the application with various devices of varying screen sizes and ensure that it is easy and convenient to use.
Increases user satisfaction:
Mobile app testing ensures the app meets all functional and non-functional requirements. This helps businesses deliver high-quality mobile apps to the user, which increases customer retention and builds trust.
Improves the overall quality of an app:
Mobile app testing helps improve the overall quality of the app by removing bugs from the apps that hamper its functionality, usability, security, and more.
Provides compatibility:
One of the greatest challenges in mobile applications is providing compatibility across a wide range of devices, browsers and OS. Cross browser testing ensures that the application is compatible across a wide range of device browser and OS combinations and works seamlessly in all the platforms.
Types of Mobile Applications :
Mobile apps are categorized into three types:
Native mobile apps: Native apps are designed only for a single platform, i.e OS, Android, or Windows. Their greatest advantage is that they are easy to use and easy to optimize.
Web apps: These apps basically run on web browsers of mobile devices. Web apps also run on PC browsers and do not require a separate download. Web apps can work on different mobile operating systems, such as Android, iOS, or Windows.
Hybrid mobile apps: These apps are both native and mobile web apps. Hybrid apps can be installed/downloaded on devices like native apps, but they run through web browsers. With the ever-increasing need for these mobile apps across industries, businesses should ensure that they are end-to-end tested, leveraging mobile app testing.
Difference between Android and iOS Mobile App Testing
1. Type Of Operating System: The iOS operating system, developed by Apple is a closed-source OS that makes use of XNU kernel built in C/C++ and Objective-C. On the contrary, the Android operating system, developed by Google, is an open-source OS and makes use of the Linux OS as the kernel’s foundation is built in C/C++.
2. Variety Of Devices: Many Or One
The updates for Android take a longer time for deployment because of a large variety of Android devices. The Android app testing is challenging due the cross compatibility challenges that occur due to a variety of Android devices. Hence for Android app testing, you need to cover a broad range of devices to ensure compatibility across all the devices. However, the same does not apply for iOS as there are less versions of devices.
3. Software Upgrade
The OS upgrade in the Android devices happens frequently but sometimes the users do not receive a particular update for the most recent Android version as it generally takes many months to post the release of the newer version until the users receive the upgrades for their devices. iOS, on the contrary, offers an entirely different experience. The users easily install the updates on all the iOS mobile devices at once.
4. Screen Sizes And Layouts
The various Android devices come with different screen layouts and screen sizes as compared to the iOS devices which have a limited range of screen sizes and layouts. Hence it’s easier to test the iOS devices as compared to the Android devices.
5. Screen Resolution
The various Android devices exhibit different screen layouts and sizes, which leads to diverse screen resolutions. This, in turn, increases the probability of bugs. Hence, for covering the maximum Android devices, the testing teams have to make use of a lot of scenarios investing much effort. As this is not the case with iOS devices, it’s easier to test the iOS devices as compared to Android devices.
Conclusion
As mobile application usage is increasing exponentially, providing the best user experience is the primary aim of every organization. To ensure a consistent high performance of mobile applications, it’s important to test the mobile applications regularly. Hence its highly recommended to leverage a test automation solution which is convenient to use, highly accessible, highly efficient and provides qualitative results.
