Recent reverberation in the Smartphone industry has revolutionized the market of gigantic variety of Mobile Applications or just ‘Mobile Apps’ to be precise. Today, we have an App for nearly everything, be it booking a Cab, selling or purchasing of items or commodities, booking a movie slot, getting a pizza order and what not. This symbolic growth has been successful in drawing the attention of vendors, big online stores, and other entrepreneurs to have an App for their businesses. This has also lead to the start of a race among various vendors dealing in same kind or other different kinds of businesses, where not having an App is considered to be allowing and allowing your competitor let take over your customers as well as the market.

 Also with the wide range of mobile platforms like IOS, Android, Windows, etc. it is necessary for the vendors to have an App on all the platforms available or one that is platform independent so that they can target each and every smartphone user rather than any specific platform user. Today the customer wants big time connectivity, easy and quick access, he/she wants everything by just a touch on the screen. So the apps should be highly user friendly.

 Essentially, there are lot many things to capture the market with just having an App. The App should be user-friendly, have attractive GUI, ultimate graphics, fast and should be similar in look and feel when used on various platforms. This matters a lot because with a slight difference in the App’s performance over various platforms, could lead your business grow in one or two segment users and lack in the other. This is because the users start comparing the performance of the App on various platforms and would not like to install it on their Smartphone if it hangs, or is slow or crashes frequently. Due to this purpose, mobile application testing has also gain popularity in this domain. With growing technologies, the skill set required for mobile application testing is changing and has been precise over the time. This has also increased the outsourcing of Mobile Application Development and Testing where the vendors are paying a big amount to keep their App on the top of the ladder. Thus, we can easily say that Mobile Apps have a very bright future with more and more segments to capture in each and every domain.

Image - (via Bughuntress)

Mobile Application Testing is a process by which software developed for hand held devices are tested for its functionality and usability. It can be automated as well as manual. Mobile applications usually come preinstalled by mobile software distribution platforms. An effective combination of both manual and automated testing tools that covers functional and non- functional testing is essential for getting your mobile applications to market on time and within budget.

 The devices are usually checked on the basis of their user interface, functionality, hardware and software constraints and customer expectations.

  Mobile applications testing are same as using software which can be downloaded from the web, and can be used after installation. Mobile platforms such as android, iphone, blackberry, hp palm etc. can be downloaded from application stores. For example android application can be downloaded from android market.

 Mobile based Application Testing includes-

  Installation Testing: deals with the installation of the mobile application into the device.

  Functional Testing: focuses on how the application works functionally.

  Performance Testing: analyzes the load bearing capacity.

  Power Consumption Testing: checks the power consumption while the application is running.

  Usability Testing: checks if all the listed requirements are satisfied or not. There are many Mobile

Testing Tools also like- Tosca, MonkeyTalk, M-eux Test, Android GUITAR, Googletest, Robotium etc...