Shivani Sinha | Posted on April 5, 2018September 5, 2022 | 2 min Read

Future trends getting bigger for mobile apps in e-commerce industry

Future Trends

Living in a technological era has forced entrepreneurs to adapt to current market and technology trends. Mobile is one such driving force that is propelling enterprises to another level.

E-commerce industry is so vast that it needs a proper channel or platform to reach a wider spread of audience. Android and iPhones both have turned to be largely used platforms used by people across the globe.

Consumers of ecommerce industry today use their mobile devices in numerous contexts like – making a purchase anytime, anywhere, browse and get details about a product while shopping in store. A mobile app serves as a bridge connecting all channels and touch points between a retailer and a customer which they together leverage to get a great and seamless shopping experience. Let us have a look at the trends that tend to set the future of mobile apps in e-commerce industry.

A Rising Influx of Mobile Shoppers

Just as smartphone usage and sales continue to tick upward, mobile shopping is likewise expected to rise. Mobile devices currently account for 19% of all ecommerce sales in the United States; however, the figure is projected to rise to 27% by the end of 2018, according to an Invesp report. This influx of mobile shoppers also presents new challenges to merchants, though. Though desktop driven ecommerce sales may be plateauing, but data from Comscore shows that online sales are booming as a whole. Sales from mobile devices are now leading the charge with an annual growth rate of 59% that eclipses desktop 17%.

Mobile App Testing Trends — Source: Invesp report

More Prevalent Storefront Apps

In a response to the aforementioned challenge of appealing to mobile buyers, expect to see a new wave of mobile “storefront apps” to reach buyers on-the-go. This trend goes hand in hand with the need for merchants to have omni-channel presence, as well. Given that mobile users spend 86% of their time within apps versus mobile sites, perhaps branded native smartphone shopping apps are the key to converting those once-fickle customers.

After all, if a customer is willing to go through the effort of downloading a mobile app, chances are they’re loyal and trusting enough to make ongoing purchases. “App commerce” platform Poq recently found that storefront apps outperform mobile web conversion rates by 40%, support longer browsing sessions than even desktop web browsers and are twice as likely to drive repeat visits. This all makes sense given the game-changing functionalities that storefront apps offer, which include superior content personalization opportunities, push notifications and geo location-integrated brick-and-mortar shopping recommendations.

Poq’s compelling solution, for one, offers a centralized content management system that merchants and marketers can use as a unified data hub that uses an API to automatically sync with analytics platforms, payment gateways, customer review platforms and more.

Boom of app adoption in Indian market

Over 80% of buyers surveyed in India now prefer using apps over mobile browsers to shop on phones, compared to the global average of around 70%, according to a report published by payments technology firm Worldpay. At an average download of 10 mobile apps per day, India has been far ahead and is a thriving market beating its rival U.S and U.K. where the average downloads are 7, the report added. Indians downloaded 12.1 billion apps last year, dethroning the US’s app economy (11.3 billion).

Getting the app experience right can yield handsome rewards for e-tailers. After all, according to the Worldpay report, one in three Indians spent more than Rs4,000 ($62) on their last purchase. Tapping the right market will be the key to their success for e-tailers.

Conclusion

Nobody can truly predict the future in regard to ecommerce. However, these current trends will continue to heavily influence the space for the time being. One thing that is inevitable for the evolving e-commerce industry is that they should maintain the highest quality apps with fastest time to market. The best strategy would be to test the apps on multiple real devices with different OS versions and on different parameters on a cloud based platform that can deliver better quality apps faster. pCloudy is the ideal full lifecycle digital testing cloud based platform to test all the mobile and IOT apps.

Manual, automated and crowd testing can be done on both iOS and Android devices. These tests can be run on a public cloud, on premise or a dedicated private cloud as per the need. Both Selenium and Appium tests can be run on pCloudy. One of the biggest advantage of it is that it can be integrated with Continuous Integration systems.

Sign up on pCloudy and test your apps to believe what we say.

Shivani Sinha | Posted on March 21, 2018September 5, 2022 | 2 min Read

Cross Platform Mobile Test Automation Using Appium

Mobile Test Automation Using Appium

With growing demand in the market, enterprise mobility has undergone a paradigm shift. Speed, quality and user-friendliness are the need of the hour for modern enterprises. Mobile apps have become a major source of revenue boosters for enterprises today.

It is a well-known fact today that the numbers of platforms and device types are more varied now than ever before. Customers continue to demand the latest devices, features and functionality, as well as increased mobility and accessibility. With the proliferation of mobile and portable device platforms and the Internet of Things, the workload of developers, and especially testers, has greatly increased. As traditional testing practices of manual app testing prove unable to keep up with the demand, businesses of all types are experiencing significant product delivery delays and, in some cases, costly product defects. Naturally, there is a growing demand for more efficient and cost-effective testing across all platforms.

Appium: Addressing the complexities of mobile app testing

To address the demands of complex testing needs, an effective mobile app testing platform is needed which is secure, supports functional and automated testing without losing an eye on the speed and quality. So, in this era where consumers have adopted smartphones, use multi-platforms to access mobile devices, do you think your app is delivering the best experience to your users? If not, then Appium is the solution. Appium is an open source, cross-platform mobile automation tool to automate the test for native, hybrid and mobile web apps.

Appium being one of the best solutions for automation comes with support for Android and iOS real devices. In fact, it also comes with support for simulators and emulators. At its core, it an HTTP server written in node.js. It has similar working as Selenium which actually perceives HTTP requests from selenium client libraries and handles those requests in different ways depending upon the platforms.

Being the best and widely used option available today in the market, it is widely adopted by modern enterprises to create a comprehensive mobile automation framework. With a growing user base and a stronger community, it is easier to adopt and implement which is why enterprises are adopting it on a very large scale. The best thing about Appium is that it lets you write in any language supported by Selenium using WebDriver API.

While testing an Android app, Appium automates it with the help of UIAutomator library, a part of Android SDK. This actually makes the learning and implementation easier for Selenium users. Having the capabilities to test on both Android and iOS devices makes it the best cross-platform mobile app test automation tool. Automation scripts can be run on real Android and iOS devices using the WebDriver JSON Wire protocol.

Appium starts a test case on the device that spawns a server and listens for proxy commands. On iOS, Appium proxies command to a UIAutomation script running in instruments.

Source: cloud.netlifyusercontent.com

Appium: Why should you Choose?

Opens the door to cross-platform mobile testing which means the same test would work on multiple platforms.
Unlike other tools, it doesn’t require any third-party code to compile into your app to make it automation friendly.
Enables a variety of frameworks and programming languages by wrapping the vendor-provided frameworks in the WebDriver API that specifies a client-server protocol.
For a tester, the programming language and the whole experience would remain same irrespective of the automating platform as all complexities are under the hood of Appium server
Possible to Execute multiple tests on multiple platforms without the need to manage them.
Able to run test sequences with hundreds of test cases, across multiple platforms.
Enables the view and share of device interactions with colleagues using in real-time built-in collaborative screen casting
On-demand testing and leverage results directly
It supports automation frameworks like JUnit and TestNG

Appium has some challenges when it comes to scaling up with continuous integration. pCloudy brings to you a solution for this where you can automate your app tests with zero learning. Sign up on pCloudy and automate your tests on Appium for faster and better delivery of apps.

Shivani Sinha | Posted on March 20, 2018September 5, 2022 | 2 min Read

Samsung Galaxy S9 and LG V30 Plus Devices are now available on pCloudy

Galaxy S9 and LG V30 are Available

Shivani Sinha | Posted on January 19, 2018September 5, 2022 | 2 min Read

Selenium for Mobile App Testing

Selenium

All automation development and testing engineers are very well aware of ‘Selenium’ which is the de-facto testing framework for web applications. With the changing mobile landscape, Appium is the most used framework for testing mobile apps. But is it possible to use Selenium for mobile application testing? The direct answer is ‘Not really’ but there is a long and different approach to this answer.

Appium is the most popular mobile application test framework which can be used to test all native, hybrid, and mobile web apps for iOS and Android. It is also used for cross browser testing that involves testing on real devices and real browsers. The fact is that Appium has got its roots from Selenium and it uses JSONWireProtocol to interact with iOS and Android apps using Selenium’s webdriver.

Appium/Selenium Architecture

In a typical architecture, Appium is an HTTP server written in Node.js that produces and handles multiple WebDriver sessions. Appium starts tests on the device and gets commands from the main Appium server. The server is mainly the same as the Selenium server that gets HTTP requests from Selenium client libraries.

The image below is an example to show how test scripts can run on our pCloudy platform. Don’t forget to watch the video on ‘How to run Appium scripts on pCloudy‘ here.

Now that we know a bit about Selenium and Appium testing framework, let us understand the new term in Android app testing – ‘Selendroid’ which is a framework based on Selenium for automated app testing.

In other words, Selendroid is a test automation framework which can interact with multiple devices concurrently that can be tested without any modifications. It is also known as “Selenium for Android” for testing native and hybrid mobile apps and mobile web.

Let us have a look at some of the features of Selendroid:

a) It is an Open Source and is free to use
b) It supports all Android versions
c) It supports Selenium as a scripting language
d) It supports webdriver compatible languages eg: Perl, Java, C#
e) It can work on both emulators and real devices
f) It works on all native, hybrid and web-based apps
g) It is effective while executing native and cloud-based apps as it supports Selenium grid
h) It is very easy to implement.
i) With its feature called ‘Hotplugging’, it can recognize the new devices automatically.
j) It has a built-in Inspector to simplify test case development.
k) It can support various Android API versions from Android API 10 to Android API 19.
l) It can fully support parallel testing by integrating a node into Selenium grid.

Selendroid Architecture:
Selendroid is based on the Android Instrumentation framework where tests are written using Selenium Webdriver client API, which is also called as Selenium 2 client. Hence, it can be fully integrated with existing Selenium frameworks. It is also compatible with JSON Wire Protocol.
Let us have a look at the architecture of Selendroid:

To conclude, Selenium has paved its path as a de-facto web test automation framework and Appium is providing high-level APIs that can be speedily adopted by Selenium developers, and it helps simplify the tests.

Shivani Sinha | Posted on October 6, 2017October 31, 2024 | 2 min Read

Test For Voice/Audio Commands on pCloudy Devices

Audio Test Commands

Now a day’s many apps can be operated by using voice commands. For example Google voice search , Evernote voice / audio note etc.,
Now you can send voice command to pCloudy devices while testing such apps

Below are the steps to perform audio command testing.

1) Upload the audio file which is having audio command (like .mp3, .wav etc.,) in MyApp/Data by clicking upload button

Note: if you don’t have audio file you can use the below mentioned website to generate sample audio files.

url: http://www.text2speech.org/

2) Install any Android /iOS application in device which is enabled voice search feature. For this article we have taken Amazon app as an example.

3) Open the application and click on search field and then click on microphone symbol

4) Select Inject Audio option from Device settings options and select the audio clip

5)The audio file is played at the Audio-in of the device . This way app will identify command in audio clip

6) As you can see the above screenshot the search text has identified the voice command

Note: As of now audio command test can be done on limited set of device , You can search for those device by using the audio tag filter in the device page as shown in below screenshot.

Shivani Sinha | Posted on September 22, 2017December 13, 2024 | 2 min Read

Set Mock Location for Testing of Geo location Based Mobile Apps

Mock Location for Testing of Mobile Apps

How many apps on your phone today has applications that need GPS as a tool to do the task that it needs to. Be it hailing a cab, ordering food, booking a movie or the indispensability of shopping online, more often than not, we use GPS based apps all available at our fingertips. Gone are the days when asking people around a few times used to connect you and the place of the product.

Precision is the name of the game now. The applications developed need to be tried and tested. Not just that its functional requirements are easy to read and track format seamlessly.

Geo-Location Testing of Apps by using mock locations on devices

Geolocation technology has given birth to new ideas for startups which didn’t exist before. New market strategies keep bringing to light that have transformed the relationship of a company and its consumers. The ability to integrate Geolocation into our mobile technology creates solution for any industry domain.

Why is testing necessary?

A few examples of Geolocation apps are the ones that also track weather alert systems, track lifestock and location based advertisement systems. Using Geo-Tag or GPS Location of a mobile device, location aware apps are created. Geo-location testing is performed on apps that are location-aware. Which means it has to display and collect information based on the real-time location of the device, to provide real-time services to its user’s proximity.

So how does a developer guarantee that the application will be functional worldwide? Not just that, for local areas, how does he guarantee that the app will work in specific streets with crowded services and neighborhood areas?

Presently the state of affairs are such that geolocation apps are restricted to field testing and iOS/Android based simulators. Developers can also manually draw up GPX/KML files that need talented coding skills. Test teams have always struggled to test location based feature due to lack of mock location tools.

iOS Device Mock Location Testing — *set phone location on iOS device*

Android Geo Location Testing — *set phone location on Android device*

How does pCloudy allows testing of Geolocation apps?

pCloudy provides single click access to a tool to mock location on a IOS or Android device. Which is why testing geolocation functionalities is also pretty damn seamless and easy.

Similar to field-testing but only far easier. If your application under test is a location aware app and if it reads the geo-location from the device to provide the necessary results, “Set Phone Location” feature can be used to inject any location (mock location) on the earth to the device and the device will be teleported to the selected location. Simply choosing a location of choice on a virtual map, which internally feeds latitude and longitude information to the device.

This emulates the chosen location on the device as your real location. This helps you test if your application behaves properly at different locations.

Cloud-based testing for mobile applications is cost-effective. While looking for cloud-based mobile application testing tools you need to consider that it provides comprehensive coverage with more numbers of real devices. Users also download the mock location app to spoof your location to view any content that is blacked out in a particular region.

For more information refer to this documantation

Shivani Sinha | Posted on June 23, 2017December 5, 2024 | 2 min Read

Testing The Battery Drain For Android App

Android App Testing

If you are anything like me, you’d agree that the armor of present day mobile phone technology has a few chinks on it. Nothing is worse than applications draining the battery resources of your mobile device faster than you can fill it back up. The sunnier side of course, is that you can create teachable moments for your kids better by hiding their phone chargers and watch the colors drain from their faces.

Studies show that battery life is a top priority for smartphone buyers. In fact, just recently, an IDC survey showed that 56% of Android buyers, 49% of iPhone buyers and 53% of Windows Phone buyers said that battery life was a key reason when they bought their particular device.

It is rare to find mobile app testing tools that assure proper usage of resource by the mobile app as, included in the overall test plan and strategy.

It’s rather a tedious and long process for conventional mobile app testing methods and as such, Let us talk about how resource consumption as an app takes top priority, because nothing stops a user to uninstall their resource draining apps from their phone. Also we’ll talk about how developers and testers efficiently test mobile apps for Android applications.

Figure 1: IDC Survey

Why battery testing is important:

Thousands of new mobile apps are being launched every day. And these apps have gone beyond just utilities, games and shopping apps, nowadays, apps need to be integrated into self-driving cars, digital assistants, wearable devices etc. Billions of users need to install apps that are not only compatible with their varying devices, but also provide quality experience of the app so that it doesn’t prompt the user to uninstall it and move to an alternate app.

When you get worried about potential battery abuse, its fair economics to identify the markers that can cause increased consumption of energy by the mobile application. Critical are the functionality, usability, performance and security to make sure that the app does what it was meant to do, seamlessly. The growing need for perfect enterprise and consumer apps and the continuous need to upgrade the application to match it with what the consumer exactly wants is a job that creates high pressure for developers and testers alike, who are responsible to delivering them.

We would get deep into the best practices and tactics that should be kept in mind while testing for battery drain in your mobile app in a later blog post. For now, let us look at how developers can test for battery consumption during Android App Testing.

How to test battery consumption for mobile apps:

So far there hasn’t come a good automation method to test app battery drain. So testing Real Mobile Devices meets many requirements for efficiency in the process. Let us check out a few parameters to test battery drainage due to mobile apps.

Battery test flow
This will vary based on the functionalities of the applications. But overall the below approach or points should be considered while testing for battery consumption.
- Check the status of the battery before the test begins
- Enable the location services for the application if app supports
- Start the data sync of the application if app supports
- Start the streaming service of the application if app supports
- Check if the application send/receive the data when in the background
- Check if the application send analytics to its server
- Observe the battery consumption while doing above supported features by your application.

This will give us an idea as what is the battery consumption by the application.

Testing as end user

It is very critical to test the environment needs of the app from a real user perspective. Environments like device types, operating system, background popular apps installed and running, network conditions (WiFi, 2G, 3G, 4G, Roaming) as well as diverse set of devices with different battery states, brings DevOps teams as close as they can come to end users.

Android App Testing across varying devices

Android is guilty of OS fragmentation due to its open approach to OEM vendors. Different devices have varying battery capacity and each loses its battery chemistry over time, negatively impacting performance and battery hours. This is why we must check the battery consumption for the mobile app on variety of mobile devices. The best practice is to use multiple devices from device labs/ device clouds.

Different tools available in the market.

Android’s built in Battery App

Your Android Mobile Phone has a ubiquitous battery testing resource, as it comes preinstalled on all Android mobile devices. Android’s native battery analyzer, for example, (Settings> Device> Battery) is built into Android’s OS and helps analyze each app and let you know which are the ones draining the most fuel.

Commercial Battery Saving Apps

There are a few commercial Android Battery Analyzers which are available for free in the market, like:

GSam Battery Monitor can reset testing cycles as you go, which means there is no need for draining and recharging the battery like in android’s native battery app, and monitor app power usage without having to wait to get an information reset.

Clean Master on another hand, lets you know through its notification feature as and when an app is causing the phone’s battery/CPU to drain, which gives instant information on any CPU overuse.

pCloudy platform for Testing Battery Drain

pCloudy platform allows comprehensive features for Android App Testing. Moreover, Using pCloudy’s platform, one can monitor the battery consumption by the application. additionally, the user can also monitor memory, CPU and data consumption by the application.

The user can do the complete functional app testing on the application by touching all the critical/non-critical paths in the application. The pCloudy platform provides the necessary data for the work flow.

Conclusion

Google has said that this year their focus is on the ‘vitals’ of mobile phones, battery being one of the critical four. It’s always best to use varying angles of attack to test your app’s battery usage. And the only way to do that right now is to cover as many mobile device variants in the market and test against them.

To check battery consumption during Android App Testing Click Here.

Get 180 Device Testing Minutes Free

Shivani Sinha | Posted on September 18, 2015September 5, 2022 | 2 min Read

pCloudy Mobile App Testing Platform – On Boarding Guide

pCloudy – On Boarding Document

Thank you very much for opting pCloudy.

We appreciate your business and welcome you to our long list of satisfied and much valued customers. Our success comes from the continuous faith in the excellence of our products and services, something we are committed to and would never sacrifice.

Our customer service, especially in the after sales phase, guarantees the satisfaction of our clients. In line with this strategy, we ask you to share with us your feedback at any time, be it positive or negative. There is always room for improvement, so if we can serve you better in anyway, please do inform us.

Introduction

This document is created to serve as a guide while you explore the pCloudy platform. It will help you understand how to use, to get quick help and whom to contact while starting off with pCloudy. Though this is not a complete help document, it will act as a quick reference to begin using the platform.

About pCloudy

pCloudy is a mobile application testing platform which will help you to test your apps on hundreds of real devices. You can remotely access real devices and carry out Manual and Automation Testing.

Quick Start

Registration

The platform has a secure login process to protect the apps you test. In order to use the platform you must setup your login credentials first.

Where do I do this?

Simply, enter your details at https://device.pcloudy.com/signup, after a short verification you will be ready to sign-in.

In case of any issues, drop an email to support@pcloudy.com

Sign-in

Once you’ve signed up, you can access the platform with the help of your registered Email ID and Password.

In case of any issues, drop an email to support@pcloudy.com

Note: If your workstation has touch screen feature, enable TouchScreenBrowserSettings

Where do we go from here?

Once you login, you will be exposed to an array of devices and platform features. You might get overwhelmed and lost, but don’t worry, we have you covered.

A typical pCloudy user will follow these steps for testing mobile apps using the platform.

Divided into five parts –

1. How to select right device from the platform?
2. How to manage apps on the platform?
3. How to start testing your apps on the selected devices?
4. How to run automation scripts on cloud-based devices?
5. Additional Features

1. How to select right device from the platform?

To select the right device on the cloud the platform provides various filters. These filters will help you to select devices based on the OS versions, OEMs, Screen Size, Network, or Device Location.

There are two modes to access the devices on the cloud –

1. Instant Access – This provides immediate access to the available devices at that moment. Just hit the ‘Connect’ button on any device displayed in the Instant Access page and you will be ready to use the device.

2. Book your Device – In some cases you might want to reserve a device for the future. You can book a device in advance to keep yourself prepared for testing. With careful planning, with the help of ‘Book your Device’ mode you can make sure the devices are available when you need them and save time.

To learn more, refer to these links:

Managing your credits

To use the devices you need to have enough credits in your account:

To view the remaining credits in your account refer to this link
To buy more credits, click this link

How to manage apps on the platform?

The platform provides secure limited disk space to store the apps on the platform. This space can be used to store app installation files (apk or ipa) or test data (image files, zip, etc).

Refer these links to know how to upload your app files to the platform:

How to upload an app installation file?

Manual Testing of Mobile Apps

The dashboard provides you with quick and easy access to use the different features to test your mobile apps.

1. Device Screen: You can use the device same as how you use a device physically. You can use swipe actions, zoom-in, zoom-out and various gestures to control the device.

2. Main Panel: This panel provides options to view device info, install/uninstall apps, change device settings, tools to debug apps and run automation, and more.

3. Quick Action Bar: Frequently used controls like taking Screenshots, changing device orientation, sending text to device, and more

4. Logs and Performance: Real time device logs and app performance are displayed

Features

Here’s a list of some important features to test your apps –

1. Functional Tests

You can install/uninstall apps on the devices, you can use various gestures on cloud based devices just like how you do testing on physical device, you can mock GPS location, take screenshots, and much more. Here are some links that will help you:

2. Performance Profiling

Performance profiling of Android Apps – You can monitor the CPU usage, memory usage, battery consumption, frame render count of the app in real-time while testing an app.

Performance on iOS Device – You can monitor the CPU usage & memory usage of the device in real-time during testing.

3. Debugging mobile apps

You can capture bug and crash information in the form of logs, screenshots, videos, and stack trace information while testing your apps on devices.

4. Test Mobile Web Apps

You can test your web apps or website on various browsers on various devices.

5. Network Virtualization Tool

The app you tested in your lab environment will not work the same way when you use it in an elevator, or in a basement, or while you are travelling on a highway. The Network Virtualization Tool will help you to emulate different network environments and test your apps.

Network Virtualization – Testing mobile apps on different network conditions

6. Device Tunnel

You can connect and use a device with ADB just like the way you connect it physically with USB/Wireless ADB. This is used to control a device using ADB commands and debug apps.

Device Tunnel – Connecting a device with ADB Bridge

7. Reports

The reports section will contain the complete details of all your testing sessions. It will hold the screenshots, logs, videos and the performance details of the testing.

Device Tunnel – Connecting a device with ADB Bridge
Device Sessions – Performance Graph
Automation Testing Reports

8. Automation

You can run your automation scripts on multiple devices in parallel. The pCloudy platform supports several automation tools. Here are some links to help you –

Other than the reports generated from the automation tools, you can view additional testing reports stored on the platform as well – Automation Testing Reports. This will contain the videos, logs, and performance graphs of the devices on which Automation execution was run.

9. Integration with Continuous Integration tool – Jenkins

You can use CI tools like Jenkins in integration with the pCloudy platform. This integration will leverage your testing practices to a whole new level. You can deliver quality mobile apps continuously by automating the process of build integration using pCloudy plugin for Jenkins.

Team Admin

To effectively manage the devices, users, apps, or credits on the platform you can use Team Admin.
Refer to article – Team Admin

Contact

Find detailed pCloudy knowledge base articles from support@pcloudy.com
You can reach out to us – support@pcloudy.com or info@pcloudy.com

Shivani Sinha | Posted on April 16, 2015November 11, 2024 | 2 min Read

Does the OEM’s Customization Impacts Your App Quality?

OEM’s Customization

Google developed Android to be an open source platform, so by it’s nature it can be customized.

So if we talk about mobile OEM’s [original equipment manufacturer] like Samsung, HTC, Motorola or LG they just can’t leave Android alone. They customize the Android version for their set of devices. Samsung’s Touch Wiz, Motorola’s Moto Blur, HTC’s Sense are some of the examples.

What is Customization?

When Google releases the latest version of Android, raw and naked to the world, these manufacturers customize that software for their devices. The OS alteration—the skin—changes the look of the software and how it performs. The diagram below explains the process.

Why these OEM’s customize the original android?

Each of the manufacturer have their own though on customization but one thing is common between them is customization enhance the user experience.

Let’s see some of the example of customization by different manufacturers

Lock Screen

Samsung’s lock screen solution does not differ greatly from pure Android 4.2. The only difference is the unlocking process: with Samsung’s lock screen, you can simply swipe the screen to unlock while stock Android requires the user to flick a ring away from the lock icon.

Home Screen

Touch wiz’s home screen’s parallels with Android are clearly visible here. at the bottom there is a dock with re-programmable app shortcuts and the space between the status bar and the dock can be used for widgets or apps. Samsung also allows users to completely remove the Google search bar, which is impossible on the Nexus 4 unless you download an alternative launcher.

Using pinch to zoom, you reach Samsung’s home screen index. Here you can delete everything on your home screen, re-arrange it or add new pages if you need more space. Stock Android has no options like this; again, you’d have to download an alternative launcher.

Notification Bar

Touchwiz’s notification bar, AKA Quick Settings, allows you to change your ringtone, or easily switch off Bluetooth. Directly below, you can find a slider to change your phone’s brightness, and under that you can see your notifications. The top bar displays all possible Quick Settings, which you can add to or delete quite easily.

Stock Android 4.2’s quick settings are accessible by clicking a button on the top right of the notification tray, allowing for more space for messages to be shown.

Settings

Samsung has separated the settings function into multiple taps to help users find their way more easily. But you can’t simply swipe from tab to tab, which is super annoying and contradicts Google’s own developer guidelines set forth all the way back with the introduction of Android Ice Cream Sandwich. In stock Android, there are several clear categories but no tabs, which I actually like better.

App Drawer

Samsung’s App Drawer can be used as a genuine, personalized app database. The default view can be changed to three options: customizable gird, alphabetical gird, or alphabetical list. In addition, apps can be sorted into folders and can be disabled or uninstalled directly from the App Drawer.

Touch wiz provides some more sorting and organizing options in the App Drawer.

The Google Now launcher only displays apps in an alphabetical grid with no other options for sorting being available. If you want to search for apps, this is done by the Google Search box on the home screen. As well, apps can be uninstalled from the App Drawer by long holding the app in questions and then dragging them to the top of the screen.

Recently Opened Apps

When you open up the Recently Opened Apps in Touch wiz, you have the option to see your RAM usage and also a Collapse All link that will close all open programs. In stock Android, unfortunately, you have to pick and choose each and every app that you want to close by swiping it to the side.

On stock Android, you’ll need to close each app individually. Touchwiz has a button that will close all open apps at once.

In nutshell Apart from Google manufactured devices nobody is using Stock android. So next time when you start creating a strategy about the coverage of Mobile platform think about OEM’s Customization.

As you can see, UI Skins are a significant source of the fragmentation that affects developers.

In addition to UI layers, Drivers also cause major problems, many related to graphics. Certain chipset manufacturers have done an especially bad job at updating their graphics drivers, which makes the colors in apps, games and any graphic content inconsistent across phones. Developers might encounter entirely different color schemes on various Android devices, none close to what they intended.

TIPS AND TAKEAWAYS

The most common misconception is that Nexus devices are the best for testing. Those devices typically have the latest OS version and little to no OEM customization.
Pay attention to carrier- and operator-branded devices as well. Some of them implement Android totally differently, regardless of the name of the device or brand.

Related Articles:

Mobile App Testing Tools to Improve App Quality – pCloudy Tutorial

>Explore Full Power of pCloudy Platform – Improve Quality, Speed and Efficiency

How To Achieve Scalability,Quality And Speed With Appium

17 Best Tips To Write Effective Test Cases

Continuous Integration with Jenkins

Test Automation

Test Infrastructure

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