We have always believed that product enhancements need to reach the customer as quickly as possible. Their feedback is the most important part of the product evolution journey.
So, we can’t wait to unveil what we have created in the last few months. We have upgraded it with 11 new features which makes this as one of the biggest product update ever for us.
Some of the features will have a significant impact on the way you currently test your Apps.
We bring to you the guide that will help you to get the most out of the Biggest Update Ever!…Here is what you can find new in the product.
1. Check the Device matrix to be used before you start Testing
Are you always puzzled about what all devices should be a part of your test scope? We have made that decision easy for you by introducing Planner. Planner will help you to calculate your test coverage on an optimal set of devices.
This feature will help you get the latest stats of the market penetration of devices from across the globe. Choose your market coverage and geography to get the list of devices you should be ideally opting for your test.
2. Log Bugs to JIRA directly from pCloudy Report page
We understand the pains a tester goes through and that’s why we have introduced this feature to bring an end to all your woes! Now you can log bugs directly to JIRA while you are testing your application on pCloudy. You can attach relevant data in one single click.
Let’s see how this feature can help you log bugs in JIRA:
Provide your credentials once and we store the authentication cookie provided by JIRA.
(Note : we don’t store your credentials)
After logging in you will come across a JIRA Task pop up where you can easily log a Bug or Task to JIRA along with relevant attachments (screenshots, logs or video links). No need to download a file and then upload it separately to JIRA.
3. “Certifaya” –Our AI powered App Testing engine is smarter now
Our motto is to make your life easy and we always work towards making the testing quick and simple for our clients. Not only this, we provide more and more data about the App under test to improve the quality rapidly.
We released a new version of Certifaya with the following changes-
a) Certifaya coverage across devices has been increased.
b) Moreover, you can provide App credentials or other sets of Test data.
Now you can use Certifaya every time you make a change to your App. In less than 15 mins!!
Watch our latest video for Certifaya!
4. Speed up your Manual testing speed using Action Repeater
Android Action Repeater (AAR) can speed up your Manual App Testing exponentially. AAR observes your manual test steps on a device, records it, and repeats it on one or multiple devices, thus saving your time to perform sanity checks, prerequisite setup or a full fledged functional test.
Watch the intro video of Android Action Repeater (AAR)
5. Testing your Apps for Voice command
Now a days many apps can be operated by using voice commands like Google voice search, Evernote voice / audio note etc. pCloudy understands your requirement and gives you an option to send voice commands to pCloudy devices as well while testing such apps. Read More…
6. It is easier to search a device
Searching for a device is the most frequently used task in the platform. We have made searching simpler for you. Now you can use the free text search to find a device by the name of its OS version.
Moreover, we have added quick search filters for most common searches.
7. Plan your Testing based on the availability of Devices
When you are searching for the desired devices you may not see that device online if other user is using it at the same time. You may want to plan your test activity based on the next availability of the same device. We value your time and to make your testing efficient, we have made that information available and you can see the status of some devices as ‘Busy’ if it’s in use and the indicative time by when the device will be available next.
Moreover, you can even see which devices are ‘Offline’. You can now request for such devices to be made available.
8. IOS App Resigning made easy
We have built IOS App resigning as a separate utility, so that you can resign your iPAs once and upload it on all our cloud locations. Read More…
9. New App performance parameters
New App Performance Parameters have been introduced in pCloudy to let you have better insights about your app and also to know how it is performing on different devices.
We have added new parameters “Frame Rendering Time”.
10. Improved Performance Graphs with New parameters
Existing performance graphs have full break up of data for deeper analysis.
CPU Data
Memory Data
Network Traffic data
Battery Consumption Graph
11. pCloudy-Appium client for Nodejs
We have released pCloudy-Appium client for the users who want to use nodejs for their test automation to run on multiple devices on pCloudy.
The emergence of mobile applications for everything around us is mind boggling to say the least. All the things you would want- “There is an app for that”.
With consumers spoilt for choices, it’s a critical task to the people who are responsible for the quality of these mobile applications. Smallest of glitch and user’s are ready to click uninstall.
In order to ensure that your customers have the best of experience with your app, it needs to work on hundreds of mobile devices with various screen sizes, varying OS and different user conditions. Time consuming and exhaustive task.
Isn’t it critical to accelerate this process?
To churn out better apps faster, developers need deeper insights faster then ever.. This is where machine learning algorithms come in. They are analytics driven which makes it easier to look for patterns and monitor your app for issues, like crashes, memory spikes, high CPU, slow response time, battery drain and many other key parameters.
So, the question is, can Machines and intelligent technology become the newest buddy for you? Yes, we say. Let’s the new tech churn out data for you, and you focus on analyzing, fixing and delivering faster to the world.
Let’s see what’s up our sleeves.
A Single Click Automated App Certification with bots
pCloudy has developed a Single click App certification feature within its platform.
How pCloudy’s Certifaya makes a difference?
Simplicity is at the core of pCloudy’s Certifaya platform. All users need to do is to upload their app and ask the platform to run a test. Within minutes Certifaya spits out your report after monitoring, finding critical issues and presenting in the form of detailed blocks, screen grabs and videos of the sessions. The users also get recommendations to quickly fix the issues.
Developing apps quickly but with best of quality is mission critical. Bots make a huge difference here. Certifaya bots are designed for
Running Crash Test Scenarios: Bots run the crash test covering several installation/un-installation scenarios along with random events on the App, that too, on multiple devices. The best way to do a sanity check.
Swift and Deep Exploratory Tests: Smart bots crawl the App automatically and navigate through the App path like any human would do, collecting loads of relevant data for the App.
With above two tests, you get a comprehensive report on the App’s functionality and performance on multiple devices within few minutes. Have a look at a sample report. Gone are the days when you are churning out builds and waiting for hours to get a feedback.
Keep in mind that the best practices in the industry are evolving at a quick pace. Cloud adoption has accelerated quick testing practices.
Give your existing Testing practice power of Certifaya and accelerate your testing like never before.
I hope you had an amazing year, so we hope you are enjoying the festive time with your family and friends. We would like to take a moment to thank you for supporting us through out the year, which has been a great year for pCloudy. We achieved several milestones in the year 2016. Here is summing up the year. Thanks again and wishing you happy holidays.
Summing Up the Year
Geography
pCloudy extended its device cloud operations to US and Philippines. Our customers are now able to test their Apps on local devices and local networks of India, US and Philippines.
Device Cloud Growth
We grew rapidly this year becoming one of the largest device cloud provider from India.
Industry Recognition
pCloudy got recognition from top Industry Analysts from across the globe.
Presence in Global Events
pCloudy was part of all major global testing conferences. Support of audience was phenomenal.
Jenkins World 2016
Software Testing 2016
Start East Testing 2016
New and Improved UI for Device Access
Based on feedbacks from users, we came up with new UI for device access page. Now it’s easier and faster to test Apps on devices. We received many thumbs up from the users.
Launch of in-built Automation Engine (OpKey Integration with pCloudy)
pCloudy becomes the only device cloud to have a record and playback engine in-built. This allows customers to quickly create automated scripts without writing a single line of code.
Robotic Integration for IOT App Testing
The future of app testing in IoT lies in integrating app interaction with external hardware triggers. pCloudy released it’s first version of pBot for NFC and Payment terminal testing.
Advance Features
We implemented many new features to ensure that our users gets full range of Test capabilities for their Mobile Apps.
ADB Bridge – Developers can use this feature for real time debugging of their Apps
Network Simulation – Now Apps can be tested on variety of Network conditions
Automation Live view – While users could run their tests on multiple devices, now they can see it as well
Support for new tools
pCloudy now supports most of the popular open source tools used by Dev and Test community. We added Espresso, Monkey Test
Many New Integrations
While we had a great working platform in by the end of 2015, there were still several integrations required. We wanted to give far more to our customers – Jenkins, Android Studio Plug-in, Eclipse Plug-in.
A Lot of Fun
Final Words
We are very happy about all of our achievements in 2016, but even more so, we wish you many new exciting starts and remarkable successes in 2017. Our team will continue to exert every effort to improve our products and make your Mobile App triumph with pCloudy platform.
Continuing with our endeavor to provide you a better experience, we are excited to announce our next big step.
Now, you will be able to access Mobile devices and Mobile networks from across different geographies. In the first phase, we are providing devices and mobile network from India, US and Philippines. We will add more locations very soon.
You can continue to use your existing credentials with the URL device.pcloudy.com to access all the devices from different locations.
Here are some of the changes you will notice –
Device Location filter in the Devices Tab
You can now select devices from different locations using the Device Location filter.
In the Instant Access page
In the Book your Device page
Device Location filter in the My App/Data Tab
NOTE: The My App/Data folder is specific to a device location. If you plan to use devices from different locations, make sure your app is uploaded in all Device locations.
Device Location filter in the Reports Tab
NOTE: The Storage folder is specific to a device location. If you’ve used devices from different locations, please select the corresponding location to view it’s reports.
Device Location filter in the Settings page
History section
Test Runs section
UDID
You also see a few changes once you access a device
Device Information
Installing an app
NOTE: Since My App/Data is specific to a device location, ensure that the installation file is uploaded to the respective location of the device.
pCloudy is happy to announce several exciting features as part of it’s latest release.
UI changes for improved user experience
More filter options to select devices on device search page. Device page options have been categorized for ease of access. Please check this video to see the changes.
Live View of Automation Runs
Now users can view the automation runs live on devices. Please check this video to see the changes.
You must be like “Noooo…, really?” with a sarcastic look on your face.
Well, Facebook using real devices for testing is actually not surprising at all. But, what is really surprising is that there are several mobile app development companies who still do NOT use real devices for testing. Isn’t it enough to test mobile applications on simulators or emulators? Definitely No! If it were, then Facebook would not have invested on its expansive state-of-the-art Mobile Device Lab in Prineville, OR.
Facebook’s journey to the data centre started off with their first setup – The Sled model. The Sled model had drawbacks like inconsistent Wi-Fi connectivity which led them to build the second version named – The Gondola. The Gondola had a lot of issues with tangled USB Cables so they built – The Slatwall. The Slatwall took up an entire room, and we were able to deploy 240 devices, but to accommodate 2,000 phones they need to scale to nine of these rooms, this wouldn’t work. So they decided to move the mobile device lab into a data centre in Oregon.
Currently, the lab in Oregon hosts 60 custom-built racks, each of which holds 32 devices. Four Linux-based OCP Leopard servers are used to test Android apps, while eight Mac Minis are used for iOS apps. Each OCP Leopard server is connected to eight Android devices, and each Mac Mini is connected to four iPhones. Almost 2,000 devices can be run simultaneously for testing new iOS and Android versions of Facebook, Instagram, Messenger and Whatsapp. Each rack also has its own Wi-Fi signal and an EMI enclosure to keep the Wi-Fi local to its rack, according to a post by Facebook developer Antoine Reversat. This not just ensures that Facebook apps functions properly on new and old devices, but also in various network conditions.
Why does Facebook require a Mobile Device Lab?
Facebook has a growing 1.6 billion users worldwide. There are tens of thousands of different mobile devices in the market, and Facebook wants its apps to run seamlessly on all of them. Taking into account the variation in hardware, mobile operating system, aspect ratios, and network condition of these mobile devices is an increasingly complex operation.
Additionally, the developers at Facebook make thousands of code changes every week on each mobile platform. This means they also need to be aware of the performance implications of a code change on both high-end and typical devices, as well as on a variety of operating systems. “Given the code intricacies of the Facebook app, we could inadvertently introduce regressions that take up more data, memory or battery usage”, writes Reversat in a blog post. It is crucial to ensure new versions of Facebook’s apps don’t crash or run into performance problems when engineers make updates.
The Rack based Mobile Device Lab is a system built to maintain and improve the development speed while minimising the number of regressions in dimensions of performance, such as speed, data usage, battery consumption, and memory footprint. “In practice, performance issues can be detected in either a lab environment or the real world. Both environments have pros and cons. In the lab, it is difficult to build a controlled environment to reasonably mimic the real world, so catching most perf issues and predicting perf wins before they make it out into the wild is harder. Data that’s gathered in the real world is truer than data gathered in the lab, but the signals can be very noisy. This can make it more difficult to fix a problem or more difficult to figure out the root cause of an issue. It is also less desirable because it requires data collection from user devices. We have worked hard on building tools for lab environments with a belief that such a system can catch most issues, if not all of them, and provide a significant benefit.” writes Zheng Mi, an Engineering Manager at Facebook
The lab is also integrated with configuration management tool named “Chef”, developed by Facebook to deal with the management of hundreds of thousands of servers is used to monitor and maintain a consistent device state during the tests.
The lab also houses the social network’s one of the most ambitious artificial intelligence projects: the Big Sur. It is Facebook’s most advanced Open Rack-compatible hardware specifically designed for AI computing at large scale. Leveraging NVIDIA’s Tesla Accelerated Computing Platform, Big Sur is twice as fast as its previous generation, which means you can train twice as fast and explore networks twice as large.
When Facebook can assemble its own fleet of devices for testing purposes, why can’t you? Want to own a mobile device lab like Facebook’s? pCloudy can help you.
PCloudy is happy to announce several exciting features as part of it’s latest release.
ADB Bridge (for In-premise cloud): Connect and take full control of any Android device using Android Debug Bridge. It provides access to a versatile command line tool that lets you communicate with a remotely connected device over the cloud.
ADB Commands (Available as part of Enterprise package): You can run ADB commands from your computer to the remotely connected device on a Private Cloud Lab.
Network Simulation (for In-premise cloud): Control the network connected to the device on which you will test your application. Set Network Profiles, modify existing profiles and apply it to the network connected to the device.
Battery Consumption Reports (For Android devices above 5.0): The platform now displays real time battery consumption data of device and App under testing. You can view a graphical representation of battery consumed by your apps with the total battery used by the device.
Monkey Tool (UI/Application Exerciser Monkey): Perform Stress and crash test on your application by simply selecting a device and running monkey tool on your application. The tool sends out a stream of pseudo-random user events such as clicks, touches, or gestures, as well as a number of system-level events, which acts as a stress test on the application software you are testing.
New implementation of iOS Instruments: Several improvements for running Appium and Calabash scripts on iOS devices
Volume Up & Down buttons for Android: Separate keys to control Volume of the devices. This is just the beginning, there’s something bigger coming.
Wifi control button for Android: Separate keys to Switch-on/Switch off wifi settings on Android devices
Support for IOS 10 beta : Get your App ready for Testing for upcoming IOS 10 release. You can test on iPhone and iPad with IOS 10 Beta version.
Several Bug fixes
We would be happy to send you more information. Please contact us on info@pcloudy.com
