The testing phase of a mobile application before its publication on the stores is decisive. The number of bugs present in an application is directly linked to the quality of the tests carried out.

The question of the methodology:
The question of the test methodology arises both for iOS and for Android but even more for Android for the following 2 reasons:

The fragmentation of OS versions is much more marked on Android than on iOS where the latest iOS is spreading very quickly, which minimizes the number of versions to be taken into consideration during tests.
The diversity of brands of smartphones on Android while iOS depends on a single manufacturer, Apple in this case.
To test an application on Android and ideally, each test ( I enter my login / password and “click” on connect ” ) must be carried out with all the possible combinations of the 4 criteria below:

The different versions of Android:
Oreo (8.x), Nougat (7.x), Marshmallow (6.x), Lollipop (5.x) or KitKat (4.4) to name only the main versions currently. Note that for each major version (5 for example), there are minor versions which can also be the source of bugs. Versions 5.0.1, 5.0.2, 5.1 or 5.1.1 followed 5.0.0 for example.
The different brands of smartphones:
Samsung, LG, Sony, Huawei,… to name just these brands. It is necessary to take into account the following 3 criteria:
The brand: Testing on different brands is essential because we can very well encounter a bug on a Sony smartphone that we will not see on any other smartphone (and vice versa). Why ? Because some manufacturers of Android smartphones are adding an overlay to the version of Android provided by Google. Samsung for example adds an overlay to all these smartphones. Conversely, the Nexus is a smartphone without an overlay. The overlay, specific to a brand and a model of smartphone, can therefore be the source of bugs.
The range: Testing on high-end or entry-level smartphones does not produce exactly the same results, especially when it comes to performance. An application can work very well on a Samsung Galaxy S8 and be very slow on an entry-level Samsung smartphone (Galaxy J) which could require optimizations, adaptation of the UI etc ...
Different Densities:
Density is the amount of pixels in a physical area of ​​the screen, usually called dpi (dots per inch). For example, a "low" density screen has fewer pixels in a given physical area, compared to a "normal" or "high" density screen., The different densities existing today on Android are: low, medium , high, extra-high, extra-extra-high and extra-extra-extra-high. These parameters are also taken into account during the testing phase.
Portrait / landscape mode:
To be taken into account if the application works both in portrait mode and has specific behavior in landscape mode.
We can see that successfully testing an application and performing each test with all these combinations is a task that requires a lot of thoroughness and time. In addition, at each update, it is necessary to redo all the tests before avoiding potential regressions ( What worked before the update and which may no longer work ).

We will discuss in the next article the different possible approaches to test a mobile application taking into account all the combinations described in this article.

If this article has provided you with useful information, you are having testing issues and need additional information, you can contact us through our mobile app development agency website .