In 2015, mobile devices accounted for 31% of the global web traffic. Fast forward to Q2/2022, the percentage has gone up to 59%, according to Statista. This implies that mobile devices have officially surpassed desktop devices in usage.
The growing need for mobile testing and related pain points
We’ve talked to many prospects and customers across various industries, and it’s clear that our users are focusing more on mobile testing. Their respective clients need their applications to work seamlessly on their mobile devices. In response, users are planning to automate their manual mobile tests to increase testing efficiency and reliability.
Unfortunately, mobile testing is not easy. For example, testing on real mobile devices is expensive. There are thousands of Android devices, making it nearly impossible to provide testing coverage to all of them. As for virtual devices, many users claim that the setup (for emulators or simulators) is time-consuming and not easy.
There are other pain points that stem from testing solutions. For example, Katalon users normally develop automated scripts and then need to set up dependencies or integrate them with another third-party solution to run mobile testing. This is time-consuming and difficult, especially for non-technical people.
To solve these issues, we decided to develop and provide mobile testing execution environments in Katalon TestCloud. With a cloud infrastructure, QAs as well as business people can get involved in mobile testing more easily.
More than just testing web-based apps in mobile environments
We conducted a survey via Katalon TestOps with our existing users to collect more data and insights on mobile testing. Interestingly, we discovered that the mobile apps the users are testing are not just web-based apps but also include native apps.
In fact, the percentage of native app is nearly the same as web-based app.
We also received feedback from our solution engineering team that our customers are in need of native app testing. Hence, to meet our users’ needs, we’ll be focusing on both web-based and native apps for mobile testing.
What users can expect for the next TestCloud releases
For the next release of TestCloud, users can expect to select and run test suites with mobile browsers on TestCloud environments (both public and private domains) via TestOps. The option list will cover the most popular browsers and mobile platforms available such as.
For native application testing, users will be able to upload their native apps to TestOps. An app’s information will be automatically displayed in a description field. Users will have the option to rename or delete an app permanently. Below is a quick illustration of a design mockup.
Users can select and schedule test runs with different mobile environments (mobile OS, versions, and devices), as shown in the GIF below:
Special thanks to our API of Katalon TestCloud @ha.tpham for sharing this topic. We hope this helps you get more insights into the product roadmap of Katalon solutions.
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