Month: August 2012

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Windows Phone 8 handsets are starting to pop out

Hi,

As many anticipated, we are starting to see more and more investment in the new Windows Phone platform, by many OEM’s and not only Nokia which is collaborating for a while with Microsoft.

In this short post, i will list the new upcoming Windows Phone 8 phones which you will soon start to see.

HTC:

HTC is announcing the launch of its new Windows Phone 8 phone called HTC Accord.

The phone comes with a 1.5 GHZ dual core SnapDragon processor, 4.3 ” Screen, 8 MP camera, External microSD card, NFC support, as well rumors says that the phone will have support for LTE communication.

Read more at: http://www.htcaccord.com/

Samsung:

Samsung announced its new ATIV-S Windows Phone 8 phone with the following characteristics: Super AmoLed 4.8 ” Screen, 1.5 GHZ dual core processor, Full HD 8 MP rear camera, with a 1.9 MP front camera. support for an external MicroSD card (which is new in the WP platform) and NFC support!. The phone which is running the WP8 will support Internet Explorer 10 browser, Mobile Office suite and the new cloud storage service SkyDrive.

The ATIV brand actually starts a new line of products by Samsung for WP8 (ATIV Tab 10.1”, ATIV Smart PC and more)

Read more at: http://www.samsung.com/global/ativ/ativ_s.html

Nokia:

Nokia which is of course the WP platform pioneer, is also announcing on 2 new phones running WP8 called Nokia Lumia 920 and Nokia Lumia 820.

The Nokia Lumia 920 will come with a 4.5” screen, and the Nokia Lumia 820 with a smaller screen of 4.3”

The news around these 2 phone is about their support in the new PureView camera technology, which for these 2 phones will give a 21 Mega Pixel support.

Read more about these 2 new handsets at: http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/31/3281985/nokia-lumia-920-specs-pictures-leak

http://www.engadget.com/2012/08/31/nokia-lumia-820-920-leak/

Summary:

As I always state, the mobile world is dynamic and constantly changing, and we are already seeing that even for the new Windows Phone platform the biggest OEM’s are starting to dive in so it will be interesting to see how such change impacts the mobile market, and the existing iOS/Android and the RIM platforms.

From testing perspective we also see variety of new screen sizes which was and will always be a challenge for testers and test automation (Above we mention already 4.3”, 4.5”, 4.8”). Tablets for WP8 as you saw above are also starting to be deployed extending this platform market.

Regards,

Eran Kinsbruner

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Cross browser comparison (Focus on iOS)

Hi

It is a fact that more and more hybrid/web application are being developed lately, HTML5 applications and more

The common assumption by the application developers is that since it is a web application is will run cross platform without too much effort/QA and UI activities.

It might be true in some cases (simple ones), however on top of the complications in testing web application, we must not forget that each app need to be compliant to iOS and Android UI guidelines (icons, fonts etc.), and also important point to keep in mind is – The cross browser compatibility.

Each user (Android or iOS and soon Windows Phone) may chose the prefered browser which he likes to surf through and use. THat user will not change his browser and will expect that “your” application will run top-notch on his preferred browser.

In this post i will not cover all existing iOS browsers (nor android), but the top leading ones – My recommendation is to prepare similar matrix of testing for the existing web browsers for mobile and perform at least some level of sanity on each to assure your application works properly and also meets the desired guidelines.

For iOS we are familiar with the following browsers (The below iTunes URLs for downloading each:

– Safari (THe most common and default browser)

– Chrome (Google) – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/chrome/id535886823?mt=8

– Dolphin – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/dolphin-browser/id452204407?mt=8

– Opera Mini – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/opera-mini-web-browser/id363729560?mt=8

– Mercury – http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/mercury-web-browser-most-advanced/id331012646?mt=8

Please see below some screenshots of the exact same web page (BBC News) which is a high quality web site being run on the above browsers (Not too much difference which is good news :), however there are some L&F differences – for other apps i am sure that the situation will be different)

Safari Browser:

Google Chrome:

Mercury Browser:

Dolphin Browser:

Opera Mini:

Not to forget that the above if appears quite different from one browser to the other will introduce additional challenges for the automation team.

To sum up, mobile known matrix of devices and os will also extend toward mobile

Browsers per platform, a vital thing to cover which will also complicate automation.

Good Luck

Regards,

Eran

Posted on

Picking the right handsets for your project

Hi

We all know that the mobile world is dynamic, plenty of new handsets are being shipped at the same time in which we develop our product and testing on the (what we believe) is the “hottest” handsets in the market.

It is clear that being agile and fast in the way we develop, test and deploy our mobile products is a key to be attractive in the market, however it is also impossible to support all handsets and be ahead of the market.

So – The way to be up to date in the offering, is not simple but possible.

When you start developing your product keep in mind that by picking the “right” 10 handsets which are “hot” in the market you can reach the coverage of ~50% of the market (Note that there are lead devices which represent a whole family of handsets and can give you a lot of value by testing on it), as well if you go to ~30 devices you may reach up to ~80% coverage of the market.

How should you decide than?

The way to do the picking of handsets should combine the 2 following aspects:

– Market research

– Right family identification/lead devices

Market Research: The way to determine what is relevant in the market is to do some research and analysis – either through leading mobile blogs, or even simple – going through the leading mobile operators in the world, and seeing what they are currently selling (e.g. Vodafone global lists today in the top list of devices in Germany: Samsung Galaxy SIII, Samsung Galaxy SII, SEMC Xperia Arc S etc. – http://shop.vodafone.de/Shop/smartphones/, if you go to Vodafone UK you will see mostly the same ones, as well as HTC One X and others http://www.vodafone.co.uk/brands/android/index.htm)

Doing a matrix and unification of handsets between the world leading carriers in Europe/U.S/Asia should give you the lead handsets which you would like to support and test in the 3-6 months ahead (Per OS – Android, iOS, Windows Phone and BlackBerry).

Families: The aspect of family should be a subset of the above list If e.g you reached a common list of lets say 50 handsets, i am mostly certain that the list can be cut into half by doing proper comparison between the various handsets by their OS, Screen resolution and OEM (This can be done through sites like GSM Arena – http://www.gsmarena.com)  and minimizing the list by leads, members and families.

Please find attached to the post an up to date list of common handsets by OEM which is sold world wide these days to ease your pain 🙂  –> As you will see, there are a lot of similar handsets across all large operators which can show the main devices to focos on.

MobileWorldHandsetsDistribution

P.S: With regards to the leading Android/iOS tablets these days:

iOS – iPad 2 and iPad 3

Android – Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1, Motorola Xoom, Asus Nexus 7, Dell Streak 7, Samsung Galaxy Tab 7, Sony Tablet S. Asus Transformer TF300, Asus Transformer TF700

Regards,

Eran