Everybody Tests

In 2013 at a Google-hosted event in New York called the " Google Test Automation Conference ", or GTAC for short, a team of Google engineers tried to sell the attendees the idea that a device lab consisting of real world devices is not as maintainable or optimal of a test bed as a vast server farm running emulators. That's right. Google said that in order to avoid the tyranny of dealing with the real world everyone should have a Google-scale server farm for testing their apps ( video , slides ). And then 2 months later they bought Appurify . Those are pretty epic mixed signals. Example of less paradoxical signaling. Now don't get me wrong, I would LOVE to have Google's server resources for my automated testing. But like many companies who do not make mobile apps or even software in general as their primary business, my current employer seems to prefer to invest more shall we say "modestly" in their app test automation environment resources.

Android Fragmentation, UI Testing and You Last year, Eddie Vassallo over at Gigaom.com joined the rest of the well-informed tech bloggers in agreeing that at least as far as developers are concerned, " [it's] 2014, and Android fragmentation is no longer a problem. " While the developers have tools and patterns that will allow them to successfully build appealing, rich experiences for any screen size and support devices many years past their prime, just the term "Android fragmentation" can intimidate many people trying to decide what phone or tablet to buy. The developer has the ability to access powerful adaptive interface layout APIs and rely on Google Play Services to update crucial dependencies such as Maps and Push Notifications. That behind-the-scenes flexibility is meaningless to an end user staring at a dizzying array of devices from OEMs hellbent on stamping their unique mark on the user experience. Looking at phones such as the Samsung Galaxy Note

So I'm definitely not an iOS guy. I barely have the bandwidth to keep tabs on the latest and greatest features of the consumer-facing stuff. Keeping in touch with the developer/tester tools is hard too. So it shouldn't be a surprise that I'm just now finding out about xcrun simctl If you're an Android guy and you're familiar with ADB, this is a LOT like that. In fact, after looking through the documentation on xcrun simctl and reading up on it on StackOverflow , it occurred to me that it is finally possible to do what I do on Android with my favorite script ever but on iOS devices/simulators instead. For reference, here's my blog post about that script. The bottom line is that as a tester who regularly uses multiple devices concurrently, the shell script in conjunction with TextExpander is a massive time and mental-space saver for me, making me a whole lot faster and more effective at my job. If you're an iOS tester or you know someone who is, do them a