There are multiple approaches you can take to kick start mobile testing. For this you need to understand what you are actually trying to achieve and what constraints you have like how many team members, testing devices, etc.
The first thing you have to have a good environment to start with. There are two ways to do the same one via emulators, and the other on actual devices. Emulators are easily available, free of cost though they are very slow and real results are hard to capture in them. While real devices are fast which lead to real results and are easy to use.Â
Now the question will arise how can you actually use them, if you have them available with you.
For Android real device (By real device, I mean any android phone, irrespective of brand, depending on the version of android):
Open settings on your Android device.
Check the version of the Android device, by clicking on ‘About’ in your phone/device.
First of all, turn on the developer option from your Android device.Here you check for Developer Option
It is time to connect your Android app to your laptop/PC via data cable.
A pop up will open stating whether you want to run the Android device that you’ve just connected via USB – click OK to connect this up. And if this pop up doesnot appear then try changing the mode, from PTP to MTP or vice-versa.
Different ways to install an application in android
You can install an apk via multiple ways in android device mentioned below:-
Note:- apk stands for android package kit, it has all code, ui which helps you in running the app on any operating system
Via USB or Data cable
You can connect your device to your PC/Laptop with the above mentioned settings. And then copy the apk from your laptop to the android testing device.
Via Email
You can send the apk from your laptop to the email configured in the android testing device.And then double click on the apk you will get as an attachment in email.
Via adb command line
Android Debug Bridge is a very useful and powerful cmd tool for developer and testers. For this you need adb to be configured on your PC. Once you have adb on your local system then simple commands from cmd can help you in doing multiple things like installing, uninstalling, removing, checking logs, etc in android.
To install an apk, you can use :-
adb install test.apk
I will be sharing more information related to the mobile testing, in my upcoming blogs.
The idea is to just give a brief via which you can read and explore more about mobile testing and probably we can start a discussion in next blogs.