As we know, the number of mobile users is growing exponentially daily. And the types of devices, their operating systems, and their versions, if you start counting them, are enormous. And it will grow with time, too. Software companies use various advanced techniques and strategies to provide high-end application performance.
Appium is a well-known name in the field of mobile app testing. Appium is the automation testing framework widely used for testing mobile applications. You can perform mobile app testing with Appium by testing the entire system of an app. It is used to perform both iOS and Android test automation. In Appium, various tech concepts are used to perform mobile app testing.
Appium on the cloud for mobile app testing extends this flexibility by taking advantage of cloud computing’s benefits for testing purposes. Testing through cloud platforms like LambdaTest offers many key benefits, particularly access to real devices and emulators, and allows thorough cross-device, screen size, and operating system testing also, the new features come with the Appium updates.
LambdaTest is an AI-powered test execution and orchestration platform that empowers developers and testers to perform automation testing seamlessly on over 3000+ real browsers and operating system combinations. This platform offers a wide range of mobile device testing labs where you can perform real device testing over various device platforms and versions.
In this article, you will see a brief introduction to mobile app testing, and then you will notice the three new and advanced mobile app tests with Appium.
What is Mobile App Testing?
Mobile app testing is a software testing process that helps the QA (Quality Assurance) team test mobile applications for various devices. The objective of mobile app testing is to check the different performance parameters of the software application, such as functionality, usability, stability, etc. Mobile app testing is done before making your project live for users. The testing also decides whether your software application is ready to meet the client’s requirements.
Mobile app testing is a critical task in today’s market as it ensures the best possible mobile application testing and testing results. To execute a successful mobile app testing, the testing team must perform testing against various screen sizes, resolutions, operating systems, network bandwidth, etc. Mobile app testing is done at a higher level to meet the following needs:
- Mobile app testing for various OS versions (Android 8.0, 9.0, etc).
- Mobile app testing for both landscape and portrait mode.
- Mobile app testing for sensor compatibility such as Accelerometer, Gyroscope, GPS, etc.
Types of Applications for Mobile App Testing
There are three types of software applications on which mobile app testing is performed. These are:
Native Apps: Native apps are those applications that are designed for a specific platform or operating system only. Native apps are generally faster because they are focused on a single platform. In terms of reliability, native apps are better. One disadvantage of native apps is that they cost more for maintenance.
Web Apps: Web apps are applications similar to native apps. However, there are some fundamental differences, such as that it can be used via a web browser on various mobile devices. It has low development costs but entirely depends on the browser used on the device.
Hybrid Apps: Hybrid apps are the combination of both native apps and web apps. Hybrid apps use a web view control to present the HTML and JavaScript files in a full-screen format according to your device. These types of applications cost less and are easy to develop. But there are some disadvantages to it like it is slower in performance compared to native apps and web apps.
Advanced Mobile App Testing Techniques with Appium
Now, let us see the advanced app testing techniques with the Appium tool that can make your app testing more efficient, delivering some excellent and advanced feature-full mobile applications. These advanced techniques are as follows:
In-app authentication using Face ID
In-app authentication using Face ID is an advanced feature added to the newer Appium mobile app testing tool. Numerous mobile applications that use Face ID to log into the software application and perform their work are available. So, it is an essential part of Face ID to work flawlessly in any software application. And Appium does this very efficiently with the new updates. Appium supports testing in-app authentication on iOS simulators but not on real devices.
Apart from this, the Face ID support on the simulators has given three controls, which are as follows:
- Coordination of the facial features to enhance the security of the software application.
- Selecting the face corresponds to checking it during device configuration and enabling the feature entirely.
- Matching and unmatching of the face.
Appium is based on the W3C principles and standards. That standard is Web Driver Protocol. Some features of in-app authentication are not defined in the W3C standards. So, Appium provides alternative ways to use these features using “mobile supporting methods.”
Mobile Supporting Methods
Mobile supporting methods of Appium define its API and expose us to the outer world. One of these methods is “sendBiometricMatch”. There are two arguments of this method which are:
- Face ID and its exact value could be true or false to perform a perfect match.
- Perform a non-matching face to determine how the application behaves when we do a face mismatch.
There is another customizable assistive technology for the biometric selection.
It supports the “empowered” claim. Sometimes, it may be right, or sometimes, it may be wrong. Apart from this, there is no harm in enabling this multiple times. The test system is intelligent enough to understand. In a valid scenario, it is recommended that you insert it once per test or once in total. Then, you can use “Send Biometric Scramble.”
Once activated, you can send real or fake facial recognition verification using a portable support approach called ‘send Biometric mismatch.’ In this way, Face ID has proven to be the most practical Appium automation solution because it is easy to access, even for beginners and non-technical professionals.
Streaming Apps on a Browser
The third Appium advanced feature added to the Appium tool is streaming the app on a browser. There are two different APIs for initiating and terminating the video recording. When you begin recording your screen, you can hit a particular port on your program where the specific screen is being shown. Suppose you move from screen one to screen two. What is the significance of this incident?
It uses the “FFmpeg” in the server and enables streaming it into the web browser. If you want to use this feature to work with your Appium version, first, you need to install FFmpeg on your machine. Also, do not forget to install it in the correct path so Appium can locate it.
Streaming Across Devices
Appium starts this FFmpeg worker on port 9100 if it is a single device. If you analyze your Appium logs, you will find great information there. Suppose you perform mobile app testing across several devices and systems. You can use the streaming across device feature to do this. All you need to do is to view your screen on the application. Also, you need to provide exceptional and original ports. To meet this requirement, it is suggested that you use the MJPEG worker URL. There are more than 280 capabilities for iOS and Android combined, which may be viewed in a list.
Suppose you are using simulators or devices for running test cases and want to look at your screen on the web browser. In such cases, you need to provide various ports to use this advanced Appium feature for mobile app testing. Now, let us see the same case for Android. For Android, you need to use third-party streaming applications because there are no direct APIs available for Android.
Appium Event API
Appium Event API is the latest and most advanced feature introduced in the Appium tool for mobile app testing. Appium under the hood uses a WebDriver agent. Many activities occur under the hood when Appium scripts run to perform actions on the mobile application under test. This concept of mobile app testing using Appium is considered one of the most efficient and powerful Appium automation methods.
Numerous events occur when you execute Appium scripts on a tested application. The “log timestamp” feature measures the time it takes to perform that specific testing activity. Some particular processes need considerable time to execute the testing process. For example, there are two systems: “A” and “B”. It takes 2 seconds and 5 seconds to start the system. In any event, if there are many systems, it is evident that they will all need different times to start the system. This issue can be fixed using the Event API.
Benefits of Using Events API
Appium Events API is used to take care of this issue. We’ll be better equipped to understand how long each test system took to start. You may leverage existent events known as “worker occasions” with the Appium Events API. The first case in which an employee can avoid a permanent recovery. The next chance is to start the test system. Appium provides us with a few of these events as a matter of course.
Custom Events
Now, let us focus on custom events. Imagine a case where you want to know how long a software application takes to move from screen A to screen B. You can use the “custom event API” to estimate this time. This custom event can be defined with the vendor and an event name. This helps to enable various differentiations between Appium zone server events, such as simulator start time and our custom events specific to our application.
Conclusion
Appium is a very famous automation tool for mobile app testing. It helps developers and the QA team test hybrid and native applications for both Android and iOS devices. In this article, you have seen the three new and advanced features of Appium that help build your mobile application testing to be more robust and featureful. These advanced features are Appium event API, Face-ID authentication for mobile applications, and browser streaming apps.
