Mobile App Testing Automation to Grow with Manual Testing Tools

The mobile landscape is consistently evolving. Perhaps by the time you read this, a bunch of new devices will have hit the market or some new apps will have gone viral and sold millions, altering our current modes of communication.

Mobile phones have ushered in a new mobile age era. It is widely noted that the best mobile applications involve a lot of development and testing. Major constraints for mobile app testing include increased complexity, as is noted by the London Business Wire.

What makes testing mobile software more demanding than testing computer software, however, is the sheer complexity of the environment stemming from the diversity of relevant devices, operating systems and networks, call and voicemail scenarios and Bluetooth and location-based services.

According to the ABI research paper, current mobile app testing tools will exceed $200 million in 2012, of which $175 million will come from manual testing tools. Over the next few years, the market will shift from manual testing to the more dominant automation testing.

The growth of automation testing will drive revenue up to around $800 million by late 2017.

While mobile testing has largely been ground-up, with inventive startups simply filling the market gaps with their innovations, such market leaders like Kenynote’s DeviceAnywhere and Perfecto Mobileare have yet to fully evolve as extensions to the traditional software testing industry.

Disruptive entrants like Experitest and Soasta are also increasingly challenging these market leaders, and as client needs change as a result of influential app features and user interfaces, no vendor can afford to rest on its laurels.

The focus has shifted from computers to smartphones for browsing, online videos, etc. This has increased mobile app development which tends to concentrate on two main areas – data centric applications (e.g. enterprise applications and sales force automation) and devices capability-based applications (e.g. VOIP apps, camera and location-based services).

As the overall data consumption skyrockets, so does mobile usage, to the tune of 26 percent of all traffic. More mobile traffic means more running apps.

The emergence of new technologies like augmented reality, HTML5, 4G LTE networks and cloud computing attached the need for more secure and stable apps. Apps thrive on first impressions and consumers tend to be less forgiving in such aspects.

Good apps need rigorous testing to ensure they’re operational during low- and high-performance periods. Mobile apps drive productivity, and as a result, they must work and deliver their functionality to the fullest.