A generation of people hooked on their mobile screens and an age where technology does the heavy lifting across industries, make it apparent that organizations must focus on digital initiatives. Modern customers want quality everything and they want it yesterday!

Take mobile apps, for instance. The demand for and availability of alternatives call for shorter release cycles. In other words, faster deliveries are crucial to winning over your mobile-first audience. Faster go-to-markets should not lead to compromised app quality. Quality Assurance teams are often expected to test many physical devices from various manufacturers with different hardware, OS versions, screen resolutions, sizes, network carriers, etc., in a short period of time. However, to deliver rich apps to your target audience, you need to test them on real devices. The caveat to creating a test infrastructure on-premises is that it is nothing but an expense!

Instead of purchasing and maintaining an inventory of devices on-premises to test your next big thing of an app, opt for devices hosted in the cloud! No more maintenance hassles and no more housing expensive devices. Real device clouds are accessible whenever you need them. This is what you call the new-age test infrastructure, or a real device cloud (more accurately!).

Using a cloud-based mobile device lab is a proven method for covering the mobile landscape thoroughly while keeping costs to a minimum. You can use device clouds to conduct automated tests via frameworks or manual tests for assessing real-time interactions. CCS QA Experts have helped companies respond to market demand with quality, bug-free apps by testing them in real-time and observing their behaviour under realistic conditions on device clouds.

If you have a novel idea for an app that the market will double tap (aka like/download), then here are a few reasons why real device clouds could be useful to you: –

Ship Bug-free Apps

Real devices are the most ideal test devices because they help you with the highest-fidelity type of test. Meaning you could catch most of the potential bugs early on in your testing lab (whether manual or automated). We root for real device clouds when it comes to testing because the cost is often minimized and there’s no need to procure physical devices whatsoever.

Address Device Fragmentation

Mobile device fragmentation is when some of your target audience use older OS versions and you must ensure that your app works perfectly on their devices. The best way to solve device fragmentation across your user base, especially Android users, is to use a real device lab. Using a device cloud with numerous devices and OS versions will ensure that your target customers are properly covered.

Be Time-Efficient

Cloud based tools are easy to setup and use and it eliminates any deployment of tools, there are no efforts spent on procurement and does not necessitate device and infrastructure maintenance. As the cloud supports open source and commercial tools, test automation can be introduced for improving productivity and shorten test cycles. In cloud-based testing there is no need to set up advanced configurations. This means that you get to complete the testing process within the time range allotted, if not sooner. They do not have a lengthy setup and installation process, as is the case with traditional tools. In fact, testing can begin right off the bat from any location. Rapid testing takes your app to the market faster, giving your business a competitive edge.

Reduce IT Management Effort

Installing, licensing, managing users, and implementing simultaneous system upgrades across locations are just a few of the IT administration duties that cloud-based tools eliminate. CCS has a committed team to test the end-to-end functionalities of apps, cross-platform device compatibility and if you have signed up for our Quality Assurance Services, the QA Team will ensure that it is kept up and running. With our round-the-clock support, you will have more time at your disposal to drive the core activities of your business.

Prioritize Performance

When conducting performance testing, real devices are ideal because they have their own hardware like CPUs and GPUs. The performance data obtained from real devices is useful since it depicts the experience that your app will deliver. Speed up your app releases and perform manual spot checking to isolate issues quickly.

Ideal for Today’s Mobile Economy

One way to respond quickly and cost-effectively to rapidly changing markets is to implement the cloud-based testing approach for mobile apps, combined with agile testing methods. This will help you maintain compatibility across the range of diverse mobile devices.

Automated Tests on Real Devices Hosted in the Cloud

Device clouds support various frameworks for test automation. Consider the open-source tools Appium-Java-TestNG to building the test automation framework for cost benefits. Parallel tests slash testing hours considerably. Given that the test environment requires no maintenance as it’s on the cloud, is another sought-after perk.

Opting to run automation tests on-premises in parallel would mean that you trouble yourself with the below: –

• Set up and configure multiple Appium servers
• Buy every type of device available in the market & run tests on each one of them individually
• Spend on the development, maintenance, and upkeep of the test environment

We help our clients do away with the troublesome on-premises testing by going the automated route using device clouds. CCS works on the most popular device farms like: –

• AWS Device Farm
• Sauce Labs

Executing automated tests in parallel is faster as it provides QA engineers and testers with a wider test compatibility and accelerates test run time by up to 10x. We can also ensure thorough test coverage and confirm that the app works as expected on the latest devices and OS giving you the digital confidence needed to enter the market.

After execution, a test report containing pass/fail information, test and device logs, crash reports, videos, screenshots, and performance data like CPU and memory used and page load time will be made available. Front-end performance can be captured which in turn will help us to solve issues if any before going live.

Bear in mind that the integration approach of cloud-supported test automation frameworks varies in each cloud. In Sauce Labs, the cloud test suite runs on the tester’s own machine and interacts with the real devices. Whereas in AWS Device Farm, the code is uploaded to the AWS infrastructure in a predefined format and runs there.

Achieve Digital Confidence with Accurate Testing on Real Device Clouds

Leveraging cloud-based infrastructure solves challenges otherwise faced in testing mobile apps. Cloud-based testing helps enterprises improve app quality and deliver apps quickly without incurring additional costs. Selecting the right cloud for mobile app testing depends on the budget, the objective of the app, the user segment, and the market in which the application will be launched. Real device clouds speed the app’s go to market and is best suited for apps built to serve a large target audience. To be assured of app success, select the right mobile app device cloud and application testing services provider for the task.