This rapidly evolving world has witnessed a large mobile phone user base in the last few years. The use of mobile phones keeps increasing as it has made people’s lives easier. The mobile phone apps provide the user with many options like shopping, communication, getting food and groceries delivered to the door steps, and many more.
These days mobile apps are highly developed, and with these highly developed and demanding features, testers and developers need to ensure high quality and reliability by testing these apps across various devices. However, testing the mobile apps on different devices can be a hectic task for developers and they may face many challenges while arranging for real devices. Therefore to overcome this, testers run their apps on various Android emulators for Mac and PC.
With the increasing popularity of Android apps, emulating Android on Mac has become even more stressful. Hence to ease this task testers use Appium- a SeleniumJava-based framework that helps smoothen the testing process and provides users with better-performing mobile apps.
In this article, we will discuss Android emulator testing its working, the challenges faced by the testers in Android emulator testing, and how to overcome these challenges. Also, we will have a basic understanding of Appium and its key features.
What is Android emulator testing?
Android emulators are software designed to imitate the software and hardware of an Android mobile with the purpose of testing and development. Android emulators provide for testing or playing games and can even be used to run applications available in the Google Play Store. If the developers lack access to Android phones or devices they can use Android emulators to test the application on other devices as it imitates the Android OS and interface.
In short Android emulator testing provides testing for Android phones or applications on other devices due to the lack of Android devices.
Developers often make use of Android emulators in the process of app development. It provides the developers with options like testing, running, and debugging their apps without a physical Android device.
How do Android emulators work?
Android emulators, such as BlueStack, Genymotion, or NoxPlayer, are software apps preinstalled on the computer. It can simulate the experience of using Android’s hardware and software.
Since emulators imitate the architecture of any system targeted, it is easier for the tester to find emulators for all kinds of hardware and software. Mentioned below are some capabilities and limitations of Android emulator testing. Testers will surely benefit from the knowledge of these capabilities and limitations.
Capabilities
The emulator is useful while working with physical sensors such as the accelerometer. It will be easier to arrange the settings through the visual, extended controls of the emulator if testing a specific app feature that depends on sensors.
Data transfer is quicker on a virtual device compared to physical devices connected via USB. The .apk files can be placed from the computer to the virtual mobile devices with the help of drag-and-drop files. It is especially great when developers need to test apps quickly under context.
Limitations
Separate directories created by the AVD Manager store each virtual device’s data, cache, and SD card. A single virtual device can occupy 3.5 GB of disk space. After some time, a library of virtual devices can eventually take up the user’s workstation.
Since the workstation affects virtual devices’ performance the emulator will burn and crash if there is not enough free disk space launch.
Performance issues are taken care of by hardware acceleration. However, setting up hardware acceleration is a complex process. The results often lead to complete system failure.
The tester cannot rely on an Android emulator when understanding app interaction with the native device environment.
Understanding Appium
Appium is used for testing applications. It is an open-source, cross-platform mobile app automation testing tool. It allows the same tests to be run on various platforms. It is developed and supported to automate hybrid and mobile apps.
Appium is a top choice of testers as it provides options for mobile automation testing and also provides them with the ability to automate hybrid, native, and mobile web applications on Android as well as iOS platforms. The transfer of mobile apps is made faster with the help of Appium. This is also a reason why users choose it.
After getting a brief idea about Appium let us know the key features that Appium provides to the users.
Key features of Appium
Listed below are some of the features of Appium that make it a popular choice among users:
Cross-platform compatibility
Cross-platform testing helps in making mobile application testing easier. It reduces the work required to make the applications run properly. It also allows the developer to develop tests at a time and execute them on several devices.
Supports multiple programming languages
Multiple programming languages are supported by Appium which gives the user the ability to write the test scripts in any of the languages they know. Due to this feature of Appium, it is used by many users.
No app modification is required
It imitates the user interaction with the app and there is no need to modify the application code for testing.
The accuracy of test results is improved as Appium allows the user to evaluate the app’s performance in real-life
Open source
This feature of Appium supports community contribution. A community-driven solution for mobile testing demands is provided.
Integration with CI tools
Appium integrates with CI tools such as Jenkins Streamline which contributes to the overall speed of the development process. A constant and systematic testing pipeline is ensured and automates the testing phase.
Built-in inspector for element identification
Inspector tools provide a visual interface for connecting with the app’s parts and help the tester identify UI elements. Appium has some inspector tools that improve the accuracy and make the testing of apps easier.
Challenges faced in Android emulator testing
Let’s look at the common challenges faced during Android emulator testing.
OS fragmentation
OS fragmentation is one of the many challenges faced in Android emulator testing. OS fragmentation means that many Android OS are in use, each one of them having its features, security patches, and updates. Some devices may run the older version while some may run the latest version. This makes it harder for the developers as they have to initiate tests for each of the OS
Device fragmentation
The biggest challenge faced by the development team is device fragmentation. It means that an application is run on various devices and OS combinations.
This makes the development team perform test compatibility in various OS and different versions of OS.
Different screen resolutions
With the increasing number of mobile phone users, the number of devices and new models has increased. The different versions of smartphones have different screen sizes and resolutions. This challenges the development and testing team as the tester needs to test websites on distinct screen sizes.
Device network bandwidth issues
While a tech team enjoys working with high-speed internet, the case is different for all users. Several devices mean that the devices have reached suburban areas where the network bandwidth may be unstable. It becomes a challenge for the testers as they need to test the devices in offline mode.
Device security
One of the most critical concerns for a developer is the device’s security. Advanced technology has made security violations easier, but if the app is tested thoroughly, the probability can be decreased.
Handling gestures and device orientation
Mobile applications heavily depend on device orientation and gestures. Therefore the user needs to replicate these accurately while testing.
Real user condition testing
The main disadvantage of emulators for application testing is that they imitate the environment of a real device but do not provide the tester with testing under real conditions.
Overcoming Common Challenges in Android Emulator Testing with Appium
Android emulator testing is a challenging task, it requires a lot of time and effort. Here are a few solutions that will assist testers in overcoming the common challenges faced in Android emulator testing.
- Utilizing Appium’s Device Cloud services such as LambdaTest offers a broad array of real devices. It helps the testers with testing and provides the capability to verify their app’s functionality.
- Appium supports automating native, web, and hybrid apps using the same APIs, thus simplifying the testing process.
- Appium provides built-in methods for controlling gestures like swap, tap, and scroll and the ability to set the device’s adaptation automatically. So the testers can utilize these built-in methods to tackle their problems.
- To imitate real-life scenarios Appium allows testers to replicate different network conditions which can be very helpful.
- GPU being faster than CPU, implementing GPU emulation will surely help the tester to enhance the performance.
- Appium provides the user with methods that help them handle alerts and pop-ups while Android emulator testing.
- Appium provides wait methods that the testers can utilize while testing to wait for dynamic elements to change or appear before proceeding with the test.
- Appium allows testers to install and uninstall apps systematically before and after the execution of tests. It ensures a clean test run for each test.
- To overcome the trouble the tester can disable the antivirus.
Leverage a cloud-based platform for Android emulator testing
For the user’s ease in this procedure, cloud testing platforms like LambdaTest can be utilized. LambdaTest allows a seamless experience without installing or troubleshooting emulators. It ensures uncompromising security, natural gestures, and interactions
Lambdatest is an AI-powered test orchestration and execution platform used for manual and automated testing of web and mobile applications. This platform allows testers to perform real-time and automation testing by providing access to over 3000 environments, real mobile devices, and online browsers.
LambdaTest provides users with a variety of Android emulators and iOS simulators. It also provides users with real mobile devices to help the testers while testing and to ensure bug-free release. Additionally, testers can upload a ZIP file, App, or application’s APK in a single click directly from the LambdaTest platform. This platform enables mobile app testing on emulators, simulators, and real device cloud.
Conclusion
The increasing use of smartphones makes it important for testers to test the applications thoroughly. If the testers do not have access to Android phones or devices Android emulator testing can be used to test the applications as they simulate Android OS and interface. However, there are many common challenges faced by the development and testing team while testing. The mentioned points in the article will show how Appium can help testers overcome challenges while performing Android emulator testing. The key features of Appium also play an important part in tackling the challenges.
By Appium cross-platform testing testers can ensure their app quality, without relying on manual testing. Appium also supports native, hybrid, and web apps, efficient handling of app installation, and gesture-based interactions, which enables the tester to create reliable and robust test suites.
Hope this article helps you in knowing how you make use of Appium to overcome the challenges faced during Android emulator testing.