More than the development it is the testing of mobile version of the website that is challenging. The enterprises have to take into consideration certain factors; some of which are listed below:
- Invest in devices, that too a fleet of the latest devices
- Spend money in maintaining those devices
- Acquire sim cards, and pay for the rentals
- Hire People to perform the website testing if going for a manual testing option or invest in tools for performing automated testing.
For larger players who have extra layers of fat this investment would not pinch much, but becomes difficult for Smaller players like individual web developers, web application and site owners to fit in mobile website testing within the limited budgets.
What if all this can be done for free? Recently Keynote has released a free tool for remote, real device interactive testing; giving users a real view of their mobile websites on select smart phones in real-time via a simple Web interface. DeviceAnywhere Free combines the ease of the cloud with the power of Keynote's global infrastructure of remote devices for mobile and Web testing and monitoring, so that Web developers, testers and content owners can begin testing immediately on real mobile devices. All devices are connected via Wi-Fi to enable testing of live mobile Web content.
Just by making use of a web browser (DeviceAnywhere Free is supported on Chrome 16+, Firefox 12+, Safari 5.0+ (Mac only), and Internet Explorer 10+) users can spot test their mobile websites on few of the most popular iOS, Android, Windows and BlackBerry device models. All you have to do is choose from the list of remote devices supported (each of the device can be blocked for a period of 10 minutes), perform manual testing of the website, just like you will do on a real device on a real network. The tool supports gestures like swipes, touch, push buttons, multiple device orientations and power recycle button simulation. Users can even capture screenshots of the testing procedure for archiving and reporting purpose.
Since the tool is free I thought why not make use of the services and test toolsjournal.com, the test results I’ll share with the site owners, but the experience of using Keynote DeviceAnywhere Free is what I thought is worth sharing with you.
Feel Good Factors
- The UI is intuitive, without reading any user manual I could start off with the testing.
- I was happy to note that all the gestures on the devices were working fine, the keys for volume adjustments and more, were also responsive.
- Appropriate message boxes were displayed to keep the user informed, if they are faltering at a particular point or if there is something specific that is needed.
Some Hitches
- But’ even when there was a Green Signal against a device indicating that the device is free to be acquired, it could not be acquired at times.
- I found the response time to be a bit slow and there is a scope of improvement in terms of the performance of DeviceAnywhere Free, maybe the paid versions fares better.
Some New Features Are Always Good
- Since the free version is for exclusive testing of Mobile Websites, the browser on these devices should automatically open, instead of the user wasting time in unlocking the device, searching for the browser app, if it is not displayed as a short cut on landing screen of the phone.
Keynote also provides advanced features for testing of mobile websites and apps with Keynote's Test Center Developer or Test Center Enterprise, which come at a cost.
[Image Credits: Keynote]
