Smart machines and function machines-testing in developing countries

Stephen Janaway has been working on software testing for more than 12 years and has been focusing onMobileDevice and application fields. He has performed software testing and management at Ericsson, Motorola, Nokia, and other companies. Now he is leading Nokia's software testing and quality assurance team to focus on a large number of market devices. Stephen is an independentMobile TestingService consultant.

?

In Western Europe and the United States,MobileFocus on the equipment industrySmart phoneAnd related ecosystems. However, for most mobile device consumers in the world, functional machines may still be dominant in the future. It is estimated that 70% of mobile devices in the world today are functional mobile phones. Although compared with smart machines, function machines are simple, their functions are becoming richer and richer, which is a big challenge for people who test them. Some of these challenges also exist in other types of tests, while some are unique in the mobile device field and functional machines themselves. Before studying these special challenges, it is necessary to explain why functional machines and functional machines are different from those of smart machines, and some are the same.

There is no official definition to distinguish between function phones and smart phones. This sentence is a little good. The most common difference between the two is price. However, considering that equipment manufacturers are extremely competitiveMobile MarketThe discount scale in, which is not the best way to distinguish. For the purpose of this article, we can assume that the function mobile phone is an operating system that runs a dedicated manufacturer and does not allow true multitasking or third-party local applications, and the screen is very small-mobile devices .? Functional machines are cheaper than smart machines based on users' costs, manufacturing and parts. It may or may not have cameras. Its processor must be slower than the smart machine, and its memory is smaller than the smart machine. Function machine price can also have touch screen, more traditional equipment style, such as ITU-T keyboard, now also has -- in fact, the style and function range of function machines are wider than those of smart machines dominated by direct panel touch screen devices.

It is also important to understand how consumers use function machines, especially when considering function machines from the perspective of testing. Although expensive (with a retail price between 60 and 120 euros) function machines may be at a discount in Western Europe and the United States, discounts are generally only available during the pre-sale period. Function machines can be reduced to a maximum of 20 euros or even less. This is not bad for wealthy Westerners, but it is an important financial purchase for consumers in developing countries and often takes months of savings. This has a great impact on the quality of device perception. Therefore, we need to test the quality before release so that everyone can have confidence in the quality. Functional machine consumers are more proud of their devices, because they may have been able to pay for them for a while, and do not expect their pride to be compromised by poor quality. They are more likely to take the equipment for repairs and have a higher expectation: believe that those devices will not be broken. A reasonable analogy is the television or automobile owned by developed countries. Consumer demand for function machines in developing countries is also highly anticipated. If they can afford it, most of them will buy smart machines. They hope that functional machines in the future will provide the same experience as smart machines. So we can seeMobileDevice manufacturers are constantly trying to increase the functionality of their function machines (especially the Nokia S40 Platform and Samsung SGH platform), and are still in memory and processingPerformanceLow platforms provide these features. This means that the platform should be used to the greatest extent and effective testing should be more important.

The typical usage of function machine consumers is different from that of smart machines. In developing countries, especially in Africa, a village may need to share a mobile phone. In fact, a mobile device is used to ensure that businesses outside the village have been established (such as the village mobile phone project www.grameenfoundation.org/what-do/empowering-poor ). Some function machines provide functions such as multiple address books and call records to support multiple users. It is popular in developing countries to save money by using multiple SIM cards. In developing countries, one network may provide cheap local voice calls, and the other network may provide cheap foreign voice calls. Consumers often replace SIM cards, and devices can support more than one SIM card. Nokia provides devices that can easily replace SIM cards like memory cards, and use both cards at the same time. Other manufacturers provide devices that support four different SIM cards on the same device. Although function machines are generally not developed by a third party to provide devices with local application configurationPerformanceBut usually some third-party operating environments have their own. The most common is JAVAMobileThe version (JME, formally named j2s) environment. A third party can write a mini program named MIDlets and run on the device. JME is the most widely used mobile device environment in the world. It contains standard APIs. Through these APIs, third-party development can evaluate more and more local functions, such as address book, GPS, touch screen and short message. It is estimated that global function machines account for 70% of the market share.

Some devices also support Qualcomm's BREW platform. But it is not a real virtual environment like JME. It does not provide APIs, and applications can be encoded in C, C ++, or Java. Currently, third-party application testers face the biggest challenge of platform fragmentation. In view of the style, screen size, and platform hardware used for function machines, device manufacturers generally provide fewer devices than the full set of devices specified by the standard API, and many of them are made by themselves, testing a large number of devices helps ensure sufficient coverage. Applications can be stored on devices in multiple ways. The most popular are app stores, such as GetJar and Nokia. As for smartphones, you can also download and install applications in the same way, and these stores are very useful-more than 100,000 devices in the Nokia store are running S40, getJar has more than 3 million downloads a day and is the second largest app store in the world. Make sure that the app store has been submitted, downloaded, installed, and uninstalled for testing. So, as a tester, what should you pay special attention to when testing function machines and function machine applications? The following are important:

What do smartphone applications need to test?
From a certain point of view, functional machines and smart machines are not that different. The difference between them, especially the price, is becoming increasingly blurred. Therefore, a successful test strategy should focus on application functions, network interaction, stress and loading, and appropriate positions. A good start point is to let the test department look at the current mind map. Cutting-edge function machines now support maps, push emails, and games such as Angry Birds. However, for the future development of function machines, some aspects become more important:

1. Network interaction
Function machines are used -- especially in developing countries --MobileThe network is not reliable and the signal is not strong. Because users and networks are larger than those in the country, the urban infrastructure is usually more overloaded, which means that the mobile communication tower hasMobile phone. This indicates that any mobile application must be able to adapt to the network, or data carrier, and cause loss or degradation. It is critical to consider the sudden loss of network interaction and the impact on the tested applications. If the application is used, the usage outside the network coverage is also highly relevant.

2. Battery life
Regardless of the platform on which mobile devices are tested, fully understand the impact of application battery life. However, when people consider the use of battery life in a developing country, the battery life of function machines will be more important. In countries with unstable power support and no support at all, charging in the "charging store" makes a good battery life very important. Well-written applications should not consume too much electricity and test the battery impact (either through offline monitors, it is important to either monitor the battery life by performing typical cases or by using the power indicator of the device. You also need to carefully consider the device or application when the battery is used up.PerformanceWill it crash or exit when the power usage is low?
? 
3. Device usage time
The battery life of a function machine is generally longer than that of a smart machine, so it takes a long time to run out of power or restart the device. If used properly, the device can be used for a longer period of time. Music players are a typical example-in developing countries, mobile devices are usually used as the most basic music players and radios, so they can run for 10 hours or even longer. To ensure that the application continues to run without any bugs such as memory leakage, you need to use different methods to test it. It is more important to use a function machine for a long period of time than to use a smart machine. In addition, you can find bugs that cannot be found in function tests for a short period of time.

4. SIM card
If the tested application uses data stored on a SIM card or memory card, make sure there is an equivalent number of cards for testing. Not all SIM cards do the same, and some are much slower than others; this seems to be a specific problem in developing countries (such as India. Some brands of memory cards are also quite slow, which will affect the functions of devices or applications. Obtaining and testing cards related to countries where applications or devices are expected to be released can help reduce the risk of early site turnaround or slow card operation caused by incompatibility.
A large number of function machines support multiple SIM cards, and may also support alternate use of these cards without shutting down the device. The following table lists the usage information to consider:
??What if I remove the battery without shutting down the application? This is often used to replace SIM cards.
??What will happen to the application that uses the data in the SIM card when the SIM card is replaced? Is the data still there? Or deleted?

5. Data sharing
Although data is widely used in the West and its prices are getting cheaper, the market in developing countries is different, where consumers are very price aware. Therefore, the use of applications (such as the cloud based on proxy browsers)Mobile devicesIt is very popular to compress webpages to reduce data usage. Users are also likely to share content through free channels (such as Bluetooth and infrared. During the test, all the sharing methods and whether the tested application provides the lowest price method must be taken into account.

6. Availability
Compared with smart machines, function machines generally have a smaller screen and different input methods. The screen of the function machine can be as small as 128x128 pixels. During testing, make sure that the application makes full use of the limited screen. Such as text size and information details displayed on each page. Problems such as the number of scrolling times required to see the most important information are even more important when the screen is so small. It is important to test whether the UI is scalable because applications support screens of various sizes. Although a large number of functional machines have mechanical keyboards, usually ITU-T (only numbers) or standard traditional keyboard configurations, which makes it easier to choose on the screen, more and more functional machines are starting to use touch screens. These are usually cheaper blocking boards that require more accurate selection and ensure availability of the last application or device. Consider how the user will scroll on the screen, how to use a finger or tip to select a region. It is also important to consider and test multi-language support. In countries that speak multiple languages, applications need to support multiple languages, and applications released in multiple countries are the same. Note that, if appropriate, make sure that the application supports languages from left to right and from right to left without layout or readability issues.

7. Limited device memory and processingPerformance
Function machines, because of their low prices, have smaller memory and lower processor specifications than smart machines. They are unlikely to have specialized graphics processors. Therefore, any device or application testing policy should consider the situation where the memory is full and the device is being pressed by multiple devices. When a user uses a function machine, the memory is almost full. Because the memory is only 10 Mb, any application behavior should be tested in these cases. Although the operating system of the function machine almost does not support applications with multitasking and background, it tests interference from other applications (such as incoming calls and text messages, music players) and Bluetooth data synchronization, cellular data or IR is also important. Other functions, such as backup and recovery, can also be run on some function machine operating systems.

8. Device
As mentioned during third-party operation, there are many devices and operating systems in the function machines. The level of support for JME or BREW application interfaces and the number of charts with available hardware and software configurations can become messy. It is recommended that you take the time to understand the market where the application is going to be released. Check which new devices are more popular and which devices are available on the market. This helps you focus on a small number of devices that need to be purchased for testing. Processing of function machinesPerformanceAnd the device memory is low, so device testing is more important than smart machines. No simulator. Although popular cloud-based services (such as Perfecto Mobile) support some function machines, they are not comprehensive. There is nothing like a device in hand to support testing.

A successful functional machine APP testing policy
To successfully publish a function machine app, you must consider all the above aspects. The functional machine market is still very large, so any app may appear in the hands of millions of people, and their apps are as good as expected. Tests must be effective to reduce the risk of launching apps with poor quality. It is wise to consider at least the following points:
??Test on the device. Do not rely on the simulator. The functional machine is very fragmented, the processor speed of the device itself is slow, and the memory is low, so it cannot be simulated.
??Battery life is the key to function machines. Its quality must be good, and users may not be able to charge easily. Ensure battery life when the app is used.
??Function machine users are often subject to economic constraints. They will implement their specific usage in the cheapest way. That is to say, you need to replace the SIM, send it via Bluetooth, copy it to it, and then remove it from the memory card. Is the app using the cheapest method? Is it useful?
??Consider availability. The screen of the function machine is small. The app generally supports more languages, and the input method is different from that of the smart machine.
??Function machine users can use a network with poor signal to connect. How should I deal with the tested app?
??Function machine users are actually using the app store. They download countless apps a day and those stores are basically larger than you think. Ensure that the submission, download, installation, and uninstallation of the app store are all tested.
??Function machines consume processor performance and memory more frequently than smart machines. Continuously exert pressure on the tested app. If you don't do this, wait, and the user will do it.
??People use function machines in a way different from smart machines. They often use apps like music players or radios. They share their cell phones. They replace SIM cards. Take the time to understand this type of situation and test them. Take the time to understand customers and think about how they will use the app. It may not be a common method.

Taking all of these considerations into consideration, functional machine apps and devices have to be tested in many aspects, and the market share of functional machines is still very high. Compared with smart machine users, function machine users are more concerned about quality and are reluctant to accept poor mobile phone quality. They look forward to more. When an app can run millions or even billions of people on a function machine, it should undergo the most comprehensive test before launching the market.

Copyright: This article from SPASVO Zezhong software testing network: http://www.spasvo.com/news/html/2014115144156.html

For original works, you must use hyperlinks to indicate the original source, author information, and statement of this article. Otherwise, you will be held legally liable.

Smart machines and function machines-testing in developing countries