Developing an Android app can be easy for some. There are thousands of app developers all over the world today and they all need to make sure that apps work on different devices. It’s different with iOS developers because they only need to worry about a few iPhone and iPad models. But for Android apps, there are lots of models from numerous manufacturers.
A recent Open Signal report said that in 2014, there were more than 18,000 distinct Android devices in existence. The large number makes it difficult for app developers to ensure there are no bugs encountered. A bug-free app may be impossible. There is no such thing but developers can lessen all those issues. Some developers even work with third-party groups to test their services. These testing services are more than helpful and good thing Google realized this need so the company introduced it’s very own in-house testing service called the Cloud Test Lab.
Google’s Cloud Test Lab is where the tech giant will run automated test of apps submitted. These apps will be tested on the Top 20 Android devices without any charge. Service is free but Google will soon open the service to additional Android devices with a premium. With this testing service, Google aims to bring more developers ideas how to scale apps for different Android devices.
Google will be using technology from the newly acquired Appurify. The testing process will include robot app crawlers searching the app and find crashes. A Cloud Test Lab report will provide developers screenshot, video, logs, and actionable reports of everything. Developers can choose between web or command line interfaces.
Google’s Cloud Test Lab can be considered a first-party testing phase. With this, developers can ensure apps are reliable to run on different Android OS versions and across multiple devices. Google’s Android team sent out a report saying that users are still split between KitKat and JellyBean with 39.8% and 39.2% share. Less than ten percent of Android users are on Lollipop but numbers might soon change in the following months.
These numbers tell us that developers really need to check on their apps for multi-device reliability even without using Cloud Test Lab. Google has yet to launch the testing service later this summer. If you’re interested to try the service, feel free to visit the Cloud Test Lab website.
VIA: SlashGear
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