In today’s world almost everything we do can be done via a mobile application. Whether that’s paying bills, ordering food, booking doctors, learning new skills or managing a whole business. If an application crashes whilst trying to checkout or freezes whilst making a payment, the user will simply uninstall the application and look elsewhere. Therefore mobile testing is an extremely important part of delivering software.
Testing has evolved over time to include AI generating test cases, Appium/Playwright scripts and automatically fixing broken locators. However there are still issues around the number of device models (thousands), OS versions (dozens) and OEM skins. Tests will pass on an emulator but fail on the actual device in the user’s pocket. This is where real device farms come into play. In this blog we discuss what device farms are, the main benefits, types and how they work with AI automation.
Real iPhones & Android phones running tests on a device farm in the cloud.
Real Device Farms for Mobile App Testing
A real device farm provides a collection of real smartphones, tablets & desktop browsers which are hosted in the cloud. Testers & developers can access real devices from within their browsers without having to invest in their own devices. Install your app and run tests manually or via automation scripts within your CI/CD pipeline.
Benefits of Real Device Farms
Real device farms can provide more than just saving costs on hardware. They can help increase the speed & confidence your team can deliver.
Real User Experience Testing
• Same hardware, OS builds & OEM skins as your users
• Real touch, gestures, keyboard & screen sizes
• Find bugs earlier in QA rather than app store reviewsAccess To A Wide Range Of Devices
• Access the latest iPhones instantly
• Access a wide range of Android devices
• No hardware to purchase, replace or charge everyday.Deliver Faster Releases
• Run the same tests against a large amount of devices
• Reduce regression time & speed up feedback for developers
• Easy to integrate with GitHub Actions, GitLab CI/CD & Jenkins.Accurate Performance & Hardware Testing
• App launch time, frames, memory & battery performance
• Real camera, GPS, biometric & network switching
• Catch crashes that only occur on low RAM devicesEasier Debugging
• Logs, screenshots, video & network captures
• Developers can see exactly what went wrong
• Access the same devices across different cities & time zones.
Types Of Real Device Farms For Mobile App Testing
Most teams will require both iOS & Android devices due to the differences of testing on each platform.
iOS Device Farm – Provides real iPhones & iPads to test on. Whilst the Apple ecosystem isn’t as big as Android there is still a difference between the iOS Simulator and real devices. Benefits include:
Real Safari & WKWebView: Test your webviews & mobile web accurately as if you were on an iPhone.
Hardware: Validate your Face ID, Touch ID, camera, push notifications & Apple Pay flows.
Accessibility: Validate your VoiceOver navigation & announcements.
Older Devices: Ensure your app still runs well on older iPhones.
Android Device Farm: Android has thousands of device models from many manufacturers. Each with their own screen, chipsets & OEM skins. The most practical way to test across all these devices is an Android device farm. Benefits include:
Fragmentation: Test across Samsung, Xiaomi, OnePlus, OPPO, Vivo, Realme etc. With multiple OS versions.
OEM Specific: Find issues caused by aggressive battery savers, custom permission prompts & apps being killed in the background.
Budget Phones: Find memory & performance issues on low RAM devices which most of your users may own.
Localisation: Validate Hindi, Tamil, Arabic & more using real OEM fonts & system font sizes.
Using iOS & Android device farms will allow your team to confidently deliver one app across all devices.
Real Device Farms & AI Automation
A common question people ask is 'If most of our testing is automated with AI, do we still need real devices?' Yes! Real devices & AI help solve different issues. AI helps speed up test creation & maintenance. Real devices ensure your tests are accurate for users.
Test Cases Created By AI & Run On Real Devices: AI generated Appium, Selenium & Playwright scripts can be run on real devices without any alterations. Just different capabilities.
Real Data Makes AI Smarter: Using real logs, videos & network captures will help AI prioritise failures & find device specific bugs.
AI Can Help Choose Riskiest Devices: AI can choose the riskiest devices for each release ensuring real devices are used where they matter most.
Reduced False Passes: Emulators are perfect devices. Real devices will show issues with battery, memory, network & sensors. Issues that won’t be found by AI created tests.
The best teams will use AI to speed up testing, use emulators for fast testing on each pull request and real device farms as their source of truth.
Benefits Of Cloud Device Farms
Creating your own device lab can be expensive. You’ll need to purchase devices, racks, USB hubs & Macs. You’ll also need to replace the devices every year and pay engineers to maintain them. Using a cloud based device farm like TestKase Device Farm will eliminate this issue. Providing your team with instant access to a wider range of devices.
• Instant Access To Real Devices: iPhones, Android & Desktop (Chrome, Safari, Firefox & Edge on macOS & Windows).
• Install your own IPA/APK or public App Store app.
• Run existing Selenium, Playwright & Appium scripts within your CI pipeline.
• Built in GPS Spoofing, VoiceOver & TalkBack.
• Secure Local Tunnel to test staging & localhost apps.
• Logs, screenshots, video (optional) & HAR network capture.
• Real devices & AI powered test management: Everything in one place. Test cases, runs & defects.
• Access From Any Location.
Conclusion
Mobile users want apps to work perfectly on their device regardless of what phone they own. Whether it’s the latest iPhone or an old budget Android. Whilst AI has helped speed up test creation & maintenance, only real devices can confirm that your app works. Real device farms can provide a wide range of devices, accurate performance, easier debugging & faster releases all without the cost of running your own lab.
If you want to try that without building a lab, take a look at TestKase Device Farm.
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