We have provided a Mobile App Testing Platform pCloudy Hands-on Review:
[On STH, we are reviewing different Mobile and Automation Testing tools so you can know and learn most of the options available in the market. If you want to write a hands-on review of any tool, please contact us here]
Mobile is the key to the digital world in today’s era. The rise of Mobile Internet has ensured that we are all going to make the most of our digital decisions on a Mobile device (primarily using an App). Mobile apps are going to be everywhere.
One of the biggest challenges for App Development teams is to ensure that their apps work on a variety of devices. They need their apps tested on multiple devices before it is released to the market, simply because of the plethora of devices available on the market.
Each mobile from each OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) with different specifications is a unique device where the application should be tested.
Practically it is not possible to test the application on each and every mobile device available in the market. However, the app has to be tested on a large set of devices depending on the market segment of the app under test.
Today we are going to review a cloud-based platform pCloudy which provides a comprehensive set of devices and tools to test and certify your mobile applications.
Table of Contents:
Mobile App Testing
pCloudy is a cloud-based remote mobile app test platform which allows testing of Android and iOS mobile applications on remote REAL devices. This allows the user to do Manual testing and also facilitates running test automation on multiple devices in parallel.
It provides a whole lot of statistics like session video, device logs, Screenshots, data usage, memory usage, CPU usage, battery consumption and frame rendering count. The devices are also equipped with Real Operator SIM’s to make MO/MT calls and can receive and send SMS.
Preparing for Manual Test
Before we start testing on pCloudy, we recommend uploading test applications, test data or even test suites to the cloud drive provided by pCloudy. This is a secure location for each user.
Click on the Upload button and select the file from your local system through file explorer. After selecting the file, select Upload and the file will be uploaded to your cloud drive.
You can also manage your cloud drive by downloading/delete. These applications can be installed on the devices as explained below.
Perform Manual Test remotely
Based on the test requirements, you can search for any specific device by using the filters provided at pCloudy.
(Note: Click on any image for an enlarged view)
You can access any device for Instant Access. Also, you can book the device for a longer duration for your planned testing using “Book your Device” link.
After selecting the device, just click on the “CONNECT” button to connect to the device. The device page will display all the supported features.
The device is displayed in the middle pane with some features on the right, left and top pane.
- Left pane where the device information is displayed, followed by other tabs like App/Data, Device Settings, Debug and Automation
- The top pane with handy features & a timer to show the remaining time & wake up the device and release the device back to the cloud.
- The right pane to view the device logs and Performance vitals for the application is under test.
How to Install the Application on a Remote Mobile device?
Select the App/Data from left pane -> Click on the Install/uninstall feature. Select the test application (.apk or .ipa) from the list displayed from the cloud drive and say Install. The application will get installed on the device and it will be open for you to continue testing.
Once the application is installed, you can test the application on a REAL Remote Device the way you test the application with the phone in hand. You can use the mouse to give touch gestures to the device. You can click the button, drag the screen or double tap the image.
While doing functional testing on the remote device, you can also monitor the device logs next to the device. Please start the logs on the right page and start monitoring the logs next to the device.
One of the biggest advantages of pCloudy platform is that it provides performance statistics like Memory Usage, CPU Usage, Battery usage, Data usage & frame rendering count of the application under test without any extra efforts by the test engineer.
To view this vital statistic on the pCloudy platform, please select the Performance tab -> Choose an APP -> Select the application under test.
Start navigating through the application to complete the function test flow.
On the right pane, you will start seeing the important vitals of the performance.
On the left pane, you can expand the device settings. All important frequently used applications are made available for use on the device.
You can perform the following actions on your remote device:
- Reboot the device remotely
- Toggle the Wi-Fi connection
- Adjust the volume of the device
- Manage the Apps
- Open Developers options
- Open Play store
- Open Device settings
- Use Set Phone Location
If your application under test is a location aware app and if it reads the geo-location from the device to provide the necessary results, “Set Phone Location” feature can be used to inject any location on the earth into the device and the device will be teleported to the selected location.
Once you select the “Set Phone Location”, the platform shows Google Maps and you can select the location of your choice on this map. The same location is injected into the device.
Other key features during manual tests
You can capture high-resolution screen shots with the skin of the device- Change the orientation of the device to Landscape and portrait
- Open the browser from the list of preinstalled browsers
- Use the extended keyboard if you want to enter some text on the device. However, for Android ver 5.0 and above you can directly enter the text from your system keyboard.
- Check the stack trace (crash logs) if the application crashes
- You can navigate to the application using the buttons
- Zoom in/out on the device shown on the screen
- Reset the zoom level to bring the device to its default size
- Extend the session if the device is available
- Wake up the device from sleep mode or push the device to sleep mode
- Release the device back to the cloud
Reporting
Under the Reports folder, you can see the entire device session data for all the devices you used. You can find Videos & Logs (by default platform generates), screen shots and performance data if selected by the user.
Run test automation remotely
The pCloudy platform supports test automation on multiple devices in parallel. Below are the test frameworks that are supported for the Android platform.
You just need to select the Test platform, Choose the application under test, Test Suite, time to run on a single device and test cycle name.
The biggest advantage of this platform is that it generates performance vitals for your test automation scripts without you adding any hooks to your scripts.
Once the above data is provided, the user can select the devices on which the test automation is to be run. Once the devices are selected, the user can schedule a test cycle.
The platform will book the devices on your behalf and will start the test automation as soon as the devices are available. Once the execution is over, the user will be notified with an email and the user will be able to see the test reports.
APPIUM Test Automation
You can run Appium test automation scripts directly from Eclipse or Android Studio. The platform provides plugins for both IDE’s. Simply copy a small piece of code to your driver code and run the project and select the devices on which these tests are to be run.
The “LIVE VIEW” feature will allow you to monitor how test automation runs through video streaming on the platform.
LIVE VIEW
Live view – To see the automation happening on devices.
Automation Test Reports
All test automation reports will be available under the Reports folder.
The report will open in another tab with video, logs and performance data.
To view the performance data for each device, please click on the device icon for each device.
Opkey Integration
pCloud has a seamless integration with OpKey, which is a zero code multi-channel automation tool.
OpKey allows single click recording and generation of automated scripts for Mobile Apps.
You can run automated scripts on multiple devices on pCloudy directly from the OpKey interface.
Some Advanced Features:
pCloudy also provides many advanced features like Network Virtualization Tests and DeviceTunnel (access to devices from Developer IDE and Jenkins Integrations)
=> Watch these quick videos for all the pCloudy features and getting started guides.
Conclusion
The quality of apps is extremely important for its success in the market. Right devices and the right app testing tools are critical requirements from every Mobile Dev and Test team. pCloudy with its comprehensive set of devices and tools can be a perfect companion to every Developer and Tester.
In our next article, we will discuss more on Testing Mobile Apps Using Katalon Studio.
Hi..Does this tool support CI\CD integrations? What are the tools supported
What if I want to execute runs on mobile devices using continuous Integration?
Do I need to book devices for all the time or does it allows the scheduled booking every day as per my scheduled execution?
Hi Avinash ,
just wanted to know will the device i selected from your pcloudy also gets breakpoints which i have placed in my xcode ?
Hi Jitendra, pCloudy can be used for both IOS and Android.
Hi Nick,
Yes this platform does support CI tools. We have integration for Jenkins. Other CI tools can also be integrated in this platform.
hello
nice tool. it’s for Android only or can be used for iOS as well?
Is pCloudy a paid tool ? I didn’t find free version on internet.
Nice article. A really useful tool for mobile testing.
Is it possible to run a test suite on several mobiles at once from our existing appium and testing based framework?
How much change we need to do in our existing suite in order to integrate it with cloudy?
Hi Vaibhav, Audio Testing feature will be available from Jul 17.
Hi Vaibhav,
pCloudy supports continuous integration through Jenkins. We have plugin for jenkins.
For test automation run you don’t have to book the devices.
Yes. It’s a great info. This is a great tool.
Great tool to work with as i already used this for one of my automation project.
Just want to know if we can also do testing of audio files using this.
pCloudy allows unlimited concurrent runs on devices. You can Integrate your existing Appium framework with minimal effort using our connector JAR. Here is a relevant link for you.
https://www.pcloudy.com/help-guide-for-pcloudy-java-connector-for-appium-version/