September security updates for Samsung S7 series, Blackberry and Android phones

Samsung and Blackberry 

Samsung has started rolling out a new Galaxy, Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge update. Although it is a security update, both devices are also equipped with several new features

The Android security update is also rolling out for the new DTEK50 and BlackBerry Priv phones. BlackBerry has  security updates ready and will soon be delivered for Shop BlackBerry, Amazon, and unlocked versions of these devices

The update is version number XXU1BPHJ and will be rolled out at the moment in Europe. The over-the-air update (OTA) is available now for download from the Google Developer Site

Because it is a gradual rollout, it may take several days for each device type. Users will automatically receive a notification when the software is ready for their smartphone. Optionally, you can yourself check the availability of the update by going to the Galaxy S7 settings " on your device, then choose Software Update

This update brings also the long awaited Vulkan drivers to the S7 so the compatible games can be enjoyed on your devices with excellent graphics & play experience

This update is now available on the unlocked S7 and S7 Edge. Later this month, it also comes to T-Mobile and Vodafone contract device variants, but when exactly this will happen is not known. Also when this update will be available in your country is difficult to predict at this moment

But what are the fixes and additional features

1. Galaxy S7 security

It is primarily a security update that Samsung now releases monthly for his flagship. Hence the Galaxy S7 is well protected against vulnerabilities in Android, such as the recently discovered QuadRooter leak

2. Gallery App with face recognition

The September update introduces a new gallery app. This is also for the Galaxy Note 7, but is now being rolled out to the other flagship devices of Samsung. The new application includes facial and object recognition. For example you can easily collect all your pictures of food, or find the pictures of your friends together

3. Samsung Cloud

Finally added support for Samsung Cloud, the new online storage service from the Korean company. The app makes it easy to find your photos, contacts and other files online store so that you always have a backup on hand. Samsung Cloud allows users to store their files online in the cloud and also easily transfer data from one Samsung smartphone to transfer the other Samsung smartphone

By default, users get only 15GB free storage at Samsung Cloud. The only thing you need to use it is a Samsung account, go to settings under the menu & select Cloud by tapping “Use Cloud” to activate the service, and to establish the necessary synchronization options

                                                 Source : Mobile Apps Testing

Let us welcome the next big thing from the House of Apple-iPhone7

Let us welcome the next big thing from the House of Apple-iPhone7

Apple iPhone7

After the launch of iPhone 6s last year in 2015, here the wait of millions of fans gets over as the next big thing has come up from the house of Apple. The much awaited i-Phone-7.

Constantly in speculation from a long time for it’s features and specifications, iPhone 7 has followed the suit of the first model of every series of iPhone and has enticed the whole world with it’s cool features and major updates.

iPhone has dramatically improvised  the most important aspects of the iPhone experience with iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 plus.  It has introduced advanced new Camera systems , Splash and water resistance,  redesigned Home button,  no Headphone  Jack , with best performance and battery life ever in an iPhone. The brightest, most colorful iPhone display with immersive stereo speakers. Looks Powerful. This is iPhone 7.   

Also, there were rumors that Apple will launch its next generation iPhone i.e. iPhone 7 and iPhone 7s at two different dates. The rumours came to an end on September 7 when Apple CEO Tim Cook started the keynote and unveiled the new iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus and Apple Watch Series 2. Apple also launched it’s new AirPods for wireless music experience on Apple device.

iPhone 7 with it’s Cool Features

Significant changes of iPhone 7 include an upgraded camera, removal of the 3.5mm headphone jack and the new home button.  

Camera with it’s upgraded features.

Apple improves the camera with 12MP sensor, with a bigger f/1.8 aperture and a better 6-element lens for low light photography. With its 12 MP sensor, it’s 60 percent faster and 30 percent energy efficient. Also gets OIS, which was exclusive to iPhone 6s Plus. Has a dual lens camera in 5.5-inch version allowing a huge increase in quality when zooming in on a photo.

iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 plus will comes up with 4.7 inch and 5.5 inch Retina HD displays respectively with two new added colors: A glossy black and plain black. 

Home button

Home button has been redesigned to have it as more responsive, more customizable and also supports Force touch.

No more Head Phone Jack

Now no more headphone jack, instead the phone will have a pair of Lightning Ear pods which would connect through the charging port and wireless Apple Air Pods. 

Infared sensors would help to detect when each pod is in your ear and motion sensors would control the headphones to use Siri and detect your voice.

Color:  iPhone7 comes in high-gloss Jet Black, Matte Black, Gold, Silver and Rose Gold with few finishes.

Battery: Great News!!! Users can have 2 more hours of battery life as compared to iPhone 6 or 6S

Hardware Performance: A10 Fusion chip, four-core with 3.3b transistors. Two high-perf cores 40% faster than A9

Display: The new iPhone 7 comes with a Retina HD display. With 25% brighter than the previous models

Pricing of iPhone 7

                      32GB     128GB   256 GB

USA             $649       $749       $849

UK              £599       £699       £799

Canada      $899      $1,029   $1,159

Australia   A $1079 A $ 1229 A $ 1379

Europe     759 €      869 €      979 €

UAE         AED 2599 AED 2999 AED 3399

India      starts at Rs. 60,000 sale starts from  7^th October 2016    

 Pricing of iPhone 7 Plus

                32GB     128GB   256 GB

USA       $769       $869       $969

UK          £719       £819       £919

Canada $1,049   $1,179   $1,309

Australia A $ 1269 A $ 1419 A $ 1569

Europe 899 € 1,009 € 1,119 €

UAE AED 3099 AED 3499 AED 3899 

Comparison of iphone 7 and iphone 7plus  

                  iPhone7                                                                                            iPhone 7 Plus

Size         4.7 inches                                                                                             5.5 inches

OS           iOS 10                                                                                                   iOS 10

Resolution    1334x750-pixel resolution at 326 ppi               1920x1080-pixel resolution at 401 ppi

Processor     A10                                                                                                     A10

RAM          2GB                                                                                                   3GB

Video    4K at 30fps, 1080p at 30 or 60fps                                       4K at 30fps, 1080p at 30 or 60fps

Camera  12-megapixel single-len camera system                   12-megapixel dual-lens camera system

Battery Life  2 hours longer battery life against iphone 6                1 hour longer battery life  as                                                                                                                       compared to iPhone 6s Plus So,                                                                                                                    wait is over.

The wait is finally over. The preorder starts from September 9^th 2016 and ships on September 16^th 2016. 

Download iOS 10 GM for iPhone and iPad

A few hours back, in Spet 7 event , apple announced it’s new iPhone 7 and iPhone 7+ with its most powerful Operating System ever, iOS 10. Apple has also made the iOS 10 Goldmaster release available to developers and Mobile App Testers .These would be last few days for all app developers to test their app for compatibility with iOS 10. The new iOS 10 will be available from September 13th 2016 for all users.

iOS 10

Mobile App testing with Test Object for successful Mobile and Quality Apps

Test Object

Smartphone market is on boom. Apps are the backbone of every operating system. Everyday more and more apps are coming out in different platforms. Every developer who comes out with an app wants to be successful, wants to make money. If you are a developer you will understand the amount of efforts put behind the development of every app. Now a days user satisfaction has a great role in the success of any product. This has made Mobile testing an absolute necessity. Any developer who wants their app to be successful should make sure that they provide best user experience available enough to get them positive reviews in the app store.

Achieving the best user experience can only happen through rigorous testing of the developed app. Mobile application testing is for testing its functionality, usability and consistency. It can either be manual or automated kind of testing. A study says 39% of current mobile users are unhappy about their mobile app performance. Since we rely on our smartphones highly, improving app performance is important. Mobile app testing is the best way to do that. Mobile app testing is different and complex than desktop and web application testing. The difference in the testing methods brings out new challenges. The increased fragmentation of mobile devices is a major problem for testers. According to the android fragmentation report of 2014 there were 18,796 distinct android devices till August 2014. This poses a great problem for the testers as each of these devices which are different in size and hardware can’t be made available for testing. The availability of different  Operational support system poses a great problem, even though there are only 2 major Operating Systems but the  numerous versions of these operating systems makes the testing even harder. Faster app release cycles and the use of different Mobile Network Operators by the users also affects the testing. This is where Test Object comes in. It makes app testing fast, affordable and most importantly effective.

Test Object doesn’t cover platforms like desktop applications or web. Test Object offers mobile automated and manual testing , supporting  Android and iOS. After extensive research and hours of testing we found out that best results in testing are achieved when manual and automated mobile testing is combined. Test Object platform which is supported by top open source testing frameworks such as Appium, Espresso and Robotium enables to test automation scripts written in any language for both iOS and Android applications. This gives developers the opportunity to perform any type of tests in one place. Running automated and manual testing gives optimal results in our opinion. We call this approach of testing as integrated testing. Pairing this with quick feature of quality check enables in comprehensive mobile quality assurance. This approach enables the developer to cut costs and helps in detecting the issues at a faster pace.  In the usual development cycle the time required for testing will be as same as the complete time for the other steps together, but the Integrated testing by Test Object enables the developers to reduce the testing time drastically and to release their app earlier than expected. Reduction in development time saves the developers a lot of money.

As smartphone market is becoming bigger and bigger, new devices are being announced almost every day. This makes it hard for a developer to keep track of the phones that are coming out every month, and actually buying them for testing purposes. We can solve this problem by making hundreds of Android and iOS devices available through the cloud. We provide access to real devices only without using any emulators or simulators. Since the devices are available through the cloud all users can perform their tests remotely from any location at any time. The Test Object cloud saves the developer a lot of money by eliminating the need of maintaining, charging and replacing the devices that are used in testing. Currently, Test Objects cloud gives the user access to over 200 individual device model and in few months total number of instances will reach 600.

While using the Test Object loud you can trigger the sensors of the phone to see how your app reacts when GPS location is changed. You can also mess with the device settings to see how it affects your app. Our testing includes battery tests and responsiveness tests. You can also share the test results via a link or it can be downloaded as a pdf. Errors are detected automatically during the test and screen shots and report of bugs are provided with each identified bug. You will get a report with detailed execution results for Robotium and Espresso tests. The report would include all logs and screenshots. Connecting your app to our restful API provide you with Ant and Gradle plugins to integrate with your build process. Build tools such as Jenkins, Bamboo and Teamcity are available. You can also use your existing Robotium, espresso or Appium tests and run them in parallel on the device cloud.

Our goal is to make Mobile Testing easy for everyone. Currently, automated testing requires a test automation engineer and we currently are working on automating the process. Test automation without coding will allow more companies to go for agile development processes and release better products in shorter time. Our pricing starts at $99 dollar per month.

As a company that was always mobile first. We have developed our solutions solely for mobile platforms. Test Object does not cover other platforms like desktop applications or web. We are a mobile only company and we constantly focus on testing processes perfection just for this environment.

We strive to make testing as it should be: affordable, fast, and most importantly effective.

* As a company for us which is always mobile-first, we’ve developed solutions that are purely for mobile scenario.  We are a mobile-only company and we consistently focus on perfecting our testing processes just for this particular environment.

Get More information on  http://www.mobileappstesting.com/mobile-testing-with-testobject/

  

Exploratory Testing in Agile Environment

Agile Testing 

Exploratory testing has become a useful tool when it comes to simultaneous testing in the agile model of software of development. Exploratory testing and the Agile environment of software development have set of instructions which connect to each other very well, hence they are often used together to get the best results while operation . The terminology used is for professional software developers, therefore for beginners; we would like to define the terms separately for better understanding. 

Exploratory Testing
As the name suggests, exploratory testing explores the objectives of testing by listing them inside specific time boxes (pre-declared) in which the approach to execution is given more value than planning. This method is much used but less talked about. The testers rely on hands-on experience which offers a better test scenario as compared to scripted testing in certain ways. To put it simply enough, exploratory testing can be stated as the combined process of design and test. The findings of the tests are recorded for further test cycles or deployed side by side for development.

Agile Environment

The Agile working environment basically gives more importance to intra-team interactive efforts while reacting to the test results on the go. The mode of work requires that the development proceeds as the testing is being carried out and the improvement is sought side by side. This kind of environment promotes healthy communication among the partners. The working software grows as the testing and execution continue to run along.

How the two complement each other?

There are certain stages to development that we are all aware of, namely:

·         Planning

·         Estimation

·         Coding

·         Integration

·         Testing

·         Release

As per Agile, when the stages of planning and estimation are done with, the process of writing code and integrating it brings about frequent logs called scrums while testing. These scrums can be used for further development and the model of exploratory testing greatly favors it. The developers are able to get on-time reports for the iterations they are testing with and a resort to risen logs can be found as the development is in progress. This reduces the development time from months to weeks. The duo of the two models also helps accommodate unforeseen issues with the software as it goes through exploratory testing and development becomes even more fruitful. The developer is also benefitted by the sense of experience he is able to obtain from the scrums which further point to the behavior of software under various constraints. Such an experience fine-tunes the usability of the software.

Specifications of the testing environment

To try to demonstrate the agile environment and exploratory testing we’ll talk about the various things that form the environment.

Ø  The Test

The test must include:

§  A subject or a user who’ll generate the different conditions required for testing.

§  Level of risk or the corollary of the software testing condition with the user.

§  Error prerequisite or a plan of various conditions to be implied while testing.

Ø  Guidelines for implying the condition

§  The objective of the specific test on which the test depend.

§  Failure point estimation.

§  Created errors and software’s response.

§  Estimation of errors.

 Ø  Guidelines for evaluation

§  

The determination of boundaries.

§  Measures to change the variation.

§  Distortions that may come up

Ø  Some other points worth of note

 §  The test conditions applied to the software should neither be overly specific nor be too general as in both cases the objective of the certain test condition would change.

There should be clarity based on where to explore, with what tool and what we intend to find.

Advantages of Exploratory testing in Agile

Exploratory testing helps the tester in lot many ways. The tester is able to form interactive basis while testing with the other members of the team who are part of other areas such as the developer, the designer and the financial expert. This increases the overall knowledge of the tester about the product as well as the implications of the test results to various sectors.

This promotes the tester’s own ability to think. The tester is able to think beyond the charter and design newer tests that help the software to develop in better ways.

Disadvantages of Exploratory testing in Agile

In the continuous development that follows, it sometimes becomes hard to recall which test suggested what change in design; this turns out to be a hassle when we use environments like Agile.

The adaptability desired from the tester somehow is not matched upto the expectation and the tester may not be able to respond to the circumstantial challenges Agile puts down.

For beginning testers, this can produce results that are often too ambiguous which can prove bad for the confidence of the tester.

Conclusion

Exploratory testing has received much attention in recent years due to the benefits of self development opportunities that this technique offers. According to James Bach, every tester has once in their life used Exploratory testing mechanism without knowing about it, which makes it a very practical approach for testing. The combination of Agile Environment which is already based on principles similar to that of Exploratory Testing further enhances the implication of the both to testing. There are certain advantages to Exploratory testing for the testers and certain disadvantages which are part of every system that exists. It is advisable that via the guidance of Testing Managers, such anomalies could be overcome, thus, making Exploratory testing in Agile, a considerable option for experience based and time saving requiring conditions.