A presentation by M. Zhelieznov on 'Android Mobile Application Testing' which covers specific functional, performance, device park selection

1. Android Mobile Application Testing
Specific functional. Performance. Device park
selection
Mykhailo Zhelieznov
QC Eng. at SoftServe

2. Agenda:
● Specific functional:
○ Application installation
○ Network access
○ Animation, Video, Audio
○ GUI testing
● Performance
● Device park

3. Application installation

4. Application installation
It’s important to check application
installation, especially if it saves some
specific data on device or registers to the
server

5. Application installation
Device preparation
● Cleared device (after factory reset)
● Device with existing user’s data (apps installed,
additional user’s data - documents, pictures,
music etc.)
● Device OS upgrade

6. Application installation
● Settings > Backup and restore >
Factory reset
● Reboot to recovery mode - Volume Down
+ Power (depends on Vendor) > wipe
data/factory reset
How to clear the device:

7. Application installation
Ways of application installing
● System apps, installed when system is initialized
● Install apps from Google Play Store
● Install apps using adb, "adb install xxx.apk"
● Copy xxxapp.apk to sdcard, browse the .apk file
from your phone, double click, the app would be
installed.

8. Application installation
What can be wrong while installing app?
● At least check installer is not corrupted
● Check requested permissions
● Check if application starts
● Check if all necessary data created. It
can be pictures (e.g. WallPapers app),
sounds, data base, other specific data
saved in specific directory (need to be
checked with developers)

9. Application installation
Other cases
● Check that Uninstalling works correct:
○ all necessary data is removed from device
○ application is unregistered from server
● Check that reinstalling of the same app doesn’t produce
any issues
● New version of application can be available, check that
upgrade successfully executes (this can be done in
combination of OS upgrade)
Note: system apps
& administrators
can’t be removed,
just stopped but
not always

10. Application installation
Clear application data
As you use applications, they start storing
files for reference later. These files are stored
in an app "cache."
Settings > Applications > Select app
(depends on vendor)
1
Clearing app data is a little more drastic.
You're wiping the cache, but also clearing
any and all settings that go along with that
app.
2

11. Application installation
‘Closing’ apps
Removing an entry in recent tasks will kill any
background processes that exist for the process. It
won't directly causes services to stop
For stop is a complete kill of the app -- all processes
are killed, all services stopped, all notifications
removed, all alarms removed, etc. The app is not
allowed to launch again until explicitly requested.
1
2

12. Network access

13. Need to check each connection type and
switches between them
Network access
Disconnected WiFi Edge 3G AirPlane
Disconnected x x x x
WiFi x x x x
Edge x x x x
3G x x x x
AirPlane x x x x
20 elementary cases is just a beginning

14. State transitions / use cases, depended
on requirements
Network access
●Disconnected > Edge > WiFi > Edge > WiFi >
AirPlane mode > Disconnected > Wifi …
●Edge > Disconnected > AirPlane mode > Edge ...

15. ● Downloading is in progress > connection type changed
● Wait for WiFi access before doing large data transfers, since
WiFi transfers maximize battery usage compared to transfers
over 3G or EDGE
● Cached files should be refreshed if they were changed on
server. This can be done by manual downloading of resources
or by Server push event
● Push event is received just after device back online.
Downloading resume after device back online
Network access
Caching, downloads for offline work

16. Network access
● Downloaded data should be valid, encrypted if necessary
(files, push events etc.)

17. Animation, Video, Audio

18. Can be triggered:
● By user’s action
○ Swipe, scroll
○ Button press
○ Tap on screen
○ Device rotate
○ Change settings
● On timeout
● By event / push message receiving
Animation, Video, Audio

19. Can be interrupted (paused / stopped):
● By the same reasons they triggers (previous slide)
● By incoming / outcoming call / sms
● Status bar / menu opening, popup appearing
● Low power resource
● App move to BG > FG
● Lock / Unlock device
● If Audio / Video is playing in BG - it can be
interrupted by other applications sounds
● Audio - headphones disconnection
● Video - full screen enter / exit
Animation, Video, Audio

20. The best way to test the accuracy of Animation /
Video / Audio - is simply watch / listen and compare
with requirements. Additional tools can help to
detect if playing started / paused, but won’t detect
the incorrect displaying / sounding
Animation, Video, Audio

21. Graphical user interface
testing

22. You can make a screenshot from your screen
and then use any image editor which shows
cursor location to calculate the sizes in pixel
GUI testing

23. Developer options can make your life much easy. Use next of them
for GUI testing:
GUI testing
● Pointer location ● Show layout bounds

24. Dump view hierarchy for UI Automator + Show layout bounds GUI testing
140
580

25. A virtual pixel unit that you should use when defining UI layout, to express layout
dimensions or position in a density-independent way.
The density-independent pixel is equivalent to one physical pixel on a 160 dpi screen,
which is the baseline density assumed by the system for a "medium" density screen. At
runtime, the system transparently handles any scaling of the dp units, as necessary,
based on the actual density of the screen in use. The conversion of dp units to screen
pixels is simple:
px = dp * (dpi / 160).
For example, on a 240 dpi screen, 1 dp equals 1.5 physical pixels. You should always use
dp units when defining your application's UI, to ensure proper display of your UI on
screens with different densities.
GUI testing
Density-independent pixel (dp)

26. ● find it in your device tech specification
● get display info using ADB:
○ $ adb shell dumpsys display
○ find ‘density’ in command output:
GUI testing
How to get your device density (Dots per inch)?

27. Performance

28. Performance
● Note the time of action, e.g.:
○ application starting time
○ screen switch
○ list download / scroll
○ any action triggered by user (for ex. on button press)
● Repeat same test few more times (e.g. 10) and calculate the
average for better accuracy
● On different Android versions performance can be different as on
the devices with a different characteristics
● ~100 switches between screens / ~100 screen rotates /
application move BG then FG
● Load / Create a lot of files at once
Simple performance tests

29. Performance
Over and above you can use a simply ADB
command-line tool to execute the actions by
incredible scenario - like Monkey.
The basic syntax is:
$ adb shell monkey [options] <event-count>
For example, if your application package is com.myapp
and you want to generate 1000 gestures, with a delay of
500ms between each event, you have to use this
command:
$ adb shell monkey -p com.myapp --throttle 500 -v
1000
Simple performance tests

30. Performance
We can check the RAM usage without
any additional tools
● Go to Settings > Apps > Running
Consumption of resources

31. Performance
We can check Power Consumption the
same way we did for RAM checking
● Go to Settings > Battery
Consumption of resources

32. Consumption of resources
If you want a bit better tool with the same intuitive interface - go to Google Play store and find the
App which will show all the data you need in the way you like (e.g. Simply System Monitor)
Performance

33. Performance
If power consumption is really important
for you - buy additional hardware and
software e.g. Monsoon Power Monitor
Consumption of resources

34. Device park

35. Device park
Android has a really big problem due to fragmentation of
different vendors with different hardware and software
installations as well as customized user interfaces.

36. Device park
1. Watches
2. Smart glasses
3. Home Appliances
4. Cars
5. Homes
6. Cameras
7. Smart TVs
8. DECT phones
9. Game consoles
10. Mirrors (you read that right)
Android Everywhere: 10 Types of Devices That Android Is
Making Better

37. Device park
Gather as much information as possible and allowed about the devices
of your end users:
● Devices types
● Densities
● Android versions
● Vendors
● Architectures
Gether the statistic

38. Device park
Google devices:
● Uses original Android
● First receives latest Factory Images
● Easy to install previous versions of operating system
Google Nexus - Always new

39. Device park
Use cloud device storages

41. Performance

42. ???
Viewing heap usage for a process
DDMS allows you to view how much heap memory a process is using. This information is useful in
tracking heap usage at a certain point of time during the execution of your application.
To view heap usage for a process:
1. In the Devices tab, select the process that you want to see the heap information for.
2. Click the Update Heap button to enable heap information for the process.
3. In the Heap tab, click Cause GC to invoke garbage collection, which enables the collection of
heap data. When the operation completes, you will see a group of object types and the
memory that has been allocated for each type. You can click Cause GC again to refresh the
data.
4. Click on an object type in the list to see a bar graph that shows the number of objects
allocated for a particular memory size in bytes.

43. ???Viewing heap usage for a process

44. ???
DDMS provides a feature to track objects that are being allocated to memory and to see which classes and threads
are allocating the objects. This allows you to track, in real time, where objects are being allocated when you perform
certain actions in your application. This information is valuable for assessing memory usage that can affect
application performance.
To track memory allocation of objects:
1. In the Devices tab, select the process that you want to enable allocation tracking for.
2. In the Allocation Tracker tab, click the Start Tracking button to begin allocation tracking. At this point,
anything you do in your application will be tracked.
3. Click Get Allocations to see a list of objects that have been allocated since you clicked on the Start
Tracking button. You can click on Get Allocations again to append to the list new objects that that have
been allocated.
4. To stop tracking or to clear the data and start over, click the Stop Tracking button.
5. Click on a specific row in the list to see more detailed information such as the method and line number of
the code that allocated the object.
Tracking memory allocation of objects

45. ???
Tracking memory allocation of objects

46. ???
Examining thread information
Threads tab in DDMS shows you the currently running threads for a selected
process.
1. In the Devices tab, select the process that you want to examine the threads
for.
2. Click the Update Threads button.
3. In the Threads tab, you can view the thread information for the selected
process.

47. ???
Examining thread information

48. ???
Method profiling is a means to track certain metrics about a method, such as number of calls,
execution time, and time spent executing the method.
To start method profiling:
1. On the Devices tab, select the process that you want to enable method profiling for.
2. Click the Start Method Profiling button.
3. Interact with your application to start the methods that you want to profile.
4. Click the Stop Method Profiling button. DDMS stops profiling your application and
opens Traceview with the method profiling information that was collected between the
time you clicked on Start Method Profiling and Stop Method Profiling.
Starting method profiling

49. ???Starting method profiling