I embrace Mobizen and iTools for mobile testing

Hey All, It's been a long time that I have blogged here. I honestly apologize if you were curiously looking for articles to read from my blog and later realized that I did not post any new articles and otherwise as well ;) . I always wanted to write about testing, but something kept bragging me. Maybe, its because of my way of thinking style. Yes, I love to write/share about testing only if I learn something new, useful and interesting (at least to me) at work. Indeed I do read a lot from my testing mentors and other bloggers as well. So, with no more excuses I wanted to share an important testing lesson that I have learnt, yesterday. With no delay, let me share my challenging testing experience.

What is the testing challenge?
As a team we had a testing challenge. To identify a FREE tool in 60 minutes. The tool needs to mirror Android and iOS devices over web and can view from any geographical location.

Let the Game Begin:
Everyone was asked to go back to our seat locations and the game started. All the team members initially thought it is really easy to identify the tool at the very first moment. Later during the course of identifying the app we found that it is taking more time & effort. Is this an easy challenge? No :( What's Next?

• Someone from our team started to phone a friend who works in Mobile team from another company to ask for help.
• Other guy bumped along sending emails to his testing communities in other states and countries to seek help.
• Another colleague, shouted hey you - Google my friend here I come :). She started to surf over internet to look for free tools.
• A newbie who just joined said - OK, so everyone at least started to do something, let me observe what each one is trying to do. :)

Gone in 60 minutes:
Yes, the time came to an end after a rigorous 60 minutes search to exhibit individual's test analysis report to the team. The outcome was really fascinating. Team projected several tool name which can mirror your Android devices to PC like MirrorOPSender,  Chromecast app, Mirror Beta app, Mirroring360, Mobizen and other iOS tools such as Reflector, Airserver, X-Mirage, iDisplay, iTools etc. However, the drawback was most of the tool is not free and if its free it had its own limitations of installing and using it only for 7 days or the installation was not successful. Tools like Airplay works perfectly fine when all devices were connected on the same network over same WiFi. Not all tools but most of the tools dint work upto the testing challenge. Someone from the team shouted - Look here, I can view my mobile in my PC and I can control my device via PC too. Hurray!


Purpose Resolved:
The end result of the research and analysis of identifying a tool which could support our need is really fruitful. Yes, Mobizen for Android and iTools for iOS is an easy to install tool. We should install the apps in the device and PC respectively to use it, That's All Folks!

• The purpose of this challenge is to help our clients view our mobile device screen onto his PC from any geographical location. In simple words If you had used Joinme and enjoyed the screen sharing from your PC then you would definitely feel it similar when you start using Mobizen for Android devices and iTools for iOS 8.1 and above devices - It's so easy to install and use.

Lessons Learnt:

• If we want to reproduce a bug from a mobile device and showcase it to a product owner who don't have an handy mobile device but can access a web url from PC, we can use these apps.
• If we want to showcase "User Acceptance Testing" of a particular functional module over web, which details how to do UAT from a user perspective, we can use these apps.
• If we found an intermittent defect and if the developer is really curious to know more about it, inform him and have him view it from his desk for quite some time and try reproducing.
• If we want to demo the latest build version of new feature implementations to your clients after QA-Sign Off, we can use these apps.
• Mobizen for Android, works in a way where we can control our device from our personal computer (PC). Example, I switched on "flashlight" of the Mobizen connected mobile device from my PC. The real HTC Android mobile device was with my colleague who was 50 meters apart and got surprised. He never know I was about to switch flashlight ON. :)

Regards,
Shiva Mathivanan

P:S: There are lot of articles already available to demonstrate how to install and use the mirroring applications. Thus I have not provided any installation guide. I have suggested Mobizen for Android devices and iTools for iOS 8.1 and above devices which is very easy to install and also have provided the benefits of such mirroring applications. Please write to me for any queries. Thank you.