Down the Rabbit Hole of Mobile Testing, part 2: Automation 101

In the previous blog post, you learned some basic stuff about mobile testing. Today we’ll focus on tools for test automation. Yes, the time has come to learn test automation... Just kidding! Today you’ll learn about a few automation frameworks for iOS and Android. Nevertheless, don’t get too excited - it will only be an overview of the most popular ones. You’ll find out how to use them in next blog post, so stay tuned!

Automation frameworks for Android

Robotium

It was the most popular framework a few years ago. Now, however, its glory days have passed - but it’s still one of the best frameworks. It’s also simple to learn, because it has a lot of similarities to Selenium (yes, the famous Selenium, which almost every QA knows!). You can use it to create many black-box test cases and to test web applications!

Espresso

This is Google’s open-source automation framework, and it’s mostly used for UI testing. Its API is very small and easy to learn.

Cross-platform automation frameworks

Calabash

Calabash is a framework suitable for both Android and iOS. It supports natural language controllers, and its easy-to-understand syntax makes it perfect for beginners. It’s worth noting that its new controllers support Ruby and Java which makes it good for testing web applications.

Who said automation is hard?

Appium

Another cross-platform automation framework used for both iOS and Android. It supports nearly every programming language, and you can select almost any compatibility with mobile devices. It also has many similarities to Selenium (it even uses the same WebDriver!), so if you are familiar with Selenium automation - go for Appium!

Automation frameworks for iOS

Frank

One of the most popular iOS-only automation frameworks. It allows you to write acceptance and structure tests. It also gives you comprehensive information about the app while it’s running, via the built-in app inspector.

Meet Frank.

iOS Driver

This allows you to integrate Selenium grid into iOS, so if you've already created some tests for your web application - you will be able to reuse them to test your iOS app!

That's all, folks! As I said - you'll learn how to use these frameworks in the next blog post. And if you want to join our crew - check out our open job positions!

Are you excited by the possibilities of software testing as a career path? Read a post by one of our QA team members and find out how it is to learn quality assurance from scratch!