Use the same devices your customers use: Run tests and interact with a large selection of physical devices. Unlike emulators, physical devices give you a more accurate understanding of the way users interact with your app by taking into account factors like memory, CPU usage, location, and modifications made by manufactures and carriers to the firmware and software. We are always adding devices to the fleet.
Reproduce and fix issues faster: Manually reproduce issues and run automated tests in parallel. Device Farm collect videos, logs, and performance data so you can dive deep and solve problems quickly. For automated tests, it will identify and group issues so you can focus on the most important problems first.
Simulate real-world environments: Fine-tune your test environment by configuring location, language, network connection, application data, and installing prerequisite apps to simulate real-world customer conditions.
Choose the tests that work for you Run our built-in test suite (no scripting required) or customize your tests by selecting from open-source test frameworks like Appium, Calabash, and Espresso (see supported frameworks). You can also perform manual tests with Remote Access.
Integrate with your development workflow: Integration with CI/CD pipeline: You can use AWS CodePipeline to incorporate mobile app tests configured in Device Farm into an AWS-managed automated release pipeline. Jenkins plugin for AWS Device farm: https://github.com/awslabs/aws-device-farm-jenkins-plugin
Setup your own private device lab in the cloud Device Farm’s private device lab offering lets you choose iOS and Android devices for your exclusive use. Device Farm provisions these devices with the exact configurations you need, and lets you persist settings between sessions. Since these devices are exclusively for your use, you don’t have to wait for other users to finish using them.
With AWS Device Farm, you can interact with real Android and iOS devices from your browser or run automated tests written in popular frameworks like Appium, Espresso, and XCTest.
Device Farm was launched by Amazon in July 2015 and it has been improved a ot over the years. It helps mobile developers test their apps against a large (and growing) collection of real phones and tablets to improve the quality of their apps.
Developers can upload their apps and run tests simultaneously on all of the most commonly used mobile devices across a continually expanding fleet that includes the latest device/OS combinations. As tests complete, developers receive timely reports that identify problems, helping them bring their apps to market faster and with better quality. There is no setup cost to get started with AWS Device Farm, and developers pay as they go.
You can run automated tests as well as connect to the real devices remotely and test manually.
PS: You can also test your web desktop apps on various rowsers using Device Manager and run your Selenium tests in parallel on multiple versions of Chrome, Internet Explorer, and Firefox, that are hosted in the AWS Cloud.
In STC 2019 conference, pCloudy hosted a contest “What can disrupt mobile app testing in 2025?”. I participated and won the contest. Below are my thoughts on mobile app testing in 2025:
Intelligent Digital Mesh:
Intelligent Digital Mesh is the mesh of people, devices, digital content and services. It will transform the mobile businesses and apps.
1. Intelligent apps use AI and machine learning to interact in a more intelligent way with people and surroundings. A recent example is Google’s Motion Sense feature in pixel 4 (radar-based technology developed by Google) where you can control apps on mobile by moving hand/fingers in air without touching the mobile screen.
Soon this will be adopted by mobile apps and the challenge will be how to test such features. Next is what if we implement AI/ML in Motion Sense tech where system learns the user gestures.
2. Conversational platforms (like Alexa, Google Assistant, Siri) when integrated with digital twins or AR/VR and mixed reality are changing the way that people perceive and interact with the digital world and devices.
3. Block chain, event driven when combined with AI/ML and Conversational platforms will make the testing further complicated.
We need to build strong AI/ML automated algo for mobile testing to test all the above mentioned stack.
Note – Intelligent Digital Mesh is in the Gartner’s Top 10 Strategic Technology Trends for future from last couple of years.
