Android 6.0 Launch: What Developers and Testers Need to Know

Now that the Apple wave has passed, we are entering Android market disruption time.

Perfecto Mobile provides same day platform support for Android 6.0 in it's continuous quality lab on the available nexus devices.

It's no secret that the Android market is fragmented (See Figure 1 below), huge and harder to cover from both a development and testing perspective. Get ready for more complexity with the availability of Android 6.0 (Marshmallow) and two new Nexus devices coming from LG and Huawei.

Fig 1: Android Fragmentation (August 2015)

The fact that Google is launching two new Nexus devices -- with one coming from the third largest mobile phone vendor, Huawei, which to date gains its biggest market share from Europe and APAC and less from the U.S market -- is something that will probably change the mobile market landscape in the U.S.

Let's examine the new platform implications for both developers and testers from these perspectives:

1. What's new in Android 6.0?
2. What kind of new test scenario's would be required for the new platform?
3. What are the lab implications?

What's new in the platform?

• Google Photos as a new stand-alone photos and video storage service.
• Google Chrome with better web page load performance.
• Enhanced Google Now as well as a new capability called "Now on Tap" that offers in-app voice information
• Android RAM Manager, which provides users with app memory consumption information for better device memory utilization (Settings > Apps > Options > Advanced > Memory)
• Android Pay enhanced with improved usability (but still supported through NFC technology).

For developers and testers, there are enhancements to the platform that mark a change from Android 5 and older versions.

New test scenarios with Android 6.0

This is not iOS 9, which already passed the 50% market adoption, so the expected transition to Android 6.0 can take three to nine months for some device manufactures to support. However, it is important to start testing on the new platform with the supported Nexus devices to identify issues and assure app quality.

Here are new features in Android 6.0 to keep in mind while testing:

• Doze Mode - Promises up to twice the standby time for your Android device when the device is inactive. Because this capability will only be supported in Android 6.0 and above, your testing plan needs to branch out to cover this new option and make sure your app is indeed going into the standby mode and waking up properly. This is a whole new test to take into account for Android 6 (see Fig 2 below).
• App permissions (Granular Permissions feature) upon first usage rather than upon app installation.
  • New test cases to assure that security is not compromised when your app requires network permission, video permission, etc. -- specifically in the first request for such permission.
  • If such permission was already granted through older apps installed, this will not be promoted again.
  • Users can also view permissions by type to see which apps have been granted specific permissions.
• A simplified TouchID feature is likely to drive stronger adoption, forcing new test scenarios across devices and app versions, especially around device login, authentications and payments.

Fig 2: Recommended testing of Doze mode for an app under test.

There are also new UI/visual changes (Fig 3) in Android 6 such as the new App Drawer as well as the ability to rotate both apps and the home screen from portrait mode to landscape.

With the UI changes, it's important to perform both automation regression testing from a maintenance perspective to assure that automation and CI (continuous integration) are not broken. Also, consider including new UI-based tests around these orientation features, using visual object analysis to identify user interface truncations on various screen sizes and devices.

For all of the above changes, it's clear that developers and testers need complete control at both the app level and system level to get sufficient test coverage of the new features in Android 6.0.

Fig 3: New App Drawer & Ability to switch Home Screen to Landscape mode

Lab management

With two new devices with different hardware and screen sizes running on a new platform, organizations need to make sure these devices are included in the next lab refresh so their teams are always exposed to the latest Android devices and OS versions. These devices will run an OTS (off the shelf) flavor of Android 6.0 and will continue to get software updates as soon as they're released, before any other Android vendor.

Customers who leverage a cloud-based lab will find these changes seamless because they'll be getting the latest devices and platforms as soon as they are available, with enterprise-level test environment support on tools they know and use like Appium and Selenium.

There are still devices today that have not yet received Android L (Fig 4), a reminder of how critical it is to test on older devices with older OS versions. However, you should also include Google's Nexus devices in your test coverage due to the access they provide to the latest Android version.

Fig 4: HTC One Mini devices & Android 5 support status

With these complexities coming to your mobile apps, it's important to pay close attention to your existing lab environment. Perfecto Mobile offers full support for Android 6 on various Nexus devices and will be ready to provide first-day availability also for the two new Nexus devices in its Continuous Quality lab.

Your users are going to expect a smooth transition to Android 6.0, so it's strongly recommended to review the above implications to your test environment and device coverage.