When Apple announced their changes to Location Services in iOS 8 at WWDC this year, a couple of things jumped out as being potentially problematic for developers (as well as users). I wrote about the changes in-depth on iMore back in June, but now that iOS 8 is out, and the changes are causing some confusion for people, I think it’s time to revisit them and discuss possible problems.
There was a lot of chatter this week after Apple pushed out iOS 8.0.1 with bugs that left some iPhone 6 and 6 Plus users without cellular service or Touch ID. If Apple has ever published an iOS update with such significant bugs, I can’t remember it. In the wake of the release, some publications thought the best thing to do would be to write defamatory articles pinning the failure to a single person: Apple’s QA manager who oversees iOS testing. As a QA lead and somebody who has worked in software for a number of years, this was cringeworthy to read. It’s not only a shitty thing for a news site to do, but also demonstrates that they lack any sort of understanding of software development. In response, I decided to write “Why bad bugs hit good people”. Head over to iMore for my full not-quite-rant.
I’ve been sifting through this year’s WWDC videos looking for all of the interesting bits around security & privacy. I’m not anywhere close to being done. Fortunately Luis Abreu has done the hard work for all of us and compiled his findings into a very handy post. The post has a lot of great info for developers, QA, and designers around what’s new and what’s changing. Of course you’ll still want to go do your own research before implementing any changes, but Luis’ post serves as a great quick-start guide.
When Apple acquired Burstly, makers of TestFlight, earlier this year, many were hopeful that Apple was finally ready to provide developers with an easy way to manage beta testing. So naturally, developers responded to Apple’s official announcement of the (re)launch of TestFlight at WWDC with great applause. Since then, many (including Apple) have rejoiced that the days of dealing with UDIDs and provisioning profiles are over. Many already believe that TestFlight spells the end for HockeyApp. But looking at what we know so far about TestFlight, I’m not so sure that’s the case.
A couple of weeks ago, Austin Carr wrote a post titled “Why The Pull-To-Refresh Gesture Must Die”. The article is pretty much what the title implies– an explanation of reasons why pull-to-refresh is no longer needed and should go away. Ignoring the overly-aggressive title, the post simply doesn’t make a compelling argument for why we need to abolish pull-to-refresh. At best it offers some reasons why developers may want to reconsider whether or not their app needs pull-to-refresh.
Effective problem solving requires that you fully understand the problem you’re trying to address. This holds true in life and in programming. Effective testing requires that you have a good understanding of what you are testing and why. Without this solid foundation, at a minimum you’ll cause some confusion, and often times you’ll end up wasting time, money and energy investigating problems that aren’t really problems. This week, a company called OptoFidelity provided the perfect opportunity to discuss this challenge that engineers and testers commonly face.
I had the wonderful opportunity to speak at 360iDev this year. My talk, entitled How to Break Your Apps Before I Do, covers some of the methods and mentality of a good QA person, as well as how developers can get the most out of testing.
Nearly a year since the last refresh of the iOS testing mind map, it seemed due for an update. The changes in this version are outlined below.
A few weeks back there was an abuse of Apple’s Enterprise Developer Program that gathered a lot of attention after it was used to distribute a GameBoy emulator outside of the App Store. Obviously the focus at the time was on the fact that anybody could build an app to distribute outside of the App Store by using one company’s enterprise certificate. What got no attention, as far as I can tell, was the lack of security on the build server.
Just about every beta I’ve participated in has been set up in a way that feedback is only sent back to the developers. Vesper is my first time on a beta where a collaboration tool was set up for testers, in this case Glassboard. For those unfamiliar with Glassboard, it’s a sort of social network that allows you to create private boards for groups of people to communicate. Its lightweight structure is well-suited for private communications amongst a small group, like during a beta. Brent Simmons explained to me that this is how he has always done betas. Whether it be email, Glassboard, or some other tool, Brent has always set up a way for testers to discuss the project with one another.