Launching the application based on the testing on emulators / simulators could be very risky for companies / developers and may affect the brand value of the application and company. Developing a mobile application is very easy and quick these days and requires very minimum investment. Now a days with the existence of so many application stores, it is very easy to launch the application and reach to wide user base but if application has issues then it'll get negative feedback even if concept of the application is very good and has the potential of becoming top rated app. This happens mostly because of absence of proper testing of the application from the technical as well as user's point.
Many companies especially start-ups, do not invest much on testing of their mobile application that affects them adversely. Some companies do perform some testing but only on emulators / simulators instead of actual mobile handsets. It is very difficult to test the application on each and every available mobile handset but app should be tested on some candidate handsets. First few iterations of testing should be done on emulators / simulators but final testing should be done on a set of actual handsets. Following are some cons of testing application only on emulators / simulators:
Many companies especially start-ups, do not invest much on testing of their mobile application that affects them adversely. Some companies do perform some testing but only on emulators / simulators instead of actual mobile handsets. It is very difficult to test the application on each and every available mobile handset but app should be tested on some candidate handsets. First few iterations of testing should be done on emulators / simulators but final testing should be done on a set of actual handsets. Following are some cons of testing application only on emulators / simulators:
- Network issue: Emulators emulate the network speed but emulation is not 100% correct and most of the emulators use the network speed of the PC so performance of AUT on emulator / simulator may not be very reliable.
- Resolution issue: Screen size and resolution of a PC also affects the app UI especially in case of gaming apps e.g. user experience on 4 inch screen having 1136x640 resolution is different from that on 4 inch screen having 800x480 resolution i.e user experience changes based on pixel density. Emulating exact screen size and screen resolution is very difficult on emulators as emulators use resolution of the PC.
- PC resources: Emulator uses PC resources because of which actual user experience may be very different from that on emulators.
- Apps using device camera or GPS cannot be tested properly on emulators.
- Carrier specific testing cannot be done on emulators.
- It is difficult to do interrupt testing (e.g. Call / SMS etc.) on emulators.
