I need to test web apps on a representative selection of Android phones and tablets. I don't have the budget necessary to purchase a large selection of physical devices. I'm looking for a collection of AVD files to use with the Android SDK emulator to accomplish this. Does anyone know of an existing repository or collection of these? Or do I have to make each one individually figuring out their specific resolutions, memory, Android versions, etc for each? I've created one based on the Nexus S definition provided in the SDK's AVD Manager, but I need Samsung, HTC, etc ones too and am not sure where to get them. Each phone manufacturers dev portal is a little different and I haven't found anything as straight forward as "Here's the link to our AVDs" on them. Thanks.
If you aren't required to use the AVD from the SDK, you should checkout genymotion. They use a dedicated virtual machine to emulate real devices, so it's really really fast. They've also custom made a bunch of real devices (phones and tablets) such as the Nexus 4, Galaxy S4, HTC One, and Xperia Z. It looks like they mostly support API 16+, but there's a preview for API 9 at the time of writing this.
Yes, there is this one, thanks to https://github.com/j5at and other guys:
https://github.com/j5at/AndroidAVDRepo
Or do I have to make each one individually figuring out their specific resolutions, memory, Android versions, etc for each?
You will need to define whatever emulator images you want yourself. The norm is to define some emulators with a mix of resolutions and OS levels, not necessarily specifically trying to hit any particular device model.
Bear in mind that there are plenty of virtual test services that you are welcome to take advantage of as well. You should already be familiar with these, as they are commonly used in Web development for testing browser/OS combinations that you do not have at your disposal.
Each phone manufacturers dev portal is a little different and I haven't found anything as straight forward as "Here's the link to our AVDs" on them.
There are no dedicated emulator images for the vast majority of Android devices on the market.
Related
I am building an application with React Native but the app not working well on a few android devices. So I need to see what's going wrong but I don't know how to set up an emulator for a specific device. Are these problems depends on phone's brand and model or it just depends on their android versions?
Its not really possible. There's two major problems:
Software. Real devices don't ship pure AOSP like runs on the emulator. They add patches and features and there's no way to know what they actually run.
Custom UIs. Many phones provide custom UIs like TouchWhiz and the like which can override Android behavior
Hardware. If your app depends on things that are very hardware specific, like GPS or Camera, they could have issues due to hardware bugs.
If you just want to emulate a specific OS version like KitKat, or specific low memory conditions its possible via emulator configuration. If you really need to test on a device, either buy one or use a service that allows you remote control over specific devices. Amazon has a nice device farm that you can rent over AWS.
One of the biggest challenges when developing for Android is the wide variety of devices and "optimizations" manufacturers make to their Android versions.
The Android emulator is based on AOSP (vanilla Android) and was only recently published with Google services included. This is the most clean version of Android. You can use the emulator to test UI scaling for different screen sizes but it will always behave like an AOSP Android. Google packs a bunch of hardware configurations into Android Studio which you can simply select when creating an virtual device. You can always create a custom hardware profile with custom screen size and resolution. Some manufacturers also change the DPI value of the OS causing the UI to be bigger or smaller, keep this in mind when creating a custom hardware configuration.
Further, you can use the emulator to test the default behaviour on different Android versions. Again, manufacturers change their Android usually causing slightly different behaviour.
I assume that your question is focussed on different behaviour of e.g. Samsung phones having crashes only occuring in Samsung phones (Samsung can be exchanged with any other brand here). Unfortunately, there is no simple way to test this but getting your hands on the faulty device. One option is to use a cloud based test lab (e.g. Firebase Test Lab, App Center or AWS device farm) to test your code on the faulty device or rent the device at a local shop. Most bigger cities have companies renting phones and tablets on a daily or weekly basis.
In the end you will need if statements checking for a specific device, manufacturer or Android version or any combination of them and doing something slightly different to fix the undesired behaviour.
I know that this is not the answer you are looking for, but it's the best I can offer. To tell a little tale of my worst experience: I had once a bug were calling a crypto function caused a kernel panic on HTC (?) phones. This means the user opened my app and the phone rebooted. I was required to implement the entire encryption logic again just for HTC with Android 6.0.
I've developed a few phonegap apps for ios and now I want to create android versions for one of them. The thing with android is, of course, that it is used on so many different devices. I understand that the safest way is to test the app on every single device that I'm targeting, but is there a smart and easy solution to test for as many devices as possible without buying 20 new phones? Is the emulator, for example, reliable?
Any hints and tips from you android phonegap guys and girls out there much appreciated!
You can try Genymotion. It has a wide range of devices and they are reliable as far as I experienced, you can get it here;
http://www.genymotion.com/
Also you can try virtual devices from Eclipse. Plus if you try a few real devices, it would be enough I think.
You are right, there are hundreds of devices no one tests them all.
The best idea is to test on a few physical devices of varying API level and screen size. That is of course not always possible so best idea is to use the built in emulators.
Android SDK comes with an Android SDK manager, this enabled you to download system images for every API version.
You can then use Android Device Manager to create new emulators, running different screen sizes and images.
This should enable you to test quite comprehensively.
Good luck.
I am about to port my application on android. Since I am new to this system I would like to ask for tips on android phones for testing my app. The number of phones is pretty huge so it is pretty hard to choose the right one. Also I wasn't able to find some kind of official chart of system distribution.
I know that it really depends on hardware and how much my app demands from hardware. It is pretty basic app and I am able to run this app at 30fps on iPhone 4S.
I did some research and people are talking about the latest phones but I think that it is not necessary to buy the newest one. Also, is there option to buy for example tablet and emulate android devices on this tablet?
So my goal is to focus on devices people have the most.
Thank you for any advice.
You can run many of your tests on the Android emulator. Using it together
with the DDMS will allow you to simulate several real life situations
(arriving call, arriving sms, change position...)
You can use BlueStacks which is an emulator put on steroids.
TestFairy and UTest are awsome communities for crowd testing were you can test ~any device you can think of.
Still, it is a good idea, especially if you plan your run at Android to be long,
to maintain a small stash of real devices.
Which devices should you buy? Which OS version should they run?
The Android dashboard is the official source for answering some of these questions. It gives an
up to date statistics of worldwide distribution by OS version, svreen size/density and more:
OS Distribution
Screen type Distribution
So, true to July 2014 you would want devices running Jelly Bean, Gingerbread & ICS and you screens of types normal/hdpi, normal/xxhdpi and normal/xhdpi. This list can grow but even this will provide you with a good sample of the Android device ecosystem.
As for manufacturers, the picture is clear: Samsung is the winner. Exact number &
distributions are harder to find here, but a Google search might help.
If my memory serves me write some 65% of all Android devices are Samsungs made with
Galaxy S3 taking 15% (of ENTIRE Android market) and Galaxy S4 = 10%.
Device screen features:
Galaxy S2 is normal/hdpi
Galaxy S3 is normal/xhdpi
Galaxy S4/S5 is normal/xxhdpi
These will probably be your best bet. You will do smartly to install on them 2-3 different OS versions, at
minimum Jelly Bean and ICS.
The Android Development Tools in Eclipse and Android Studio both have emulators that can be used to emulate different devices, including tablets and phones. You don't need to buy anything to be able to test your app on an emulator. The emulators run on your computer.
For more information
As for what devices most people have, while I don't have official statistics, looking at my own applications' downloads, most people are using either a Nexus 4 or Nexus 5.
I'm guessing everybody who does Android programming has on their own created multiple AVDs for various devices for testing purposes. I didn't really want to add to the "reinvent the wheel" club, and was hoping someone could point me to an article that lists out various AVD configurations, or a site/link to download already created AVDs to copy into my Eclipse environment, or scripts to create the AVDs via the command line, etc.?
The only thing I've been able to find so far via Googling is this blog article...
http://mobile.tutsplus.com/tutorials/android/common-android-virtual-device-configurations/
Be nice if a bunch of already-created AVD configurations shipped with the Android SDK, for the various popular Android devices.
Thanks in advance for any advice/info.
What you are looking for (namely a list of AVD configurations that will model different physical devices) does not exist. It doesn't exist because the options available in the emulator are very general, and do not model what you will find on an actual device. As the blog article states:
If you own one of these devices, you may immediately notice that the
screen doesn’t look the same (software-wise). The emulator does not
provide third-party add-ons, such as the HTC Sense UI.
That is huge. Third-party software changes the visual look and feel of the application significantly.
It is currently quite difficult to have a consistent look and feel in Android between different phones and providers, but the solution to the problem does not lie in an AVD configuration. The primary problems are related to different hardware, strange things that different providers stick in to the views, and differences in the images that are included for button backgrounds and things of that nature. The two biggest and most important emulator settings are screen size and version. Beyond that there isn't much. No one is going to create detailed emulator setting for each phone because those emulator settings have little to do with how the phone is going to work. From my own experience, every phone is different, and there almost certainly will be bugs specific to each model of phone. The emulator will show you almost none of that, which is why no one is coming up with lists of emulator settings for all the devices--they're testing on the devices themselves.
I am an iphone application developer, all iphones have very similar Operating systems, and the size and everything is the same, so I don't need to create applications specific for each iphone.
But with android there are different phones, different sizes, So How can I possibly know that my app works, and looks fine on all these devices
I don't already own an android but I completed my first application using the simulator. Which android phone do u suggest for testing? I am an AT&T user and Iuse an iphone. Can I simply insert my sim-card in the new android to be able to test my app on the device?
The android virtual device lets you change the virtual hardware to match all of the current shipping phones. There are ways to receive device crash reports from a shipped application to help diagnose force closes or other grievous errors.
You need an unlocked phone to use another SIM card. The Nexus One is available unlocked out of the gate, and comes with an AT&T version. The only AT&T (as sold by AT&T) Android phone (Backflip) is stupidly crippled and should be avoided. You can also buy an Android Dev Phone, which is currently "middle of the pack" in terms of hardware. You can also easily find numerous other Android capable handsets - pick depending on your target market. Some phones are now old: for instance, the G1 is on its way out.
you won't need to worry about different screen size . take a look at Supporting Multiple Screen article . I'm not sure for the late ones because I'm also working with Android Emulator .
1 - Take a look at this Google IO session for load of tips on making your app work across devices. It's not that hard at all really
2 - I'd recommend the Nexus One if you need a phone just to develop on. It's representative of what you'll be seeing in devices in the coming years. If you want a current representative phone take a look at the HTC Legend (Mid-end) or the HTC Wildfire (Low-end). There's also the Droid and things like that but you can only get them on Verizon I think. I'm not too knowledgeable about availability in the US, I'm from the UK.