mobile automation made awesome

@AppiumDevs | @saucelabs

Live Panel / Core Committers Q&A5/29/2014

Necessity is the mother of invention

The Problem• Mistakes in iOS applications are expensive• You have to live with bugs until the App Store has approved the build with your fixes•best case a couple of days

• Testing mobile phones is physically exhausting• These things are designed to be used all day•tiny keyboards•tiny screens

Developing a Solution• Why can’t we automate it, like we do with

websites?

• Instruments UIAutomation has issues•must be programmed in javascript•must be run in a sandbox (no access to outside world)• control is scripted and non-realtime

The Solution• use shell command method to talk to the outside

word•with friends like /bin/cat and python you can do anything

• run commands using eval()• make a real-time server• repurpose the JSON wire protocol

Assembling supporters

Building Support• April 2012• Appium (called iOSAuto at the time) was demoed as an SeConf 2012 Lightning talk

• November 2012• Jason Huggins jumps in and helps rewrite the code for the Mobile Test Summit

• January 2013•Open Source project begins, Android support is added

Gaining Traction• June 2013• Appium is presented at SeConf 2013 alongside Selendroid, iOSDriver and others• Result: Selenium project endorses freedom of choice

• May 2013• Appium 1.0

World domination

Lessons Learned• If at first you don’t succeed, rewrite the entire

codebase and try again

• The most awesome thing will win

• With a strong community, there’s going to be someone who can solve that problem that you find impossible

appium 1.0 and beyond

The road to 1.0• 16 months of hard work• Starting code and community from scratch• Many conferences and road trips to spread the

word• Amazing help from community contributors large

and small• Surpassing all expectations and getting the

attention of the world• OSS Rookie of the Year, anyone?

What’s new• Stability• New client libraries• New, more sensible desired caps• New Xpath support• Android hybrid support• New, more sensible locator strategies• MultiAction gesture API• New docs/tutorials

What’s new• Companies large and small adopting Appium

• (Who says it’s not “battle-tested”?)• appium-discuss list blowing up

• Moving to a new solution soon• More and more community members contributing

code• Demand for support outpacing what a few of us

can handle

What’s next• Major focus on doc/tutorial content---need to make

things easier for beginners and mobile novices• Bugfixes• More tests and a CI to run testsuite on every

commit, for improved quality and fewer regressions• Systematizing project management, prioritizing new

directions for Appium• Efforts to engage the community (you!) to pitch in

and make Appium better, and to help support each other better

Recording of Live Panel with Core Appium Contributors

Link: https://saucelabsreview.webex.com/saucelabsreview/lsr.php?RCID=f6852510974c4cfe9fac2653445fb5c2

appium.iogithub.com/appium/appium

@AppiumDevs | @saucelabs

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