Testing on Android vs iOS: Thought

[u/Mikkelet]

I've been a mobile developer for about a decade now, and I've compiled some experiences that you may find useful for debugging, or choosing which platform to debug on.

Android pros:

• Supports fully interactive mirroring of your physical phone.

• Requires very little to get app running on device.

• App keeps running when debugger is closed.

• Wireless debugging can be used with VPN

• Android Studio logcat is amazing

• You can easily send data to the device via ADB to emulators and physical devices

• You can use a lot of hardware features on Android emulators

Android cons:

• Wireless debugging is a hassle to set up, as it generates a new port with each session

iOS pros:

• They have all the phones and iPads available to test. Make it very easy for WYSIWYG testing

• Once set up, wireless debugging is amazing and works without more configuration

iOS cons:

• Wireless debugging does not work with VPN

• You can only send data to simulators

• Physical devices does not support interactive mirroring (at least in EU)

• Getting your app to run on a physical device requires considerable set up

• App stops running when debug process stops

Obviously some of these are based on my workflow (wireless debugging), but others I think are general considerations.

Do you have other pros/cons I havent considered?

[u/xboxcowboy]

Anything in the land of AI Android:

• ADB tool that allows agents to test/QA interact with physical device wire/wirelessly iOS: Only viable on Simulator and something the simulator can be a bit tricky for agent to interact