It ain’t easy being a mobile content developer. We all have our comfort zones – some of us like Firefox, some of us like IE, some of us inexplicably still pretend that Chrome is a real browser – but mobile content developers don’t have this luxury. With the bevy of devices/carriers/OS/browsers out there for cell phones, developers have their hands full. And even worse than trying to get your site to work in fifty different proprietary browser/operating system combinations is finding the time and resources to test that site on real handhelds without running through your entire project budget.
That’s where a service like DeviceAnywhere comes in handy. DeviceAnywhere is a desktop application that gives you access to thousands of phones across the world for testing purposes. They offer phones on all major carriers and from all major manufacturers, and they constantly update their phone list to keep up with the market. Many carriers – including T-Mobile and Sprint in the US – recommend DeviceAnywhere to their partner developers for testing purposes. You can select phone packages based on carrier or manufacturer, and you pay for the hours you use so testing is scalable.
The beauty of their program is that you’re connecting to real phones via their application interface. This isn’t an emulator, which can’t account for carrier or device restrictions; these are actual phones with real service plans. Users interact with the phones as they would a real phone, including simulating key clicks and touch screen interfaces. There are a host of special features in the application – including the ability to video your tests – that help automate testing and save information to review later.
We’ve used DeviceAnywhere for several of our projects with good results (including a little thing called Meve, you might want to check it out if you like things that are awesome). The program can help identify problems early on in the development stage that can be corrected before more time and money are put into a site. You can test mobile websites, download applications, communicate with in-house handhelds, and even access the hardware of the phone (like the battery, camera, etc). It’s a great application for those looking to expand their reach into the mobile world.