Since the use of mobile technology is set to advance further, testing these real devices is crucial and requires effective and efficient methods. The true concept of mobile device testing guarantees that applications perform optimally on various devices.
According to Statista data, the current global number of smartphone users is 4.2 billion and is expected to rise by 1.7 billion between 2024 and 2029.
By 2025, the technological growth of mobile devices, user expectations, and requirements for compliance with high standards worldwide will revolutionize software testing and rapidly change the approach to mobile app testing and automation, making it relevant and crucial to prepare for further changes.
Discusses top trends shaping the future of real mobile device testing. From AI and machine learning-powered tools to the rise of real device cloud platforms and the challenges of 5G testing, these innovations are set to revolutionize the way we test and optimize mobile apps.
Read on to explore how these trends can help businesses streamline their processes, enhance user satisfaction, and prepare for the future of mobile technology.
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Why Real Device Testing is Crucial in 2025
The number of mobile devices is growing with the level of complication of the mobile application. This makes real device testing more important. For example, if using an emulator, there is no complete assurance that an application will perform well on other different Android and iOS devices.
Example: A retail app might work fine on emulators but crash on older Android devices or have UI issues on notched screens. Testing real devices catches these problems, ensuring a smooth user experience across all device types.
Challenges in Mobile Testing
- Diverse Devices: Thousands of gadgets with different features and qualities and different configurations and capabilities
- Evolving User Expectation: Since 5G, IoT, and AR/VR define innovative scenarios, users demand high performance and compatibility.
By 2025, software testing methodologies like automation and scalability will be applied to mitigate these challenges and will make testing more inclusive and more efficient.
Top Trends in Real Mobile Device Testing
Quality assurance practices are evolving with the rise of emerging trends in mobile device testing and companies are capable of delivering robust and user-friendly applications faster. Ready to get a look at the key trends defining the current landscape of real mobile device testing?
Trend 1: AI and Machine Learning in Testing
Mobile testing is one of the areas that are currently being transformed by AI and ML since the approach to testing applications is being revolutionized. They offer basic functions and improve the functionality of testing by shortening it and improving its precision.
How AI and ML Help in Testing
- Identifying the Manual Tests Faster: AI enables fast identification of critical test cases such that critical scenarios are covered quickly.
- Finding Bugs faster: It is possible that with the help of AI, one can check all applications in an organization for any existing error or defect better than one human can do.
- Log the Bugs Faster: With the help of Generative AIs and web LLMs, we can log the bugs rapidly in a given format without writing them manually
- Self-Healing Tests: In case there is any change to the app, the test scripts reinvent themselves as long as they are integrated with artificial intelligence.
- Predicting Problems: AI assists testers in determining where some apps may be going wrong and allowing testers to fix it even before it occurs.
By 2025, AI and ML will greatly assist in testing as the approach becomes smarter and more efficient in terms of time and money utilized in developing mobile applications.
Trend 2: Expansion of Real Device Cloud Platform
Cloud devices mean that testers can test devices through the internet as they get all sorts of devices. These have become important tools for those companies that would like to test their applications on different gadgets without having to invest in particular devices.
For example, there's a new fitness app that launches with a GPS tracker that runs better on the iPhone 16. The app is rendered useless when the iPhone 17 launches with a new screen size, causing user frustration and uninstalling other apps, all because users find a new competitor app.
Why Cloud Platforms are Important
- Access to More Devices: Test on hundreds of devices remotely without having to go through the stress and cost of setting up a physical lab.
- Scalable Testing: Do multiple tests at once by using the options that let you compare the work of gadgets with different operating systems.
- Cost-effective: Cut costs on the need for additional expensive hardware and therefore the cost of their maintenance.
By 2025, cloud-based testing will empower organizations to deliver better apps more quickly while also enhancing the reliability of an app for any device.
Trend 3: 5G Network Testing Enhancements
With the help of the 5G networks, mobile applications have become a new reality in human life and they have some characteristics, such as faster downloads of mobile applications and better streaming of some other features like Augmented Reality AR and Virtual Reality VR. These opportunities create new tasks for QA testers.
As of 2024, the global adoption of 5G technology soared to nearly 2.1 billion active subscriptions. Both India and the United States emerged as frontrunners in this technological shift.
What 5G Testing Involves
- Speed and Performance: Naturally, ensure that the app itself is running seamlessly in ultra-high-speed 5G networks.
- Testing for AR/VR: Deliver their services without getting delayed, especially where graphics are heavy such as games and simulations.
- Handling Network Fluctuations: Checking how apps switch between available networks by seeing what happens when 5G and slower 4G connectivity are available.
From 2025 onwards, the 5G testing will be for improving the speed and reliability of the apps as well as enhancing new and advanced types of features.
Trend 4: Focus on IOT Testing
The IoT (Internet of Things) is continuing to grow, getting smarter from wearable to home appliances. However, testing apps for IoT devices is a little different than testing traditional applications.
For instance, not testing IoT apps on real devices can lead to serious issues like connectivity drops, delayed responses, and security flaws. For a smart home system with devices like locks, lights, and cameras, real-device testing is critical to ensure reliability
Challenges in IoT Testing
- Compatibility: Defining how well the applications are set to run across various forms of devices, such as smartwatches, fitness trackers, refrigerators, and many others.
Example: A smart home app controls multiple IoT devices such as lights, a thermostat, and a refrigerator.
- Security Concerns: Preventing IoT devices from being hacked and their data from being stolen from them.
Example: A fitness tracker app collects sensitive data, such as heart rate and location, from wearable devices.
- Real-Time Communication: It is a set of protocols or platforms that allow devices to communicate with low latency.
Example: A fleet management IoT system monitors delivery trucks' GPS locations in real time.
The IoT testing in the year 2025 will focus on the development of applications that are more secure, compatible, and deliver real-time information.
Trend 5: Accessibility Testing Gains Momentum
Imagine a world where every app, whether for shopping, banking, or education, is designed to be fully accessible, ensuring that people with disabilities can use them effortlessly. In 2025, as governments enforce regulations like the European Accessibility Act.
For example, an e-commerce app implements voice navigation and adjustable text sizes, enabling a visually impaired user to browse and purchase products independently.
What Accessibility Testing Includes
- Screen Reader Compatibility: Enabling users to access application interfaces using instructions offered in the form of audio cues.
- Voice Commands: Identifying voice controls available to regulate apps to test them.
- Color and Contrast Checks: It is important to enhance text and graphical features available on every website to improve visibility
When implemented, accessibility increases a company’s market reach, meets legal mandates, and demonstrates that the software testing company values access.
Trend 6: Scriptless Test Automation
With the rise of low-code and no-code tools, mobile test automation is now accessible to everyone in the organization, beyond just technical teams.
Benefits of Scriptless Testing
- No Programming Knowledge Required: With scriptless testing, anyone, even with no coding skill, can come up with and run tests using easy-to-use interfaces.
- Faster Automation Coverage: Automatic workflow and pre-built modules make it easy to automate a series of tests quickly and efficiently.
- In-Sprint Automation is Possible: Scriptless testing allows for the creation and running of automated tests within the sprint, something that perfectly aligns with Agile development workflows.
- Faster Testing Cycles: You can design and run tests fast without coding.
- Improved Collaboration: Let business analysts and QA teams come into the testing process.
- Enhanced Coverage: People have to make use of scriptless testing in conjunction with automated regression testing for improved results.
At Alphabin, we’ve taken scriptless automation to the next level with our innovative tool 🚀. Using our platform, users can create automated test cases at lightning speed ⚡ and execute hundreds or even thousands of them in parallel using our robust cloud services ☁️. Designed for simplicity, our tool empowers anyone—even those without prior automation experience—to achieve instant automation 🎯, accelerating testing processes 🏃♂️ and ensuring high-quality results ✅.
It is projected that scriptless testing will be brought to the mobile testing space on an even larger scale in 2025, expanding its reach.
Trend 7: Security and Privacy Testing
Currently, the growing issue is all about privacy and security violations. Laws such as GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) in Europe as well as CCPA (California Consumer Privacy Act) in California demand that business organizations protect user information.
Example: Securing a healthcare app means that the data encryption shall be done, unauthorized access restricted and data leaks prevented. An insecure API that exposes patient data is identified for testing, which is repaired quickly to come back into compliance and security.
Security Testing Focus Area
- Penetration Testing: Conducting cyber threat simulation to better understand the weaknesses of an organization’s infrastructure.
- Biometric Security: Ensure features like facial recognition and fingerprint scanning are reliable and secure.
- Data Encryption: Ensure compliance of the stored or transmitted information with the security standards of the organization.
Security measures should be integrated into real device testing processes efficiently to ensure that consumers trust and non-compliance trouble are avoided.
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Trend 8: Continuous Testing and Agile Practices
By incorporating tests into the CI/CD pipelines, that is, adopting the continuous testing models, continuous testing is performed throughout the development lifecycle. Ideally, this approach works well for businesses that operate through Agile or DevOps frameworks.
Example: In an agile project, a banking app uses continuous testing with CI/CD pipelines. Automated tests run after each code commit, identifying bugs in real-time, ensuring fast feedback, and maintaining high-quality releases throughout the sprint.
How Continuous Testing Works
- Early Testing: Learn about bugs in the development stage to reduce the time taken to rectify them.
- Automated Feedback: Bring real-time feedback to the developers for quicker cycles.
- Streamlined Process: Apps need to be built as part of the CI/CD cycle so that they are viable for use.
Continuous testing provides businesses with an opportunity to release more engaging apps of the highest quality to the market while satisfying the modern user’s expectations.
Trend 9: Testing for Emerging Technology
AR, VR, and blockchain technologies are among the newest technologies that are defining the future of software development. All these innovations come with new complexities that can only be addressed by specific test procedures.
Example of Emerging Testing Needs
- AR/VR Testing: Make sure apps are functioning right and the immersive apps on phones are built for high performance in the market.
- Blockchain Applications: Ensuring that the decentralized applications users are engaging in are secure as well as transparent.
- Environment Adaptability: It examines the durability of wearables and automotive apps when concerning their real-life application.
Specific tools and approaches will be required to address the expectation of such innovative technologies in 2025.
Trend 10: Remote Testing Teams and On-Demand QA
Global teams and on-demand QA services are becoming a new trend within the testing environment.
Example: The bank uses a remote QA team to test cross-platform compatibility and scales up on-demand to fix a critical in-game purchase bug, ensuring a smooth launch.
- Global Collaboration: With the team distributed across remote areas, they bring diverse expertise and perspectives that shine in the quality of the testing.
- On-Demand QA: Testing services that scale let you leverage peak demand while maintaining quality.
- Improved Productivity: This enables businesses to continue remaining agile and responsive to changing needs as they leverage remote and on-demand resources.
It is no surprise that this trend points to the value of adaptability in an increasingly globalized industry.
Why Choose Us for Real Mobile Device Testing?
When you partner with Alphabin, you’re not just hiring a QA service; you work alongside a team that wants your business to be successful. We bring a team of QA experts to test your app on real devices, making our real device testing a process that is extremely accurate and reliable.
With our portfolio strength, we leverage our expertise and your app-specific test plan beyond traditional QA to deliver actionable insights. Also, we have experience in FinTech, Healthcare, etc. to assist you with getting your app optimized for particular audiences.
We have adopted both end-to-end automation testing and CICD pipelines, which allow for the slashing down of the release times without compromising superior quality. We don’t only solve problems but polish components, streamline journeys and ensure that your app functions properly.
Our team is led by a QA expert in the testing industry and our co-founder is known for their book on Appium mobile automation. The engineer’s ability to create innovative solutions for the real device testing process is what we pride ourselves on.
When you work with us, you partner with an advisor that you can rely on to offer great value and quality strategic insights. During this time, we’ll use this opportunity to help you turn your ideas and elaborate test plans into experiences your users love.
Conclusion
As we look towards 2025, mobile device testing will go in some very interesting directions. In the future for app testing, other domains such as AI, 5G, testing of IoT devices, making an app more user-friendly to its users, or testing of new regulations will be valuable.
We should note that flexibility is crucial when it comes to businesses that may seek to adopt these trends to offer the users their optimum experience by surpassing the rest of the market competitors. Implementing these innovations will assist the companies in maintaining their testing strategies consistent and ready for higher levels.
Alphabin simplifies adopting these trends with tailored solutions for AI-driven testing, real device cloud platforms, and 5G readiness. Our expertise ensures your apps meet user expectations with superior quality and performance.