Many various types of software products appear in course of information technology development. Some new types of software emerge, distinctions between some become vague during information technology evolution.
This process has impact on mobile testing, desktop testing and web site testing. These types of software testing grew into different types of activity when the 3 types of software products evolved. At present we witness somewhat opposite processes. The processes are especially impressive in mobile software.
Mobile Software Products Originally Could be Divided into 3 Types:
- Native Mobile Programs. These are mobile software products that utilize native mobile technology and can function on a mobile device without network connection.
- Mobile Web Sites. These are mobile software products that are developed based on web technology. They are static and meant to provide users with certain information.
- Mobile Web Applications. These programs are also web-technology based. Unlike mobile web sites, mobile web applications allow users to perform some actions. For instance, to exchange messages, to share data with other users, to buy something online and so on.
But any software testing company would confirm that at present a lot of native mobile programs are constructed on web-based technology, many mobile web sites include applications, and some mobile web applications can serve more for informational purposes rather than for interaction, like web sites.
All this makes distinctions between manual and automated testing of these software products not so clear. But one should keep in mind what software is under test executing mobile application testing, desktop testing or web site testing.