Open source for iPhone Apps-automated testing Network World

If you ever have been involved in any Software development you know that testing your code can sometimes take longer than actually writing. If you have an automated testing tool you can afford, you can really cut down the time. In the traditional computer world there is a healthy ecosystem of tools that are available for the testing of applications, some automated, some not.

Today there is no market hotter than app development for smartphones.  With literally hundreds of thousands of apps available for the iOS that runs on the iPhone and iPad, was an automated testing solution desperately needed.  In this violation stepped a Boulder, Co based company called Gorilla Logic and their open source FoneMonkey tool. With the slogan that a Gorilla beats 10 monkeys, Gorilla Logic has helped some of the biggest companies in the world to develop great software. What is great about their mobile tools is that it's free, open source software that brings state-of-the-art automated software testing for everyone.

I had a chance to sit with Ed Schwarz, co-founder and VP Engineering of Gorilla Logic to talk about the company and the latest version of FoneMonkey that they just announced. This latest version has some important new features, including:

Robust script recording and playback – more extensive recording and playback for user interactions, including cranes, keyboard input, drag and scrolling for all cocoa Touch components.Code generation options-FoneMonkey can now ready-to-run test scripts generate in Objective-C that can be run under OCUnit, or JavaScript that can be done with Apple's UI Automation tools.Optimized for both the iPhone and iPad platforms and user interfaces.FoneMonkey now works both simulators and real devices.Test playbacks can be completely automated.

Schwarz says that the company makes money by offering services and support for the open source FoneMonkey tool. But the folks at Gorilla Logic actually FoneMonkey for their own development projects developed. When she saw that FoneMonkey so valuable they decided to offer for everyone to fill this gap in the ecosystem of the development for mobile development.

Gorilla Logic has developed software for over 10 years. The founding team formed composed of ex-Sun engineers at the heart of Suns Java professional services team. With Java such a popular choice for mobile development is Gorilla Logic is in high demand.  Gives the community the tool has helped them establish FoneMonkey as a leader in the mobile development scene.

In the meantime, all mobile developers take advantage of the benefits of an automated testing tool.  Sounds like a win-win for me. In addition to FoneMonkey for iPhone and iPad has Gorilla Logic also open source tools for the Adobe Flex platform testing. As the company focused on other mobile platforms develops, you can probably expect more open source apps testing Gorilla Logic away to see.

Part of the hot Boulder tech scene, Gorilla Logic is not venture backed. It took them 10 years to get where they are now, but looking back that they otherwise would not have taken! In the meantime, will hopefully we all see better quality apps delivered because FoneMonkey is available as a free and open source tool for anyone to use.

 

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