Soft launching, dark launching, and canary releases are useful strategies you can employ to test the market, make sure issues don’t reach production, and minimize their impact if they do. There does seem to be a lot of confusion on the definition of each term and the nuances between them and they are often used…
When your application is ready for its first beta test, you might feel worried about sharing your app externally, considering the risk it might pose to secrecy, privacy, and even security. Likewise, when beta testing a new app, many testers can feel concerned about the data the beta app collects and how it handles it.…
Any mobile phone that stores, or has access to company data, poses a security threat or vulnerability. And in the age of the smartphone, there are more mobile devices than ever that need to connect to your network and have access to sensitive data. This is where mobile device management (MDM) and mobile application management…
By Blake Sirach For many companies, software releases are stressful, nail-biting, teeth-gritting stretches of time when the whole enterprise is looking at your team and just waiting for something to go sideways: a major bug on an untested Android device, poor customer response, or unmet stakeholder expectations. But they don’t have to be that way!…
Since the rise of web 2.0, the practice of beta testing has steadily been gaining in popularity. However, the confusion about what beta testing really is and what benefits it can offer has been increasing at almost the same pace. What Is Beta Testing? There is no standard for what a beta…
Note: This post was originally published on Mar. 22, 2018 and was updated on Oct. 17, 2018 to reflect changes in TestFlight and Google Play. When it’s time to choose the tools to help you carry out your beta test, a beta app distribution tool is one of the first things you need to…
When TestFlight hit the market in 2011, it revolutionized beta app distribution. It eliminated the hassle associated with distributing and managing beta builds and simplified the process on the tester’s side. Apple was quick to recognize the value TestFlight adds to developers and was quick to acquire the service and integrate it into App Store…
From the search engine’s first beta offering to the now famous Gmail beta label that looked like it was never going to come off, Google has always been a disciple and pioneer of beta testing. And ever since Google released Play Store’s beta testing features back in 2013, they have been constantly iterating and improving…
When it comes to collecting feedback, in-app survey questions are one of the most effective tools you can use. They introduce very little friction to your users while allowing you to ask for specific feedback. Moreover, research has shown that more than half of mobile users expect companies to directly ask them for feedback. However,…
Prolific Interactive is an award-winning, mobile-focused agency that operates in many ways like a tech startup. They build innovative apps based on user-centric design with lean, cross-functional teams that are data-driven, and they measure their success against growth outcomes. This product-led approach has resulted in a string of industry accolades, including Best VR/AR App, Best…
Beta tests sometimes seem like complex affairs, but in reality, they are quite simple and can be done for little to no cost. In fact, beta testing is considered a low-cost tactic to test your app and collect user feedback. The word “free” often translates into more work and time, and you will need to…
Beta testing is well known as a way to weed out the bugs and crashes that are still hiding in your code. The benefits of beta testing as a marketing tool have also started to get more attention recently, with many examples of apps that used beta tests to drive wide adoption. But beta testing…