We watched the Apple event a couple of days ago where some new products were presented. During the event, Apple also announced the new iOS 18 which will be available for the public today. This is very important if you are a QA working on an iOS app because now you need to check if the app is compatible with the latest OS version and if everything works as expected. You will need to do the same thing when the new Android version is out if you are working on an Android app.
In this blog post, I will guide you in the process of what you need to do when a new OS version drops.
Update At Least One Test Device
The first thing that you need to do is to update at least one of your devices to the new OS version. Do not update all of your devices to the new OS version. You will need at least one device that will stay on the older OS version so you can make a comparison about how the app behaves, or if you find a bug, you need to be able to investigate if that bug is happening only on the newest OS or it is reproducible on the older version as well.
Having this kind of mix of devices with different OS versions can help you a lot in the testing process and in determining which bugs are caused by the OS update.
Review OS Release Notes
The second thing that you can do is to read the Release Notes of the new OS version. You can find the iOS Release notes here, and if you are working with Android, you can find the Android Release Notes here.
In the Release Notes, you can find information about the new features, deprecated functionalities, and some changes that can affect your app. This might help you to identify the areas where you should focus the most when you start testing on the new OS version.
Check the Compatibility of the App
After updating the device and reading the Release Notes it’s time to do some testing. The first thing that you can test is the main functionalities of the app. On the device where you have installed the latest OS version, perform smoke testing of the main and most critical functionalities to see if they are working correctly.
You can perform this testing manually, but if you have automation tests, that’s even better. Just run your automation test suite and you will have the results quicker. In that way, you will also discover any potential issues much faster.
A combination of automation tests and manual testing is also possible if you think that your automation tests are not covering all the important functionalities.
Test the Features that Rely on the System Services
Identify the features on your app that rely on the System Services and the Hardware. Identify the parts of the app that are using the camera, location services, sharing options, AirDrop, push notifications, device permission, file storing, Face ID, Touch ID, Bluetooth, etc. Test these features and verify that they are working as expected and that nothing is broken with the latest OS change.
Check the UI Element
Go through the app and pay attention to the form field, font type, font size, colors, and the overall look of the elements. OS change can sometimes change the way how the elements are rendered. Make sure that the elements are shown correctly after the new OS change, and don’t forget to check the elements in Portrait and Landscape mode.
Pay Attention to the Performance of the App
While you are testing the app, pay attention to the animations, response time, load time, transitions, page redirections, and battery level, and see if anything feels different in comparison to how it was on the older OS version. If something feels different or slower, you will need to report that so the development team can optimize the code so the app can have good performance on the latest OS version.
By following these steps as a QA, you will ensure that the quality of the product is not broken with the newest OS release. You can also discover some potential issues early in the development process which will save time and will bring a stable and quality app to the end-users.
