Rent-a-Phone

Rent-a-Phone

This is from my latest newsletter, [subscribe here][1].

We all know that testing our applications on real devices is an essential part of the development process. For freelance or small development agencies keeping every latest device in stock can be a waste of money, space and time.

I have recently come across a growing amount of services that offer the ability to 'rent' real devices for testing. So far these have all been European based and work in different ways. We have:

  • Test Object: Lets you remotely access over 150 real devices and OS combinations through one handy interface that combines reporting and automation. The pricing model is a monthly fee that gives varying levels of sessions and user access.
  • Native Tap: Takes a similar approach, but integrates with several IDEs, ADB and SDKs and pricing is based on per hour usage.
  • Open Device Lab: A different idea that is more part of the Sharing Economy than Start Up land. People with devices available for testing add them to a map and you can get in touch to borrow them. As far as I know, no money exchanges hands, but I am yet to try the service.

Have you tried any of these services or anything similar? Please let me know.

Using a service like that is a bit beyond my humble needs, but I haven’t heard of any existing in my area yet (though there may be some). It’s a good idea, though.

I’ve heard of some web design businesses setting up labs and letting others use them—such as Clear Left?

There are lots of mobile phone retailers around where I live, and I’ve been known to sidle in and and try their various devices, trying hard to pretend to want an Android phone—or who knows, maybe even a Blackberry! I’m particularly interested in how their browsers display a particular site, because I normally use a mobile device for browsing the web, you see. :wink:

Also check out Sauce Labs. They offer remote testing on over 500 browser / device platforms remotely in the cloud. (I interviewed there recently but other than that have no affiliation.)

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