Mob4Hire: Mobile Testing made easier crowsourcing style

Just saw this post for a crowdsourced mobile application testing community.

Its an interesting idea. We had an idea for something similar when we started j-mango because the costs involved in maintaining an inventory of phones to do testing with keeps on rising (we have lots of phones to give away if you want one!).

Since then we have found Device Anywhere which is an amazing paid service that mimics phone’s and network conditions – you still have to schedule time on the phone though. There is also the free Nokia Remote Device Access however it is limited in terms of the devices you can test – there seems to emphasis on S60 based devices which are but a limited part of the of the Nokia not to mention the overall mobile landscape.

While DA and NRDA make devices and network availability a mute point, as I mentioned in a previous post, the sheer variety of phones and configurations means that you are simply limited by how time you have to do the testing. I think Mob4Hire addresses that need by spreading that testing load.

I’ll be giving Mob4Hire a try and posting some updates.