Check out these Secret codes for Android Mobile Phones:

Check out these Secret codes for Android Mobile Phones:

1. Complete Information About your Phone

*#*#4636#*#*
This code can be used to get some interesting information about your phone and battery.

Usage statistics

2. Factory data reset
*#*#7780#*#*
This code can be used for a factory data reset. It'll remove following things:
Google account settings stored in your phone
System and application data and settings
Downloaded applications
It'll NOT remove:
Current system software and bundled application
SD card files e.g. photos, music files, etc.
Note: Once you give this code, you get a prompt screen asking you to click on "Reset phone" button. So you get a chance to cancel your operation.

3. Format Android Phone

*2767*3855#
Think before you give this code. This code is used for factory format. It'll remove all files and settings including the internal memory storage. It'll also reinstall the phone firmware.
Note: Once you give this code, there is no way to cancel the operation unless you remove the battery from the phone. So think twice before giving this code.

4. Phone Camera Update

*#*#34971539#*#*
This code is used to get information about phone camera. It shows following 4 menus:
Update camera firmware in image (Don't try this option)
Update camera firmware in SD card
Get camera firmware version
Get firmware update count
WARNING: Never use the first option otherwise your phone camera will stop working and you'll need to take your phone to service center to reinstall camera firmware.

5. End Call/Power

*#*#7594#*#*
This one is my favorite one. This code can be used to change the "End Call / Power" button action in your phone. Be default, if you long press the button, it shows a screen asking you to select any option from Silent mode, AirPlane mode and Power off.
You can change this action using this code. You can enable direct power off on this button so you don't need to waste your time in selecting the option.

6. File Copy for Creating Backup

*#*#273283*255*663282*#*#*

This code opens a File copy screen where you can backup your media files e.g. Images, Sound, Video and Voice memo.

7. Service Mode

*#*#197328640#*#*
This code can be used to enter into Service mode. You can run various tests and change settings in the service mode.

8. WLAN, GPS and Bluetooth Test Codes:

*#*#232339#*#* OR *#*#526#*#* OR *#*#528#*#* - WLAN test (Use "Menu" button to start various tests)

*#*#232338#*#* - Shows WiFi MAC address

*#*#1472365#*#* - GPS test

*#*#1575#*#* - Another GPS test

*#*#232331#*#* - Bluetooth test

*#*#232337#*# - Shows Bluetooth device address

9. Codes to get Firmware version information:

*#*#4986*2650468#*#* - PDA, Phone, H/W, RFCallDate

*#*#1234#*#* - PDA and Phone

*#*#1111#*#* - FTA SW Version

*#*#2222#*#* - FTA HW Version

*#*#44336#*#* - PDA, Phone, CSC, Build Time, Changelist number

10. Codes to launch various Factory Tests:

*#*#0283#*#* - Packet Loopback

*#*#0*#*#* - LCD test

*#*#0673#*#* OR *#*#0289#*#* - Melody test

*#*#0842#*#* - Device test (Vibration test and BackLight test)

*#*#2663#*#* - Touch screen version

*#*#2664#*#* - Touch screen test

*#*#0588#*#* - Proximity sensor test

*#*#3264#*#* - RAM version


Original Article: http://www.linkedin.com/groupItem?type=member&_mSplash=1&qid=0fe49ac8-6087-49b7-a6f0-73f51a28afd2&trk=group_featured_list-0-b-ttl&goback=%2Egmr_4494529%2Egfl_4494529&item=125931482&gid=4494529&view

How Developers Really Feel About Working With iOS And Android

Vision Mobile, a market analyst firm, recently surveyed more than 1,500 mobile developers worldwide to put together a report on the state of the app economy in 2012. Here are some interesting findings that will give you a better idea of where the market is right now, and where it may be headed in the future. From Business Week:













If you want to check out more graphs hit the link:
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-state-of-the-app-economy-in-2012-2012-6#

Mobile Content: Usage & Expectations

It has been noted a lot of time and I’m sure it will be brought up again and again. It is so so important for mobile Developers and Marketers to get to grips with the fact that Mobile users are not Patient or forgiving . Mobile users expect your site to work just as well on their phones as if they were sitting in front of a computer. So make sure you get it right. You have been warned :)

 

Is HTML5 the Answer in Mobile App Development ?

2 posts in 1 day I know but I feel there is still some information developers and companies are looking for to why they should be using HTML5, I hope this helps...

In the mobile app development industry, there continues to be a lot of debate about whether to use HTML5, adopt a hybrid standard, or go native. With the support of heavyweights like Amazon and Facebook, it seems that HTML5 is due for mass adoption. However, there are still some issues that need to be resolved.

The concept behind HTML5 offers a strong selling point: “write once, run anywhere.” This idea has been the goal of many developers since the launch of Java. There have been many standards introduced since then, but none has fit the “write once, run anywhere” ideal. As an open standard that offers numerous benefits, HTML5 seems to best fit industry requirements.

Why HTML5 Works

In any organization as well as in the general marketplace, there are various mobile devices that have to be supported. Apple runs its own unique operating system — iOS, and even the Android, which is already an open standard, suffers from fragmentation. The hardware and software for each device also have unique configurations—which means that dedicated native applications must be created from scratch to work seamlessly on devices. All these customized versions of a single mobile app involve time, money, and inconvenience. HTML5 offers a viable alternative.

HTML5 can run on iPhone, Android, or BlackBerry devices. It also has CSS3 features that allow automatic page layout adjustments across a vast number of form factors. Because it is delivered as a mobile web app, an HTML5 app can bypass the application approval process to be put in various application stores. It can provide functionality to the application server immediately with increased efficiencies, especially in an enterprise setting. Existing code can be leveraged to develop additional features, and the acceptance barrier is lowered when it comes to adoption at every level in the organization.

Side Effects of HTML5

It is important to remember that enterprise users are also mainstream consumers. Thus, they have high expectations of how mobile apps should look and perform. HTML5, while providing significant enterprise benefits, cannot compete with native applications. Native apps are tailor-made solutions for specific devices, so they offer a better user experience. Another possible downside to using HTML5 is its poor functionality when it comes to letting users access and store data on their mobile devices. However, some developers are opting for a hybrid approach, using HTML5 to build the application within a native shell.  This eliminates some of the downsides of a pure HTML5 alternative (app-store, storage, etc.).  The Facebook application, for example, is built almost entirely in HTML5, but runs natively on the device.

There are pros and cons to using HTML5 in your organization. It doesn’t offer a one-size-fits-all solution. Its availability alone, though, offers glimpses of what developers can do in the future as they leverage HTML5 to varying degrees and create pure, native, and hybrid mobile apps.

The 10 Top Best Practices of Mobile Testing

There are many things to consider when testing on a mobile platform, and it can be somewhat overwhelming, especially if you are new to mobile platform testing.  Mobile application testing is the same as testing Web applications, just on a smaller form factor, right?  Wrong.  While it is true that some basics of testing best practices apply, there are many nuances to consider that are specific to the mobile platform.  The following list is not all-inclusive; instead, it is meant to provide some fundamental guidelines to follow when testing on a mobile platform.

 

1.Ensure the test objectives align with the corporate/business requirements.  Ask the following questions:

•For functionality, how important is it that the content be correct?

•How should content be displayed on different form factors if the device is smaller or larger than the baseline design?  What is the expected result if content is cut off or if there is too much whitespace?

•How should the content display in portrait mode vs. landscape?

•How should the application behave depending on the connection type?  For example, Wi-Fi vs. cellular

•What are the requirements for the user experience?  Is performance important?  For example, the amount of time it takes to log in.

 

2.Don’t test everything.  When you take into consideration device type, operating system, carrier, and so on, there are thousands of permutations. Keep in mind that you don’t want to test all of them as initial testing plus subsequent regression tests across every combination is both time and cost intensive. Instead, use analytics to determine the top 10-20 combinations, and then set up your test environment to align with what the end-users use most often.

 

3.Build, configure, and maintain a proper mobile test lab.  If you are restricting your testing to manual only, you might consider a cloud provider to limit expenses.  However, if you are pursuing automation or have security concerns about exposing your QA environment to a cloud, an on-premise lab might be a better option.  As long as you limit your focus to the top device combinations that your customers actually use, managing and maintaining an on-premise lab is relatively easy.

 

4.Remember to plan for integration testing.  If your desktop Web site connects to the same backend as your mobile site, you will need to create test cases that perform functions on both.  For example, consider  the following test case:

•Log in using Internet Explorer, add an item to your cart on a shopping site.

•Access that same site on an iPhone and confirm the items shown in your cart matches. those placed there using your Internet Explorer browser.

•Place an order for the item using the iPhone browser.

•Log in using Internet Explorer and confirm the order was placed correctly.

 

5.Don’t be tempted to use emulators or simulators.  While they may seem like a good way to cut lab expenses, it has been proven that defects are missed and consistently leak into production when testing using emulators or simulators.  All system testing must be done on real devices to ensure proper test integrity.  After all, your customers are not going to use an emulator when they use your app, are they?

 

6.Plan for rapid change.  The release cycles for mobile applications take an average of one to four weeks, so plan to optimize your resources to deal with shortened timelines.

 

7.Use remote control tools.  There are tools available that enable you to view and control real mobile devices, similar to the way Remote Desktop works for PCs, making life a bit easier for testers.  Some of these tools are free while others carry a small fee, depending on the target platform.  Remote control tools are especially useful for today’s touchscreen smartphones, allowing use of a mouse in place of a tester’s finger to perform gestures (taps, swipes, etc.) and a desktop keyboard in place of the device’s virtual keyboard.  This is very practical and efficient for manual testing, by eliminating mis-taps, for example, as well as allowing the tester to take screenshots or record video to share defects with developers.  This is a requirement for automation on real devices because all automation tools reside there.

 

8.Choose the level of test integrity you are comfortable with and stand behind it.  There are three primary methods to enable remote control of mobile devices: use of third party tools, use of hooks compiled into your application, or a combination of both.  There are pros and cons to each method and it can be difficult to determine which option is the best.  Selection of a method is a highly controversial subject, with testing leaders debating the level of integrity that is lost with either method.  You must choose the method or methods that best meet your organization’s needs, and then minimize any potential risks.  For more in-depth information about this topic, please read “Remote Control for Mobile Devices“.

 

9.Use test automation.  Evaluate available mobile test automation tools using criteria tailored to your organization’s needs.  Don’t get caught up in feature lists or record/playback demos!  A vendor with the most checkmarks on a feature list may not be the best fit for your organization’s business requirements.  For example, consider what it takes to update and maintain an automation script after it is written as part of the total cost of ownership. For more detail on test automation, download, “Mobile Application Test Automation“.

 

10.Adapt your approach to your methodology.  Adapt your testing approach to your development methodology. Are you Waterfall or Agile? Many of the decisions you make about using remote control tools, test lab setup, and even manual vs. automation testing, should be made with your company’s preferred development methodology in mind. Why? Because how your mobile app is developed impacts the feasibility of the testing approach that works best for your company.

 

Give your Website visitors the site they deserve...

As quickly as mobile Web traffic grows, so mobile devices become increasingly fragmented. With a vast array of screen sizes, operating systems and capabilities, it is essential for your Website to detect and react to the specific device each of your mobile visitors is using.

There are about 6,500 different models of mobile device (feature phones, smartphones, tablets etc) that are capable of accessing your Website. If you identify the handset used by each mobile visitor to your Website, you can optimize their experience accordingly. This not only makes your customer’s visit as pleasant as possible, it also allows you to make assumptions about the visitor based on what handset they use and target services, promotions and advertising according to the handset type and its abilities.

These are some important answers to questions you should be asking.


1) Why should we care if a visitor to our Website is on a mobile device?

Website owners can no longer operate under the naive assumption that most traffic to their site comes from PCs. This was the case a few years ago, but the Web has moved on – these days more and more people use their mobile devices as their primary way to interact with the Web. Yes, site owners can opt to simply do nothing, and hope that their existing site works sufficiently well for this purpose, but this strategy has a number of shortcomings:
• Most mobile phones will struggle or fail to render (display) a desktop-oriented Website. The vast majority of people around the world today do not have a smartphone (only 1 in 5 mobile phones sold last year was a smartphone, according to IDC). If non-smartphone-owning customers are important to your business – as they should be – you also need a Website that works on these lower-end handsets.
• Even on smartphones, most sites will give a much better user experience if the content is adapted to the device. This doesn't just mean making things smaller, to fit the small screen or speed up the time it takes for the page to load, the content supplied should also be more relevant. While PC users are usually sitting in an office or at home, mobile users are often out-and-about – their context means they have different requirements.
• No matter how great a mobile device is, Web surfing can only ever be as good as the performance of the mobile network, right here, right now. The connection is rarely going to be as good as a PC on a fixed broadband connection. Reducing the page and picture sizes can really improve user experience even for smartphone users. And if the customer is has a limited or pay-as-you-go data package a streamlined site will save them money.
• Check out this link to view the top 20 Websites on your mobile device – 18 out of 20 detect mobile devices and deliver a site that is appropriate. Why do they do this? It’s because they want to deliver a better experience for customers. (http://www.alexa.com/topsites)

2) We’ve got a mobile site – isn’t that good enough for all mobile devices?


It's a good start, but probably not sufficient for companies that really want to serve customers well. Mobile devices differ vastly in capabilities, far more so than desktops. It's not just screen dimensions that change either – some really fundamental differences separate modern devices: cameras, GPS, accelerometers, landscape/portrait orientation, and touch-screen – all of these capabilities may or may not be present. You can serve a one-size-fits-all site, or you can embrace the capabilities of the device in question to make the user experience better – it depends on how far you want to go to ensure a good customer experience.


3) What can we do when we know the functions and characteristics of a handset?

The most important thing to do with knowledge of the functions of a handset is to use this knowledge to improve the user experience. Some specific examples:
• If the device supports tel: or wtai: hyperlinks, you should ensure that all phone numbers are hyperlinked so that the user can click-to-call phone numbers on a page.
• If the device has GPS, you should ensure that the user's location is picked up from GPS rather than forcing them to enter location data in a form.
• If the device has a touch-screen, you should adapt your CSS to ensure that items are big enough to be easily tapped with a finger tip.



4) Should we just concentrate on an iPhone or Android app and forget about everyone else?

No. A mobile app is not a mobile strategy, regardless of how many different types of handset you target. Sure, if you know for certain that all your customers use either Android or iPhones, fine – go ahead and make an app for them and they'll be happy. But bear in mind that the vast majority of phones are not iPhones or Android phones (of 1,596 million mobile devices sold in 2010 only 114 million (7 percent) were iOS or Android, according to Gartner… and the installed base will be less).
A true mobile strategy embraces all of the mobile devices out there, not just the ones of the well-heeled audiences. Remember too, that each mobile ecosystem has its own submission procedures, rules and idiosyncrasies. Each time you update your app, you will run up against these issues. Right now the mobile Web is the only way to reach the whole audience in one fell swoop. The customer benefits, too: no need to repeat the download each time the app is updated, lower bandwidth requirements and transparent updates.



5) What difference does HTML5 make?

HTML5 is the new version of the Website programming language HTML. It allows the mobile Web to come much closer to native apps in their functionality. HTML5 allows Web pages to store data, work offline, look fantastic and use rich interactions. A well-written HTML5 mobile Web app is almost indistinguishable from a native app and almost every smartphone platform already supports it.