[meta] Make GitLab better for mobile
iOS specific
- Crashlytics integration
- Fastlane integration
Android specific
Cross-platform
- Hockeyapp integration
Original issue:
- The runtime hardware is not a developer's choice
There is a multitude of hardware/software/OS combination that need to be tested against - Some of these problems are also real in the front-end community (pixel density/HDPI) so we know them
- Interactions may be based on gestures that are hard to reproduce
- Connectivity (wireless/WiFi/offline) is a reality
- Extra hardware (accelerometer, GPS, 3D face sensors for accurate emoji impersonation)
- Power usage is a metric
I also feel that startups will often choose one of the platform to build a MVP, then try to port the application over. While this work for a couple of builds, if your pipeline is not cross-platform aware, it become very tedious to manage both codebase/tests/deployments.
There are actual business that tries to allevite this problem, we could use some of their libraries to integrate better for mobile-app centric development firms.
Here is a quick list of what I know about this, but my knowledge is far from extensive on this subject.
https://fastlane.tools/
Fastlane -This is basically the whole stack, from certificate management to taking screenshots in multiple screen sizes, to publishing on the stores. I feel this is a go-to when it comes to mobile app automation.
https://hockeyapp.net/
HockeyApp -Another platform, acquired by Microsoft, that basically tries to streamline the publication and also the runtime metrics and crash reports.
https://crashlytics.com
Crashlytics -iOS tool to manage the crash reports retrieval, another example of mobile centric platform.