Testing mobile apps on power users' device

Question

Some applications are resource intensive, example using location, accelerator, web services and running constantly in the background. Such apps tend to behave differently on test devices that are fairly "un-polluted". If we want to test the apps on a device that is most similar to most end-users' devices example:

1. having lots of other apps, that may be using a lot of similar resources
2. with part or most of flash memory is used
3. running other resource heavy apps that maybe also be running in the background (example: health and fitness apps, audio streaming apps etc)

Is there a best way to simulate such a scenario on test devices in the lab?

Answer 1

There is no magic here, you will have to install and run those apps. Consider using dogfood devices by your team, considering the low prices of mobile devices this shouldn't be too expensive even for a big team. Bug bashing is also a good way to exercise devices. The downside is that you loose some control over testing, but you can gain some of it back by giving your team some hints about what do you want to achieve.