What Is Mobile Application and How Can It Be Classified?

November 28 10:00 2012 by Nataliia Vasylyna Print This Article

A software testing company performs various types of software testing. Perhaps the most widespread and conducted of them is mobile application testing.

Let us focus on this type of software testing. And first of all, let us define what the term “mobile application” is. Sometimes you will encounter the definition “mobile wireless application”.

Let us split the phrase into separate words for better understanding:

By “mobile” we mean those devices that are lightweight and portable enough to be easily carried around to wherever their user goes.
By “wireless” we mean the ability of devices to interact with no necessity in using wires or cables.
By “application” we mean the software that a user uses on the mentioned device. The applications may be either specially developed to function in mobile devices or take advantage of already existing software.

Mobile applications interact with the server “over the air”. The connection is mostly created via mobile networks or WiFi.

How Can Mobile Application Be Classified?

Client applications, that can further be split into native and portable applications. Client applications are usually installed on a mobile device to function there. “Native” applications are those that are developed to work on a specific phone model. It usually is designed to match the overall device’s design scheme. “Portable” applications are those that are able to work on various mobile devices. Their interface is not integrated with any phone model.
Message applications. These are SMS message exchange applications.
Browser applications that are divided into markup and AJAX applications. Browser applications are server-based. If a user wants to use them, they can be accessed through a web browser on a mobile device. One should take into consideration that mobile browsers are not so functional as usual desktop browsers, they may not support certain types of extensions. “Markup” applications are developed in such a way so that they could run without the server. “AJAX” applications use JavaScript that runs within the web browser. JavaScript modifies the content of the page within the browser itself and interacts with the server.