July 2021 Summaries

As Cathy Harmon, Technical Support Representative at Bitrise, she has a diverse background in technology, having started her career as a developer writing system programs in assembler that ran on the mainframe. She then transitioned into support, combining her technical skills with people skills and a love for fixing things. Cathy's experience has been shaped by her analytical and logical thinking, creativity, and ability to learn quickly. She is fortunate to have worked in environments with minimal gender bias, where her abilities and contributions were judged on their own merit. Despite the rapid growth at Bitrise, she finds time to train new team members and collaborate with others to find solutions to complex issues. Cathy's role involves researching and responding to customer tickets, collaborating with the tech writing team, and learning about new technologies every day. She values flexibility, autonomy, and the opportunity to make a difference in her work. With no future career plans, she enjoys the challenge of finding time to do everything she wants to do while being patient with herself and others. Cathy's biggest fan is her husband, who supports her unconditionally, and her team at Bitrise, who also support her despite occasional disagreements. She believes everyone should be supported and encouraged to pursue their chosen field, regardless of gender or sex. For Cathy, the best part of being in the tech industry is the continuous learning and progress made every day, as well as the sense of accomplishment that comes with it. Her advice to women considering a career in technology would be to go for it, make sure it's what they want to do, get a degree if possible, take advantage of opportunities, and just do it!

The new Android Studio testing tools, Bumblebee, introduce several features and improvements to help developers run their automated instrumentation tests more efficiently. The unified Gradle test runner resolves inconsistencies in test results across different environments, while the Gradle Managed Virtual Devices feature simplifies virtual device configuration and management. Additionally, emulator snapshots for test failures allow developers to capture screenshots of failed tests, making it easier to reproduce and investigate issues. These features enhance the overall testing experience and provide more tools for Android engineers to rapidly and continuously test their apps.

React Native is a framework for building native mobile apps for iOS and Android in one shared JavaScript or TypeScript codebase. To install and build the first app, Expo CLI is recommended for new developers, while React Native CLI is preferred for those with existing mobile development knowledge. A Mobile Devops platform called Bitrise supports various features like managing dependencies, signing codes, deploying to testers, and releasing apps to stores. The article assumes a Jenkins server installed on a macOS machine and guides the reader through migrating their iOS app from Jenkins and fastlane to Bitrise, covering steps such as configuring environment variables, adding integration steps, and setting up workflows for Android and iOS apps. With Bitrise's features like parallel builds and Gen2 build infrastructure, the migration process can significantly reduce build times and make CI/CD easier.

XCUITest is a UI testing framework launched by Apple in 2015 that allows developers to test user interface or Apple platform apps using Swift or Objective-C programming language. It's an advantage of XCUITest is the collaboration between developers, as it uses the same language for writing code, making it easier to understand app functionality and leading to better quality apps. fastlane is an open-source platform aimed at simplifying Android and iOS deployment, automating every aspect of development and release workflow, and integrating with over 400 tools and services. It offers easy setup, runs on your machine, and integrates with all major CI systems. The test_center plugin for fastlane makes testing easier by providing actions that give greater control over everything related to testing an app. With the scan action in fastlane, developers can run iOS UI tests locally without needing to build the app first. Additionally, fastlane supports Ruby versions 2.5 or newer and can be installed using Homebrew or Bundler with a local machine. The multiscan feature allows running multiple batches of tests in parallel up to three times if tests fail, and aborting early if there are too many failing tests. When used with Bitrise CI, fastlane simplifies the deployment process by automating every aspect of development and release workflow, reducing hours of manual work.

The Android App Bundle (AAB) is a publishing format that includes all an app's compiled code and resources, which are then deferred to Google Play for APK generation and signing. This allows only the necessary code and resources to be downloaded to run the app on specific device configurations. Firebase App Distribution makes it easy to distribute your app to testers, allowing you to get feedback early and often. It integrates with Google Play's internal app sharing service to streamline testing and launching processes. fastlane is an open-source platform that simplifies Android and iOS deployment, automating every aspect of the development and release workflow. With fastlane, developers can save hours by automating tasks, integrate with over 400 tools and services, offer easy setup, and support multiple platforms including Flutter. To get started with fastlane, developers need to install Ruby on their machine and initialize it in their app using a command, then add the App Distribution plugin to automate distribution tasks.

This e-book is a comprehensive guide for mobile developers that covers various challenges faced in building mobile applications, including platform fragmentation, app complexity, large engineering teams, languages, and cross-platform approaches. The book provides useful tips and strategies for overcoming these challenges and improving the quality of apps, such as implementing feature flags, crash reporting, and optimizing release strategies. By reading this e-book, mobile developers can gain a deeper understanding of app complexity and learn how to approach app architecture in scaling teams.

fastlane is an open-source platform that simplifies Android and iOS deployment by automating every aspect of the development and release workflow, saving hours and integrating with over 400 tools and services. It supports various platforms including iOS, Mac, Android, and cross-platform apps like Flutter, and offers easy setup, running on local machines, and integration with major CI systems. To get started, developers need to install Ruby on their machine, initialize fastlane into their app, and then add lanes for different tasks such as unit testing, UI testing, code style checking, and deployment. Fastlane plugins like XCOV, trainer, test_center, and more can enhance the development process with features like code coverage reporting, JUnit reports, iOS test control, S3 cache tools, icon generation, and automation of changes to project files. The platform also integrates with Bitrise for automated builds and testing, making it a valuable tool for mobile app developers.

At Bitrise, they enable customers to deliver mobile experiences to billions of devices every day, and Kata Kéri, a Product Manager, is one of the fantastic folks making that possible. Kata shares her diverse background, from being a teen who wanted to be everything to working as a subtitler and artisan candy maker, which she believes contributes to her "randomness". She transitioned into tech later in life, after discovering it was a thing, and found a role as an Office Manager at Bitrise. She then became a Product Manager, where she crafts User Journeys, manages the backlog, and collaborates with various teams. Kata emphasizes that women can excel in multiple roles in tech, and it's essential to let go of perfectionism and be willing to say no to people. She also values the growth opportunities that have helped her become more comfortable presenting in front of an audience, particularly in English.

Fastlane is a tool used for automating the deployment process of mobile applications. It provides a set of built-in commands called actions that don't require installing any plugins or third-party tools. These actions can be used to manage app dependencies, build, test, and deploy iOS and Android apps with various options. Fastlane also offers actions for code signing, beta releases, production releases, screenshots, source code management, notifications, and integration with App Store Connect. By using these actions in a Fastfile, developers can simplify their deployment processes and speed up the build and release cycles of their mobile applications.