Is Selenium testing worthwhile on mobile devices?

While both the iPhone driver and Android driver that exist in the Selenium WebDriver source code repository today use a WebView control to browse the web, both projects have been largely deprecated. This deprecation is explicit in the case of the iPhone driver, and tacit in the case of the Android driver.

Those drivers have been supplanted by other projects like ios-driver, Selendroid, and Appium. These projects are based on the WebDriver project, using the same client API and communicate using the same JSON-over-HTTP-based wire protocol, but are capable of automating native and hybrid applications on mobile platforms. They can usually automate the application either on the device or in an emulator. In the case of each of the three projects I've mentioned, they are actively maintained and development is ongoing.

From my experience, and my personal opinions -

Testing on ALL browsers, be it Android, and webkit based browsers is not always necessary.

A starting point should be to look at what browsers actually hit your application. Take a look at some network graphs, and if Firefox or Chrome is the main traffic to your app, then you should cover those browsers first. All other browsers are just additives. Your primary responsibility should be to cater to those who use your app most.

In the mobile market - automating your mobile applications isn't always completely necessary as unit tests are usually sufficient because they point the same service points.

In my personal opinion - mobile testing is overrated anyway.. Why not just change the user agent of Chrome, or whatever browser you are using, to make your app think it's android or iOS?

Now Android driver is removed and replaced by Selendroid for Android.

1. Java 6+

2. Latest Android-Sdk must be installed and ANDROID_HOME set

3. Download selendroid.jar file

4. Launch Server by

   java -jar selendroid-standalone-0.17.0-with-dependencies.jar -app selendroid-test-app-0.17.0.apk