Appurify announces cisimple acq & 10x rev growth

Great question and very good points. First, per your question about what integration test frameworks are widely used, we've compiled a list here: http://blog.cisimple.com/2012/11/12/a-taxonomy-of-native-mob... It's not comprehensive but should give you a good start. The ones that we've found to be in highest demand are UIAutomation, OCUnit, KIF and Calabash. Also, Appium is getting a nice uptick. You can find a list of frameworks supported by Appurify here: http://appurify.com/faq/

Per your point about developers not writing tests Appurify actually has a tool called Robot that intelligently crawls you app while performing crash and performance analysis. Also, using the Appurify SDK you can easily create your own automation scripts which can then be run on Appurify's device farm.

I've talked to hundreds, if not thousands of developers at this point, and I think that although mobile test automation isn't as common as it should be, it's definitely growing in popularity (Think of the rise in popularity around web automation via frameworks like Selenium over the past 10 years). One of the major reasons is competition is ridiculously fierce and customers are very unforgiving, so quality is increasingly important.

Regarding tools, on both of the major platforms there are a number of popular, open source frameworks for writing tests. Robotium, UI Automator, Calabash, UI Automation, KIF, and on and on. Which one is best depends on the people creating the automation and the type of app under test.

Lastly, regarding the education piece, you're absolutely right. Automation is a software engineering project, yet all too often it's not treated like one. You can look for a magical solution (Test recorders, "crawlers," etc), but in the end it takes time to build sustainable tests, and those magical solutions end up being hindrances in the long run.

Disclaimer: I'm a founder at AppThwack...and even though we have a built-in compatibility suite with an automatic app explorer and stress test, I still push everyone I talk to to invest in engineering good, reliable test automation. We come from the enterprise world of test automation and have seen the massive time and money sinks a poor automation strategy creates.

P.S. Congrats Kevin! Best of luck at Appurify!