Testing an app both on Android and iOS

Hi there,

I’ve started working for 2 months now as a QA tester for 2 teams developping a native app, one on Android and the 2nd one on iOS. Upon arrival I was given the choice between a laptop on Windows or on Mac, and I chose Windows as I had not worked on Mac for a very long time - but I’m starting to realize that might have been an error.

One of my objectives is to automate tests on that app through Appium. I’ve started working on that for Android but I’m stuck for the app on iOS because when I can’t inspect nor test the app on iOS from my Windows laptop, and I don’t have a free access to the server on Mac. Therefore I am thinking on switching my laptop on Mac.
I have not found anything on the net about that, but is it possible to inspect and test an Android app with Appium from a Mac? How do you guys work when you have to develop automated tests for an app both on Android and iOS?

I would really appreciate your experience feedback on the matter, thanks in advance!

step number one - switch to macOS. you can NOT automate iOS without Mac.
there is no any problem to inspect Android app or run any tests with macOS.

You can use page object with Appium annotation to have one element for both phone OS:

@iOSXCUITFindBy(id = "inputButton")
@AndroidFindBy(id = "inputButton")
private MobileElement inputButton;

OK, so working from a Mac or having an access to a server on MacOS is a prerequesite when working on both platforms. I suspected so much but wasn’t sure, thanks for the confirmation.
As for the locators I already started writing some pages that should work on both platforms using the PageFactory annotations - but for now I can’t check that :-/.