Crash Reporting – iOS and HockeyApp in practice

Providing a mobile application, in addition to the solutions that will flawlessly meet the user’s expectations, we need to efficiently react any errors that may occur during its operation. How to react? Quickly! How do I know where to find errors? Here, error reporting platforms, such as HockeyApp, prove to be very handy. Efficiently finding of the cause of the problem and quickly delivering the right solution is their main task.

The occurrence of errors in an application, which consequently may lead to freezing, and ultimately to crashing, although it is not the desired behavior is a situation that can occur in even the most elaborated products. The worst thing you can do in such a situation is not to admit a possibility of error, and refrain from any attempts to react to the matter at hand. With this approach, the loss of satisfied users in favour of solutions offered by competition is only a matter of time. The risk of error exists as long as the application remains in use. However, such situations can  be effectively avoided. We can promptly react to occurring errors, repair them, and deliver new versions of the application even before the user has had a chance to become discouraged. Adopting such an approach, we can gain more than we can lose. An application meeting the needs of its users translates into real profits. The longer it is able to meet the expectations of even the most demanding users, the longer it will work in favour of its supplier and build the brand. In the long term, it is the key to success to mobile applications.

CRASH REPORTING

The key to the solution to the present problem is crash reporting. This solution helps respond to any events causing errors of an application the fastest. When the event is interrupted in effect of an unforeseen error, any information about its current status is saved. This approach will allow for sending data to the server at a later time. The collected data will be presented in a manner which supports efficient pinpointing of the problem, and arriving at a solution. A library to create reports about application errors, and a server to store the errors, are the two main components of the crash reporting system. Read more >>

The article, published in “Programista”, was written by Piotr Wesolowski, Business Software Developer at Apollogic.