Automating Mobile Web Testing Using Selenium Java and Appium

In today’s mobile-first world, ensuring that websites work flawlessly across smartphones and tablets is no longer optional—it's essential. Testing mobile web applications manually can be time-consuming and error-prone. This is where automation tools like Selenium and Appium come into play. By combining Selenium with Java and Appium, testers can automate mobile web testing efficiently across Android and iOS browsers.

This blog explores how to use Selenium with Java and Appium to automate mobile web testing, and highlights the steps, tools, and best practices to get started.


📱 Why Automate Mobile Web Testing?

Mobile devices come in many screen sizes, operating systems, and browsers. Manually testing on each combination is nearly impossible. Automation offers:

Faster test cycles

Repeatability

Better test coverage

Early bug detection

Cost efficiency over time

Using Selenium with Java provides powerful browser automation capabilities, while Appium bridges the gap by allowing Selenium to control mobile devices.


🤝 What Is Appium?

Appium is an open-source tool for automating mobile apps and web browsers on real devices, emulators, and simulators. Unlike tools that require app source code, Appium supports mobile web testing using standard browser apps like Chrome on Android and Safari on iOS.

Appium acts as a server that receives commands from your test scripts and translates them into actions on a mobile device.


🛠 Tools and Setup

To start mobile web automation, you’ll need:

Java Development Kit (JDK)

Selenium WebDriver

Appium Server (Desktop or CLI)

Android Studio or Xcode (for emulators/simulators)

Real device or emulator

Maven or Gradle (Java dependency manager)

Install Appium from https://appium.io and set up the required environment variables (ANDROID_HOME or XCODE).


📂 Maven Dependencies (pom.xml)

xml

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<dependencies>

  <dependency>

    <groupId>io.appium</groupId>

    <artifactId>java-client</artifactId>

    <version>8.3.0</version>

  </dependency>

  <dependency>

    <groupId>org.seleniumhq.selenium</groupId>

    <artifactId>selenium-java</artifactId>

    <version>4.11.0</version>

  </dependency>

</dependencies>


🧪 Writing a Test: Example for Android Chrome

java

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Edit

import io.appium.java_client.android.AndroidDriver;

import io.appium.java_client.remote.MobileCapabilityType;

import org.openqa.selenium.remote.DesiredCapabilities;

import java.net.URL;


public class MobileWebTest {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {

        DesiredCapabilities caps = new DesiredCapabilities();

        caps.setCapability(MobileCapabilityType.DEVICE_NAME, "Android Emulator");

        caps.setCapability(MobileCapabilityType.PLATFORM_NAME, "Android");

        caps.setCapability(MobileCapabilityType.BROWSER_NAME, "Chrome");


        AndroidDriver driver = new AndroidDriver(new URL("http://localhost:4723/wd/hub"), caps);


        driver.get("https://example.com");

        System.out.println("Title: " + driver.getTitle());


        driver.quit();

    }

}

This script launches Chrome on an Android device, opens a URL, and prints the page title—demonstrating basic navigation.


✅ Best Practices

Use explicit waits to handle loading delays.

Test on real devices for more accurate results.

Automate across multiple OS and browser versions.

Integrate with CI/CD tools like Jenkins for continuous testing.

Use page object model (POM) for scalable test architecture.


🧩 Final Thoughts

By combining Selenium Java with Appium, QA teams can automate mobile web testing across different devices and platforms with ease. This combination is highly scalable and fits well into modern agile and DevOps pipelines. Whether you’re testing responsive design, UI interactions, or performance on mobile browsers, this setup ensures consistent and high-quality user experiences across devices

Learn Selenium with Java Training

Read More: Using Sikuli with Selenium Java for Image-Based Automation
Read More: Capturing Network Traffic Using BrowserMob Proxy with Selenium Java
Read More: Using Robot Class in Selenium Java for Keyboard and Mouse Action


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