Monitor Your App: A Complete Panel of Titanium Monitoring Solutions

Users

Geography

Evolution

Pros / cons

• allows cross-platform monitoring
• works "out of the box" / avail. in Appcelerator Cloud Services ❤

• cons / limits:
  • the web interface is laggy/buggy?
  • free version limited to 1,000,000 events/month

Dashboard

Geography

Real time

Pros / cons

• available at https://github.com/MattTuttle/titanium-google-analytics
• easy to implement

  var GA = require('analytics.google');
  var tracker = GA.getTracker(token);
  
  tracker.trackScreen('homepage');
  tracker.trackScreen('news');
  tracker.trackEvent({
      category: 'user_account',
      action: 'upload_profile',
      label: 'success'
  });

• not the "mobile reference"?

Flurry Analytics

• one of the major mobile analytics provider
• OSS module (iOS only) available at https://github.com/appcelerator-modules/ti.flurry. Won't work
• iOS and Android (not x86) at https://github.com/softgravity/titanium_flurry
• Many features:
  • usage statistics
  • technical segmentation
  • crash collection

Howto

// enable Flurry analytics
var flurry = require('sg.flurry');
flurry.secureTransport(true);
flurry.logUncaughtExceptions(true);
flurry.crashReportingEnabled(true);
flurry.startSession('WVCDT3VDPJ6BRCJ6GJYS');

// usage
flurry.logEvent('hello', {world: 'TiConf'});
flurry.logError('unknown error', 'no crash');

// some report about the user
flurry.setUserID(user.id);
flurry.setAge(user.age);
// flurry.setGender(flurry.MALE);
// flurry.setLatitude(latitude, longitude);
flurry.logPageView();

Lookback

• Records the screen, gestures, face & voice of the users

Howto

• A Titanium module is available (iOS only). Thanks Stephen Feather!
• https://github.com/sfeather/TiLookback
• Usage:

  Ti.App.Properties.setString('LookbackAppToken', 'your_app_token');
  var Lookback = require('com.featherdirect.lookback');
  
  Lookback.enableShakeToRecord();
  Lookback.disableShakeToRecord();
  
  // etc.
  

App overview

Network response time

Howto

• enabling NewRelic is easy:

  var newrelic = require('ti.newrelic');
  newrelic.start(newrelicToken);

• caution, it crashes apps on iOS6-

  var startNewRelic = function(newrelicToken) {
      var version = Titanium.Platform.version.split(".");
      var major = parseInt(version[0], 10);
  
      if (!OS_IOS || major >= 7) {
          var newrelic = require('ti.newrelic');
          newrelic.start(newrelicToken);
      }
  };

NewRelic

• A must-have for mobile-monitoring
• Several plans
  • the free one is convenient if you do not need data retention
• building on Android is broken at the moment
  • temporary-solution gistsaver: https://gist.github.com/kennr/9698576

Crittercism

• A leader in the mobile app monitoring field
• Features:
  • performance monitoring
  • crashes collection
  • data segmentation (geo / user / os / etc.)
  • alerts
  • realtime
• Free up to 30K monthly users (limited features)
• Included in Appcelerator Platform ("Performance Management")

Crash

Performance

Alerts

Few modules

• (android only) in.shivakumars.crittercism does not seem maintained

  var crittercism = require("in.shivakumars.crittercism");
  
  crittercism.initializeCrittercism({
      apiKey : "HERE_YOUR_KEY",
      includeVersionName : false,
      includeVersionCode : false,
      userName : "xavier"
  });

• the "alloy crash test" app found on GitHub contains "com.crittercism.ti" modules for iOS and Android. Not tested.

Pricing

	Basic	Professional	Pro Plus
Price	Free	$1200/year	$6000/year
Crash details
Live graphs
Basic perf summary
Crash trends
Alerts
Geolocation
Data retention (perf / errors)	1 / 30 days	7 / 90 days	unlimited

* Limited to 10K active users/month. Larger plans → Price increase

Bugsense

• Another big player in the mobile monitoring
• Features:
  • crash analytics
  • crash search / segmentation
  • users churn and crashed correlation
  • crashes trends
• Few Titanium modules available
  • Bugsense module on Appcelerator Marketplace, by Droisys Inc. Android Only

Howto (android only)

• install the Bugsense module from the Marketplace
• enabling Bugsense is easy:

  var bugsense = require('com.droisys.bugsense');
  bugsense.setup(bugsenseKey);

• ... and it works:

  [INFO]  TiApplication: (main) [0,0] checkpoint, app created.
  [INFO]  TiApplication: (main) [79,79] Titanium 3.2.2 (2014/03/05 12:22 96e9a07)
  [INFO]  TiRootActivity: (main) [0,0] checkpoint, on root activity create, savedInstanceState: null
  [INFO]  BugSenseHandler: Registering default exceptions handler
  [INFO]  homepage
  

Fix and deliver fast

• Collect, identify and track crashes and bugs
• Fix it
• Deliver new versions

How to reduce the bug-report / new delivery process?
How to allow testers to be efficient?

• Testflight, HockeyApp, Installr

• A widespread solution to deliver new versions
• Formerly iOS + Android, now iOS only
  → lost some of its usefulness for cross-platform apps

• Features:
  • crash report with server-side symbolication
  • instant distribution
  • feedback collection
  • (simple) analytics
• Ti module available: https://github.com/Rebelcorp/HockeyApp
• no free plan. Starts at $100 / year

Howto

• install the module: https://github.com/Rebelcorp/HockeyApp
• enable it (iOS + android):

• set up your account:

  var hockeyapp = require('nl.rebelic.hockeyapp');
  hockeyapp.start('');

• Focuses on beta App Distribution
• cross-platform
• sync devices and provisioning with Apple Developer Portal
• Prices depends on devices count (free up to 5 devices)