Mobile Devices
Drive real iPhones and Android phones and tablets live — streaming, gestures, device controls, orientation, and location. Virtual devices are a separate opt-in switch.
A Live mobile session streams a real phone or tablet into your tab and lets you drive it like you're holding it. Real iPhones and real Android phones and tablets — over USB, on real hardware. If you flip the picker's Virtual device switch you get an Android emulator or a virtual iPhone instead; everything below applies to both unless Virtual devices says otherwise.
Streaming
When you start a session the device's screen streams to your tab over live video. The stream starts muted; unmute it from the toolbar to hear in-app sounds, media playback, and calls.
You interact directly on the streamed screen — every tap, swipe, and keystroke happens on the real device in real time.
Gestures and input
| Gesture | How |
|---|---|
| Tap | Click anywhere on the streamed screen |
| Swipe / scroll | Click and drag |
| Long press | Press and hold |
| Type | Use your keyboard — text goes into the focused field |
Device controls
The toolbar gives you the physical buttons and system gestures you'd use on a real handset:
- Back — the system back action. Offered on iOS too, where it's an emulated edge-swipe.
- Home — go to the home screen.
- Rotate — switch between portrait and landscape orientation.
- Volume — up and down.
Those five are the whole set. There is no app-switcher / recents button.
Because these are real, shared devices, every device is cleaned completely before it is handed to the next user. You start from a clean state, and nothing the previous tester did carries over.
The fleet
The fleet is shared across customer organizations — devices are pooled, not assigned to your account. A device you used last session may be in someone else's session now, which is why cleaning between users is automatic and why a specific model can be busy when you want it.
iOS devices are all supervised and enrolled in mobile device management. That's what lets TestKase install your uploaded build without an Apple ID and erase the device between sessions — but it also means only enrolled iPhones appear in the picker.
Orientation
Rotate the device between portrait and landscape from the toolbar to check responsive layouts and orientation-specific behaviour, exactly as it renders on the physical screen.
Every session opens in portrait, including on a tablet that was sitting in landscape.
On iPhone, the keyboard disappears when you tap a password field. iOS hides secure text entry from screen recording, and that includes the keyboard — so the video goes on showing the form while the keyboard is genuinely open on the device.
Your typing still works. Tap the field, type as normal, and the characters land; you just won't see the keys. The field's own contents are hidden from the video for the same reason, so it can look empty while it isn't.
This is iOS behaviour on any app with a normal password field, not something TestKase can switch off. Android is unaffected.
On Android, landscape only holds inside an app. The home screen and system UI are portrait-only and render squashed if forced, so if you rotate to landscape and then go Home, the session snaps back to portrait within a couple of seconds. Your choice isn't lost — it's restored as soon as an app is in the foreground again.
Location and network
Set the device's GPS coordinates to test location-aware features — region-locked content, maps, delivery flows, and geofencing — without physically moving. Location override works on both iOS and Android.
Network throttling on a phone is limited to going online or offline. On Android the control can switch the handset between Wi-Fi and fully offline; the 4G, 3G, and 2G profiles are desktop-browser only and do nothing on a phone. On iPhones the control isn't offered at all. If you need to test a slow connection rather than a dropped one, use a desktop browser session.
See Network, location & VPN for the full platform breakdown.
Files and media
Push content onto the device with the Files & media tool:
- Android — push files, photos, and videos, so you can test uploads, photo pickers, and media playback with real content.
- iOS — push images and videos into the Photos gallery. There is no general document push on iPhones, so an app that reads from Files rather than Photos can't be fed this way.
One file at a time, up to 50 MB. Anything larger is refused as you pick it.
See Session Tools.
Language and timezone
The toolbar also sets the phone's language and timezone. On Android the language is the language of the one app under test — or the browser, in a mobile-web session — and only languages the handset actually has installed are offered; the timezone is the phone's real device-wide clock. On an iPhone both are supported too, and a timezone change can take up to 30 seconds to confirm because it goes through device management. Applying a language relaunches the app or browser, so anything on screen is lost.
Installing your app
Upload your own .ipa or .apk (up to 500 MB), or install a published app from the device's own store — the App Store on iOS or the Play Store on Android, signing in with your own account. Uploading a build needs no account on either platform. iOS uploads must be a development or ad-hoc build; encrypted App Store builds are rejected. See Installing Apps.
Whatever you install is removed when the session ends, along with everything it stored. The build stays in My apps and is installed fresh next time — no state carries between sessions.
Questions
▶I can't hear anything from the iPhone
iPhone audio can silently drop out. Android phones stream audio, and so do iPhones — but on an iPhone the audio capture has to be armed on the device when the session starts, and if that step is missed the session falls back to video-only with no error. If you hear nothing on an iPhone, end the session and start a new one.
▶Can I sign in to the App Store?
Signing into the App Store erases the iPhone — and your data goes with it. Apple gives us no way to sign an Apple ID back out, so a session that ends with an account still signed in makes TestKase automatically erase and rebuild that phone. The account, downloaded apps, app data, photos, and messages are all destroyed, and the device leaves the pool for roughly 20–25 minutes. Use a throwaway Apple ID, never your personal or work one. Uploading your own .ipa needs no Apple ID and avoids all of this.
▶Which devices can I get?
The available phones and tablets change as the fleet grows. If a specific model is greyed out it's already in another live session or offline — the picker auto-selects a free model, or you can wait for the one you want to free up.
▶Why don't the docs list every device?
These docs deliberately list device categories — iPhones, Android phones, Android tablets — rather than named models. The fleet changes as devices are added and retired; the picker is the source of truth for what's available right now. There are no iPads in the fleet today.
Mobile browsers
Run Safari or Chrome on a real iPhone, Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Opera on a real Android phone, or Safari on a virtual iPhone, in a Live session.
Installing Apps
Get your app onto a device — upload an .ipa or .apk (or a zipped simulator .app for a virtual iPhone), reuse it from My apps, or install a published app from the App Store or the Play Store.