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7 Tips To File An Effective Bug Report In iOS

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Chatty Garrate
7 Tips To File An Effective Bug Report In iOS

Did you recently discover a new bug on your iPhone or other iOS devices? Bugs are a natural part of mobile and web app development. While testers do the best they can to ensure that everything is “OK” under the hood, there are a few bigs that manage to escape their radar. 


Apple provides its clients with a way to report iOS bugs via an app and website they call “Feedback Assistant.” 


Clients are encouraged to use Feedback Assistant to inform Apple about bugs and other flaws they notice on any iOS device. Below are seven (7) tips to file effective bug reports in iOS.



Tip 1: Use a good title.


Try to make your title as descriptive and concise as possible. Developers and product managers go through dozens of bug reports every day. So, your report is just another one in a long list of reports. If you want to get your report noticed, writing a descriptive title can help. Titles that are too short are more likely to get passed over. 


Tip 2: Write a clear description.


A clear and concise description helps the iOs app development team understand what happens when a certain bug is triggered. Don’t forget to specify what build number you’re iOS device carries, in addition to its operating system version. This way, it will be much easier for the developers to find a solution for the bug that you’ve discovered. 


Tip 3: Include step-by-step instructions for reproduction.


When you’re writing this section, it’s helpful to think that the people you’re writing to are beginner iOs developers or young professionals. The steps have to be in the same order as you did them. Furthermore, you should include a short description of what happens during each step. This will allow developers to replicate the conditions in which the bug appeared, so they can better understand what’s causing it. 


Tip 4: Add screen recordings or screenshots of the issue.


Adding a couple of visual elements to your report makes the problem-solving process much easier for the developer. Try to include screenshots or screen recordings of how to reproduce the bug. Visuals make the issue much more obvious to the developers and product managers. Furthermore, it also makes the issue much more difficult to ignore. 


Tip 5: Clarify the conditions and environment.


You want to be clear about the conditions and environment where the bug appeared. Do you have your accessibility settings turned on? Were you signed in to iCloud? Were you using your home WiFi or were you outside when the bug appeared? 


The more details you can include about the conditions and environment where the bug appeared can hasten the developer’s job of finding a solution. 


Tip 6: Include the sysdiagnose from the Feedback Assistant app.


A sysdiagnose is essentially a document that contains important information about what’s going on in your iOS device. This document is extremely helpful for iOS developers and can make their jobs much easier to complete. If you’re using the Feedback Assistant app, then a sysdiagnose should automatically be made available once you start a bug report. 


On the other hand, if you’re using the Feedback Assistant website you may need to manually generate a sysdiagnose. You can find the instructions to create a sysdiagnose on Apple’s Developer website/blog.


Tip 7: Keep your lines open and respond quickly.


Apple developers often reach out to clients to ask for more details about bug reports and other issues. If such a thing happens to you, you must respond quickly to Apple’s inquiries. The longer you let the message sit in your notifications or inbox, the more likely the developers to forget about your issue and move on to the next problem. 



Understanding Bug Prioritization


Developers often assign a priority rating to bug reports to help organize reports from the most important projects to the ones that can stand a little waiting. Apple assigns bug reports a priority rating from P1 to P5. 


P1: Application crashes and data is lost due to bug

P2: Certain features on an app or the iOS library are not working

P3: Certain features are not working the way they should

P4: Typically refers to an interface issue

P5: These are feedback or enhancement requests from clients


If your bug report falls under any of the low-ranking categories, don't be dismayed. Chances are Apple’s handling plenty of other major bug reports and can’t address your issues as of now.


Final thoughts


Apple makes it easy for their clients to inform them of iOS bugs and issues via their Feedback Assistant app and website. If you run into any issues on your iOS device, don’t hesitate to let Apple know. Keep in mind the tips that we’ve mentioned above to ensure that your concerns can be immediately addressed. Furthermore, to make sure that your iOS bug report is effective and helpful to Apple developers. 

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