Important initial points

Before starting with Appium, let's make sure that we have all the necessary software installed.

The prerequisites for Android are as follows:

• Java (version 7 or later)
• The Android SDK API (version 17 or later)
• An emulator
• Eclipse
• TestNG
• The Appium server
• The Appium client library (Java)
• The Selenium Server and WebDriver Java library
• The APK Info app

The prerequisites for iOS are as follows:

• Mac OS 10.7 or later
• Xcode (version 4.6.3 or later; 5.1 is recommended)
• Simulator
• Safari on simulator
• Java Version 7
• Eclipse
• TestNG
• The Appium Server
• The Appium client library (Java)
• The Selenium Server and WebDriver Java library

When working with Appium, we need to set the desired capabilities and initiate an Android/iOS driver. First, we need to understand them one by one.

Necessary desired capabilities for Android and initiating the Android driver

There are two ways to set the desired capabilities, one with the Appium GUI and another by initiating the desired capabilities object. Desired capabilities...