There are multiple mobile platforms, such as iOS, Android, Tizen, Windows Phone and Firefox OS. Each has app stores with numerous apps, written in different languages and for different architectures. Many concerns are shared across all apps: e.g. battery consumption (does the app drain the phone?), privacy (does it improperly share information), security (is the app malicious?), stability (does it handle exceptional inputs correctly?), etc.

Program analysis can address these concerns, but currently requires different analysis implementations for different platforms; this is time consuming and complicates cross-platform studies.

The Watson Libraries for Analysis (WALA) framework supports the languages, and semantic models, underlying all of the above the platforms, enabling one to write the analysis algorithm once and apply it to all these platforms.

In this tutorial, we walk the attendees through this process. We start with a technical overview of the WALA framework and its support for analysis of mobile code. Then, we briefly present the different platforms, including writing a common concrete app. Finally, we interactively create an analysis algorithm, using the foundations from the first part, and apply it to an app written in the second part across all platforms.