The "equals" method of MobileElement/RemoteWebElement is not consistent for native apps.

WebElement e1 = driver.findElement(By. some constant locator);
WebElement e2 = driver.findElement(By. some constant locator);
e1.equals(e2);// is always "false"

for native apps. It happens because used automation tools always returns different ID's each time when client tries to find (the same) element. @bootstraponline told me this. This issue were found a month ago when I was working on features for .Net client. There were more foreground things... But now I can't keep calm anymore :)

There are two ideas:

• the first is to perform comparison only on the client side. There would be large scripts for each supported platform.
• the second is to perform comparison on the server side. We could ask other team to implement a server side command that would return "true" when elements are equal and "false" otherwise. But at this case the client has to be adapted to the new command as well.

@Jonahss
What would you choose or advise?

Start with the equals methods on MobileElement and RemoteWebElement and the WebElement usage shown in the issue. Investigate how native-app element IDs are returned, then clarify whether the intended change is client-side comparison or a new server-side command; done means the chosen behavior is agreed and supported by the Java client.