Case study
We built the mobile application for iAwake Technologies. The app enables access to the audio content of the iAwake platform. This a full-featured audio streaming app. We built the backend that allows users to access their purchased content.
iAwake Technologies has a large portfolio of audio content. They needed a native mobile app that would allow users to access their content on the go.
With the tight budget we built an app for iOS and Android with React Native. Instead of an expensive CMS or a complex backend, we built a simple system on Amazon S3 where everything is managed by the spreadsheets on Google Drive.
The application provides the access to the media library, that includes the full portfolio of iAwake content. The content is purchased via the iAwake platform.
Application backend (built with Node.js) integrates with FastSpring platform, that was previously used for the iAwake website, to manage the content purchases.
The audio files are streamed from Amazon CloudFront. The data can be downloaded to users’ devices for offline access. DRM is used to protect the content from unauthorized use.
The player works in the background, integrates with the system audio system and allows users to control the playback from the lock screen, Apple CarPlay and Android Auto etc.
Application allows users to create their own playlists or follow the recommendations from the iAwake team.
The application aggressively caches data whenever possible. The data storage usage can be managed by the user.
The application allows users to access the information from existing iAwake Wordpress-based website.
Sometimes you might need to get the duration of an audio file, located somewhere on the network. There are a lot of libraries for any programming language as well as command-line tools that can do that for a locally available MP3 file. However, downloading the full MP3 file might not be desirable. The problem with MP3 files is that the nature of the file format doesn't really allow for quick and easy extraction of the duration data.
If you have recently considered developing a mobile application, you have likely heard of React Native. Developers either love it or hate it. But here is a short guide for those are looking to make a business decision whether to use React Native or not bother. Actually, I am going to save your time and jump right to my conclusion: the only good reason to use React Native is to save money in a short term.
When it comes to developing a mobile application the first question one should be asking is “Which platform to support?”. These days the answer is obvious. iOS and Android heavily dominate the market with a combined share of more than 95% and growing. Between iOS and Android market share is not equal: Android has twice as much active users as iOS and the gap is growing, as the 2016 smartphone sales indicate that for each Apple iOS device sold there are four new Androids. However, even though Android has advantage in users, it is still behind in dollars spent by users for a multiplicity of reasons.
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