Magelando for Android

Project

Our client, Helikon, a leading Bulgarian book trading company, came to us with a clear task: to build a mobile news reader client which would be an intuitive, fast, all-in-one solution. Application performance was set as top priority, so that the user would be served a smooth experience regardless of the connection speed or device hardware parameters. Another requirement was that the user should be able to freely modify desired news sources. 

Although this may sound like what your regular set of requirements, what makes this project stand out is just how much the final product excels in actually achieving the results sought.

Challenges

The cooperation was smooth and productive straight out of the gates. Melon was instrumental in developing elegant user interface based on sliding panels. Part of the same challenge was the implementation. The requirement to include support for older Android versions did not help alleviate any pressure. The team spent significant effort in implementing parallel processes which would take care of acquiring information from the server and visualizing it smoothly.

Thanks to a well-received initial launch, the second phase was quickly underway. 

Magelando for iOS

The second phase included expanding the application not only to Android tablets, but to all iOS devices as well. The tablet version had to represent far more than a simple, default port of a mobile app. The interface was completely adapted. The main challenge was that the tablet application would use the same back-end solution as the phone application. Another interesting fact is that for Android, we took advantage of Google Play’s option to serve a different installation package to the client device depending on whether it is a phone or a tablet. The process of building both these packages has been automated, so updates are available for all devices in parallel.

Results

• Over 10,000 downloads;
• 4.5 rating based on 400+ votes (as of Aug 2014).