In Dev Chat – Short Answers to Big Questions, our video series where developers answer your questions in less than 90 seconds.
dailyme TV offers a broad selection of TV series, movies, shows, comedy, and video clips. One of its unique features is offline synchronization: the app automatically downloads the latest episodes of selected shows to the device once it is connected to a WiFi network, enabling the user to watch on the go without requiring an Internet connection. dailyme TV is available for Amazon Fire tablets and for Amazon Fire TV.
In this edition of Dev Chat, Jonathan Daehne (CEO) and Martin Baldowski (Digital Product Designer) tell us more about their roles and their reasons for bringing their app to Amazon Appstore. According to Martin, the major reason is that Amazon provides the “best of both worlds with their devices and their platform. On the one hand you have an open development platform. On the other hand, you have a manageable and well-engineered product line. By knowing exactly which devices you are going to work with, you can optimize apps and design them pixel-precisely. You just know what kind of user experience the customer will have."
Martin also touches on the topics of consumer trust and how Amazon's brand recognition affected their decision: "As Amazon's brand recognition grows year over year, it's a simple matter of increasing our reach [...] You have to acknowledge that Amazon provides a sense of security, particularly on a consumer level. So, when we offer our app in the Amazon Appstore, it's a sign of quality."
Originally, dailyme TV was designed with portable devices such as smartphones and tablets in mind, and has been available for Fire tablets for a long time. In 2018, the team decided to bring their app to the big screen, as well. Martin explains that it was a fairly quick decision for Fire TV: "Fire TV has established itself as the smart TV solution in Germany [...] Fire TV is based on Android, so we could simply use the longstanding experience and expertise of our developers and designers. Furthermore, we enjoy the same support opportunities we usually do with Amazon Appstore; a lot of reach, a growing segment, and a great product."
Having had an Android app available already, "it was fairly easy to release it in the Amazon Appstore, as well." When asked about their development experience, Martin explains: "Much to the joy of our developers as well as our designers, the adaptations required were within reasonable limits as Amazon makes use of standards and thus limits the work for developers as adaptations are only required in the background."
The team also points out that the development process is never really finished and highlights the importance of being able to make quick updates and keep all versions across all stores on par. Martin elaborates: "Everything is so easy to handle that we are always on par with the Android app running in other stores. Therefore, we are able to realize an Amazon release within minutes as the development environment is very similar to Android and we have no problems whatsoever to port features."
The team provided insights about dailyme TV and their product, why they chose to release on Amazon Fire Tablet, their experience developing for Amazon Appstore and their reasons for bringing and adapting their app to the Amazon Fire TV.
Don’t miss the next edition of Dev Chat. Subscribe to the Amazon Appstore blog to stay up to date.