Multi-Screen Streaming Apps and a Hybrid App Framework for a TV-Everywhere Company
Summary
Over more than five years, INNERLUXES helped a US and European TV-everywhere company become one of the leading TV-app providers. A team of up to nine developers built customizable multi-screen streaming apps and co-created a hybrid app framework that is now core to all of the Client's products.
About the Client
The Client is a company providing video streaming services for network operators, content owners, and telecommunications, broadcasting, and media companies in the US and Europe. Its partners include major broadcasters and telecom operators.
The Need to Accelerate Time to Market
The Client had helped large telcos make their live TV streaming available across multiple mobile devices. As interest in its flagship products grew among major industry players, the Client decided to streamline time to market by adopting hybrid app development, and chose INNERLUXES as a mobile application development partner to jump-start new projects.
Building Multi-Screen Apps and a Hybrid Framework
INNERLUXES augmented the Client's development group with one iOS, one Android, and two JavaScript developers on a time-and-materials basis. Over the next three years, the team powered six broadcasting companies with customizable multi-screen apps for watching online streams on smartphones, tablets, TVs, gaming consoles, and in browsers. As the products succeeded in the market, INNERLUXES scaled up the team.
The teams then set out to create their own framework based on Backbone.js, opening up opportunities to lower development costs and accelerate delivery of customized solutions. Exploiting the agility of HTML5 to the fullest, the new architecture made it easy to regularly update the app, ship features, and manage UI/UX from the cloud without re-publishing to the app stores, and it enabled new capabilities such as SVOD (subscription video on demand) and movie rental. The framework was developed over 2.5 years and is now core to all of the Client's products. INNERLUXES's developers — at the latest count one Android, two iOS, and six JavaScript engineers — continue to improve the existing solutions and extend the framework.
Results
Across 5.5 years of partnership, INNERLUXES's team of nine developers helped the Client become one of the leading TV-app providers, evolving briskly alongside the growing diversity and complexity of devices. The Client and INNERLUXES continue to improve its flagship products and increase its visibility in the console market.
Technologies and Tools
JavaScript, Backbone.js, jQuery, Modernizr, RequireJS, Underscore.js, HTML5, CSS3, Xcode, Android SDK.