Blogs - Naviflix

When we started conceptualizing Naviflix we did not know a lot about the fabled iPad. There was only rumours and speculations. But they all turned out to be true. Once the iPad was officially revealed, we knew we had to make Naviflix available on it. But what would be the approach? A simple website or a dedicated application? Since a lot of our efforts were being pulled into the iPhone and Android app development, we knew the best option would be a website with a twist.

Based on all the videos of the iPad and the SDK we knew we wanted to create something that felt like a native application. The experience of the site would have to mimic the device's functionality as closely as possible. We knew we wanted to approach the portrait and landscape orientations, but were unsure of how to manage dual independent scroll object without using the two finger gesture to scroll.

Coincidentally we weren’t the only ones thinking along those lines. Very recently there was a lot of buzz about AdLib and PastryKit etc… which Apple themselves had used to create the iPad's user help guide. It was what we wanted; it seemed perfect. EXCEPT for one small thing. It was not documented. And JavaScript without documentation can be very confusing. So we had to scrap those libraries because it would be too time consuming to reverse engineer. Luckily for us, the jQuery community was also working on something along the lines of AdLib. And we love jQuery here at Flip. So after a little fiddling and understanding of the HTML5 spec we got cracking on the design and code.

It was extremely important that we created an experience that people would just intuitively get immediately. If you held the device in landscape mode you could see the two scroll areas, very much like the native iPad mail application. And when you rotated the device to portrait mode, you would have a clear focus on the content with all the other options hidden away.

And to take it a step further we made sure that most of the data, with the exception of image galleries and video, are stored in a local database on the device. This way the application is super fast and responsive. When you tap something, it comes up ASAP. No waiting or fussing. When you add it to your home-screen it operates as a standalone web app and works even if you don't have an internet connection.

We hope you like our little endeavour. Just log on to Naviflix.com with your iPad and give it a whirl. And while you are at it, please send us some feedback too!

We Flippers are big movie buffs. You'll often find us scrambling to catch the newest movies on the first week of release. The feeling of sinking into a plush seat in a cool theatre for a few hours of escape from our hectic lives is like nothing else. But we noticed that often the process of getting to that point can be quite tedious. Figuring out what movie is playing where and when can get quite frustrating. So we decided to undertake a little project to support one of our favorite pastimes.

Initially the idea was to make a very basic application so people could access movie listings and showtimes in the region on the go. But then we quickly decided to take it further and build it on a proper foundation and framework. Enter Navisite, our content management system! With this running in the background, we knew we could really expand on our core idea knowing fully well we had a solid foundation to work on.

Our resourceful team in Mumbai had all the cinemas and details entered and geotagged on our content framework. Next step was to start the design process. This being our second iPhone app development, we knew better than to jump into the code right away. In fact, we didn’t touch the xcode authoring environment until we knew the flow was spot on. Better to spend your time in the design phase than write a lot of unnecessary code later and waste more time going back and forth.

Kudos to our creative team for not just working on a flow, but creating a brand identity and design that rocks! (Seriously guys, thanks a ton, we love the logo!) Once we had the design in place we got to work on the codebase. Again thanks to Navisites’ flexible architecture we were able to get the data in a clean and optimised manner. Remember, this is mobile, so every KB matters! After a month of build, QA and more QA we were ready to submit the app to the Apple appstore.

But we weren’t finished yet. During the process of the build, some Flippers felt a little left out. They were still on their Nokia N Series, Black Berry Bolds and a few Android users as well. Our first reaction was, ‘Dude, get an iPhone!’ But common sense prevailed and we got working on creating a replica of the application for the mobile web. Complete with AJAX and HTML5 goodness, we ensured that the app was not a paired down version of the native app, but in some places gives the native application a run for its money. If you load the app and the mobile version of it on the iPhone you would not be able to tell the difference. Which is why we had to create a different apple touch icon to help us when we were testing :)
 
We’re really happy with the results and hope you like the application. We are already working on the next build of this with some nice little extra features!