Interview with fireworks Address Book: from idea to product

BKJIA exclusive interview] Our previous interviews on mobile development focused on the specific technical aspects of mobile development, for example, mobile development, multi-platform mobile software development, and Android development entry-level questions and answers. These interviews focus on the introduction and experience of specific mobile development technologies, but mobile applications are not just development technologies.

Relying on the emerging software distribution model such as the software store, a mobile application still requires good creativity, excellent teams, and complete product operation ideas to develop well. Today, our interview on the fireworks address book will focus on a complete Context of a mobile application from creativity to R & D to products, mr. Shan Guofeng, CTO of the fireworks Address Book, will introduce you to the full life cycle of a mature mobile application.

Fire address book

Fireworks address book is a Mobile phone Address Book enhancement software that currently supports multiple platforms, including Symbian, Android, Windows Mobile, and iPhone. The interface is brilliant and easy to operate. In addition to one-click Backup/restoration of address book and SMS, you can search for and locate business cards in multiple ways, its biggest feature is the combination of traditional mobile phone address book and SNS applications such as Weibo to facilitate contact and message sharing between friends.

 
Fire Address Book CTO Shan Guofeng

BKJIA: combines mobile phone address book with popular Web applications such as SNS and Weibo. Where did the idea of fire address book come from?

Shan Guofeng: the birth of each innovative product stems from the control and meticulous understanding of product development by product developers. The reason why fireworks chose the address book field is that the company's founder was keenly aware of the development trend of the mobile Internet and the important position of the address book products in the mobile Internet project incubation stage in. The powerful application of Address Book functions is the foundation of the product. On this basis, we have conceived a large number of ideas to bring people closer to each other, reducing the time and energy required for communication, integrating with popular Community products is the first step.

BKJIA: Before that, are there any other types of product ideas? Why is address book the main direction? In terms of product planning for mobile application development, how should we evaluate the market value of a creative idea?

Dan Guofeng: We started the innovation workshop incubator model in and tried many fields, such as voice blog, credit card analysis, online automotive sales analysis, and baby growth websites, genealogy blog, free text message, positioning and sharing, etc. The main reason for choosing the address book field is based on the recognition of the wireless Internet industry. It is a basic mobile phone application. We hope to bring this application from the Ice Age to the Internet age. There is a lot of room for imagination. Our choice is to leave more associations to our partners, while we only do a good job in the construction of the base layer. I think there are two main points in evaluating the market value of a creative idea. First, the product imagination space is its scalability, and the coverage of potential user groups of the product.

 
Fireworks Address Book interface display

BKJIA: There are a lot of mobile apps, and there are also a lot of functional enhancement software such as address book and contacts. What unique features of the fire Address Book can attract users?

Shan Guofeng: in fact, in the final analysis, there is only one reason for attracting users by fire. We have always stressed that it is an excellent user experience. Our operations colleagues once roughly made a statistical analysis. Over the past two years, there have been about 30 similar product architectures and interface designs with similar fire types, with similar functions on the surface. However, in terms of user experience, product scalability, and compatibility with other products, fireworks are the best. An industry-renowned senior visited the company several times, hoping to acquire the product in some form and learn in detail the product status and future development architecture direction, and then disappear without any connection, until recently, we launched the product of the same type, basically copying our original philosophy. We are not afraid of plagiarism, but I have always believed that product control and the pursuit of user experience will keep the fire undefeated.

BKJIA? What is the biggest problem?

Shan Guofeng: I have talked with many entrepreneurs. The common problem is that although there are good ideas and ideas, there are not enough people, and the fire cannot be a special case. Because of the special nature of our products, we must achieve full platform coverage, which also brings great difficulties to our early stages of product development. Fortunately, there were a group of people who came together for their dreams. During the time when the development task was the heaviest, although the lights in the fireworks office were extinguished at the latest in the community, no one has complained.

BKJIA: currently, the fireworks Address Book supports mainstream mobile platforms such as Android and Symbian. How is the fireworks technical team constructed? Is it also divided by platform?

Shan Guofeng: In the early stages of product development, the fireworks technical team was a concentrated strength. The main product team is responsible for in-depth research on every platform technology, and every person in the team can be responsible for the development of multiple platforms. Every platform is like a mountain, attacking one by one. Now the fireworks have reached a certain scale and gradually entered the stage of multi-point attack at the same time. different platforms are developed by dedicated teams ..

BKJIA: each mobile platform has its own information architecture and operation style. What kind of experiences can be learned from the implementation of the same product on different mobile platforms?

Shan Guofeng: apart from the differences between big platforms, different models of one platform are different. For example, in the case of j2s, screens and buttons are a classic example. The keyboard version differs from the touch version. Different SDK versions on the same platform also result in incompatibility with the APIS they provide. In general, it will be processed in a way that requires consistency and Reserving Differences. For example, the data persistence layer and the network layer are relatively stable and can be translated using a programming language, some UI-related and underlying APIs can only be broken by different platforms, versions, and models.

BKJIA: in terms of development efficiency, which platform project has a shorter development cycle for Android, Symbian, and iOS platforms? Which platform is more difficult to develop?

Shan Guofeng: Android is friendly to developers and convenient for R & D and release, because it is developed on the basis of other platforms and integrates many of their advantages, the development cycle can be shorter. Interestingly, Android is the most difficult. Here is a paradox. The simpler the thing, the harder it is.

BKJIA: What are the biggest technical difficulties encountered during the development of the fireworks address book? How can this problem be solved?

Shan Guofeng: unified platform compatibility is the biggest difficulty. To be frank, we have not completely solved this problem. We have to do our best to transplant and cover all versions, ensure that mainstream smart machines can use fireworks. For non-mainstream manufacturers such as mobile phones, we will solve the problem through outsourcing or cooperation.

BKJIA: Is there any difference between mobile application development and traditional software in terms of project and team management?

Shan Guofeng: it can be said that the relationship between mobile applications and traditional software is the relationship between Weibo and blogs, and its composition elements are basically the same. The main difference is that the division of labor needs to be clearer, and the professionalism and pertinence will be stronger.

BKJIA: UI, product features, and user experience are vital to a mobile application. How can the fire development team better cooperate with design and product personnel? How can developers better understand product requirements?

Shan Guofeng: the Core design team of fireworks has many years of understanding and accumulation of Address Book products. At the same time, our operation colleagues collect comments and information from users every day. We are gratified that the fire has its loyal users who will constantly propose new requirements and improvement requirements for us.

BKJIA: What are the differences between mobile app promotion channels and traditional software? After the development and testing of the fire address book is completed, how can it be pushed to the market?

Shan Guofeng: the core of any product promotion is to analyze and cover the product audience, and then select the promotion channel for the audience. Because mobile application software can be said to be a relatively new type of industry, the media and channel du mobile application software used by traditional software are not very suitable, and there are few targeted promotion channels, currently, the main method is based on App Store, Wap site cooperation, and SNS platform. The Promotion Team of fireworks is constantly trying various methods, and I am very confident in them.