GOCAR Magazine led the way to the digital era of magazine publications in Greece, as the first digital-only automotive magazine ever published. GOCAR Magazine’s goal was to introduce car loves, as well as magazine readers in general, to a fascinating, interactive reading experience. GOCAR Magazine combines in one mobile app the feel of a real magazine, the liveness of HD TV and the plenitude of content of a website. To support and ensure the functionality of these features we developed from base customized application and content management software platforms. GOCAR Magazine was originally developed as a tablet mobile app for iOS and has previously been introduced for Android tablets and smartphones. In its first year of publication, GOCAR Magazine became the top selling automotive magazine in Greece (taking into consideration both digital and traditional magazines).
A captivating, sense-absorbing reading experience for car addicts and quality readers in iOS and Android devices
Mobile Technology Supported: iOs native app for iPad, Android native app for Tablets and Phones, Web application
Web version of the App: No
Cloud Service used: Private Cloud provided by NemoLogix
Supported Bandwidth Requirements: 50 TB
Supported concurrent User Requirements: 100.000
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The Development
We aimed at complete autonomy to ensure maximum creativity and functionality for our app – so we took responsibility for all aspects of development.
The digital world is ever changing – the mobile digital world twice so. So, for a demanding media application like a digital magazine is, our development team faced some challenging variables over a 5-year span. Firstly, to ensure for future addition of new functionalities, fresh futures and upgrades. Secondly, provide our content team of journalists, photographers and directors with boundless creative freedom. Finally, develop apps for both major mobile app platforms with virtually no loss in the quality and functionality, to provide a universally high quality reading experience.
All the above meant that our team had to build like never before. And built, we truly have…
Development domination
Our goal was not to be dependent on any existing software packages or platforms for development. This allows us to have 100% control over app design, implementation and future evolution. We create our own code. Literally. Everywhere.
- We developed from square one a native app in objective C, while the content is presented with use of all the latest HTML features.
- An autonomous Content Management System (CMS) has been developed especially for the App, to ensure back end support and functionality.
- The CMS supports a number of automated procedures such as layout creation, content editing, publishing etc., to allow for limitless design and creatives freedom.
Interaction Overdose
A digital magazine is much more than a mobile app. Not only must be informative, functional and error-free. It has to be mesmerizing and totally captivate all of the reader’s senses. Although there is no (commonly accepted) algorithm for seduction, our team succeeded in endowing GOCAR Magazine with large portions of digital magic.
- Life in HD: The beating heart of any magazine is its creative elements, especially its image content. But we are no longer on the static, analog, paper world, right? So we embraced these two facts and embedded design and media elements that brought GOCAR Magazine to life, such as Photo & Video Galleries with HD quality elements, Full Screen Video Player etc.
- Touch! Feel! Play! : A tablet touch screen offers interaction capabilities no other medium can. So, part of our development strategy was to take advantage of this integral component of tablets and its multi-touch functionality to introduce a playfulness never experienced before by Greek readers. With customized functions such as tap & reveal, swipe, rub, stroke and rotate, we transformed traditional reading to vivid, engaging experience.
Android conveyance
Mobile app development is like intercontinental travel. You take off from one part of the digital globe (the iOS app landscape) and you wake up in the opposite end (the Android app ecosystem). There are some striking similarities but the true adventure awaits in the differences. Our courageous development team took on the task of overcoming these differences to offer to all Android users the GOCAR Magazine reading experience.
- As with the original iOS release, here too we developed a native app, programmed in Java and designed to support all Android OS versions from Android 5.1 and on.
- The GOCAR Magazine android App was developed not only for tablets but also for smartphones, necessitating a development strategy predicting optimized delivery to all different screen sizes.
- The customized CMS developed for the iOS app was upgraded to support also the Android App.
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