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What to do in quarantine when you’re free from work and study? Of course, watch TV! But how to share one TV between all family members? This is no longer a problem. With special programs for viewing TV channels, no one will ever fight over the remote control. Now you understand how popular TV apps are. We will dedicate our article to them. 

Development of a cross-platform application for TV

The TV online application covers the widest possible audience, which means that it’s almost impossible to choose only one platform for development. An excellent solution in this situation is cross-platform development.

Cross-platform apps are designed in such a way that they function equally well on both iOS and Android. In this case, you don’t need to develop several separate applications, so you save time and money on creating your solution. Moreover, cross-platform development allows you to reach the maximum audience, which guarantees your application the maximum possible number of users. 

However, developing an application for TV is not an easy task since the functionality of this solution is quite complex and extensive, and there are also many requirements for its design. Let's look at what a good online TV application is. 

Design Features and Key Functions

Each application shall look pleasant and unobtrusive, helping product owners to achieve their main goal. The user experience or UX design should also be as user-friendly and intuitive as possible. Users don’t like wasting time trying to figure out the application. 

In addition, the functionality of your solution should also be extensive enough so that your audience finds everything they need and doesn’t have to look for additional tools to solve any problems. Otherwise, there’s a risk that your users will find another solution that combines all the necessary tools and never get back to you. 

Let's take a closer look at exactly what users expect from a TV application and what capabilities the most successful and popular solutions have.

Orientation and size of elements

Screen orientation in applications for watching TV channels is extremely important. Just imagine, you are lying on the couch, watching your favorite series, you want to roll over, and the image on the screen turns upside down. Such an unpleasant situation, right? To avoid this, the orientation should work clearly and instantly, preferably with the smoothest possible transition and without causing delays in video playback.

The location of the elements should not interfere with the user watching the video, but at the same time shall provide watchers with the widest possible opportunities. It’s also worth considering that the most important and significant elements should be highlighted and easily noticeable. Additional or non-essential details could be less visible.

It’s also necessary to understand that users have already developed certain associations with icons and buttons in applications for watching TV channels, and it’s essential to adhere to these established rules so that users are comfortable and don’t have to re-learn already known symbols and icons.

Remote control

Remote control applications represent a separate type of TV applications. They allow you to use your smartphone as a remote control. So, users can always switch the channel, find the desired movie or the desired episode of their favorite series.

To implement this function, you need to make sure that the Internet TV application has access to the capabilities of the device, as well as that the TV screen allows certain operations. It’s also important to consider different programs and TV providers because connecting to them can be done in different ways.

Search and navigation

The main feature in the TV app is search. Users can search for everything, say, the channel they would like to watch; a movie that someone recommended (and they might not even know the name of it), a favorite TV series, or even a music video. 

It would be a good idea to provide a search not only by name but also by certain criteria. So, for example, you can search for TV channels by topics (sports, children's, documentaries, news, and so on) or by region. Movies and series can be searched and sorted by genre, year of release, country, actor, etc. Everything depends on your imagination and budget.

In addition to search, it’s important to provide convenient navigation so that users can view content grouped by a certain parameter. This makes it easier to find the answer to the eternal question “what to see” and increases the satisfaction of your users.

Let them also post and see ratings for channels, movies, and other pieces of content. This will help increase engagement, as well as give users the opportunity to choose better video content. And if your site also includes a filter or sort by rating, this will only improve your user experience.

Content Recommendations

Connect artificial intelligence that will process data about requests, views, and ratings of your users to determine their tastes and offer them similar video content, or what they might like. So your application for watching TV channels will become not just a tool, but also a friend who advises what to watch. 

Testing on a real device

For a TV application, convenience is the first quality criterion, so it’s very important to test such applications not only in a virtual emulated environment but also on real devices. So you can clearly see how attractive and convenient your application is, which functions are easy to find and use, which ones cause difficulties, which elements on the screen are useful and which only interfere with your users, and most importantly, how convenient, reasoned and understandable monetization is implemented in your TV application. 

Use as many different devices as possible for testing. This will help you get the most accurate and reliable results. When you put yourself in the shoes of your users, you will understand a lot about your application, and this will probably lead to new and innovative solutions that will give you the loyalty of your audience, providing you with a significant competitive advantage. 

Features and cost of development

The main feature of TV applications is the need to take video content somewhere. This can be buying licenses to show content from TV channels, buying films from their copyright holders, or creating your own content. In any case, each of the options has a certain cost and its own conditions, so you need to be prepared for legal and financial investments regarding the organization of content for your TV application.

Also, be aware that different types and groups of content may have certain geographic restrictions, and this must be considered in your application. For example, some channels only allow their content to be shown in certain countries. There are other restrictions, where some countries prohibit the display of certain content to their citizens.

To avoid legal liability, you must carefully study all possible nuances, as well as provide for the implementation of all restrictions in your application. All these nuances will also affect the cost of developing your application for TV programs.

How much it costs to develop a TV application

The cost of developing each application varies and depends on the features of the application itself. So, we've covered a lot of different features and functionality that may or may not be present in your application. What exactly your TV application will contain is up to you. Let's see how the cost of development depends on this. 

The implementation of each function requires certain technologies, time, and the efforts of developers. These figures will differ for each individual technology. But in any case, you need to pay for the time that the development team will spend on your Internet TV application. 

Hour rates of developers depend on the technologies applied (different programming languages ​​cost differently), on the experience of the developer himself (for the implementation of some functionality, top-level developers may be required, and the expertise level affects the speed of work), on the country in which you order development (for example, Philippine developers can cost dozens of times cheaper than American ones, but when thinking about the price, don’t forget to consider the quality). 

For example, the cost of your project cannot be determined without clear data and information about it. But you can contact us and tell us the details about the future TV application. Then our manager will be able to guide you on the cost of such a solution. Our consultations are free, and in addition to information about our services, they also provide other benefits. In particular, we always help our clients with solutions for them to achieve their business goals. Leave a request on the site and we’ll help you create your great application.
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