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success story marketplace, mobile, uiux
blogin the world of development, there’s often a fine line between success and failure. in this second entry of our ‘devs doing it right’ series we chatted with monotype—bryan comeau, senior engineering manager and vivek vadakkuppattu, product management director—about the popular app flipfont and how they went about successfully building, launching and monetizing one of the best font apps that enable users across the globe to personalize their mobile devices. **monotype is known for the popular flipfont app. can you tell us a bit about it? ** vivek: flipfont provides a fun and easy way for users to personalize their devices through fonts. flipfont is an app that allows users to change the font on their device (phone, tablet, smartwatch) to something that matches their personality or mood. so, it’s a single app, but each font (that can be used as a part of this app) is available as an individual app by itself, and amounts to 2,500 font apps that are available at the galaxy apps store. you’re one of the world’s best known providers of type-related products, technologies and expertise. why is choosing the right font so important? vivek: consumer electronics devices are a significant part of a person’s identity; we spend so much time looking at our phones that we want to have something that reflects who we are, and a font can really help us express ourselves. with the working world moving to mobile, fonts can also help people read and process information quickly when they’re in a hurry. let’s talk the app build and launch, both from a technical build and marketing perspective. bryan, when you’re looking to develop a new app, what’s the first thing that you have to take into consideration? bryan: when we look at technology on which to develop a new application, one of the things that we’re concerned about is, “do we have the resources readily available or do we have to outsource and find specialized engineers?” simplicity and developer adoption are important. from there, you need to manage your engineering team which actually builds the application. my main concern is keeping my team focused on development and on innovating on new ideas relevant to our app. i don’t want them getting derailed by things like, “how do you get the application up on the store?” or “how are we going to distribute this app?” your dev team should be focused on coding, trying out new software and hardware features, etc. as a developer, that’s where your passion, time and energy should be focused. what was the biggest technical hurdle you faced when building flipfont? bryan: we actually had a couple of difficult technical hurdles that we faced during the development of flipfont that took a significant amount of time to overcome. the first – and arguably most difficult – was figuring out the fastest/best way to modify the core font rendering software so that the device would not have to be completely rebooted when the font was flipped. the second technical hurdle we faced had to do with device testing and figuring out the most efficient way to test all the various flipfont apps on the vast array of samsung devices and resolutions to ensure all our fonts rendered properly. my best dev tip? don’t underestimate the amount of testing required for your applications and make sure you plan on testing on multiple devices with different screen configurations. so that’s the build. vivek, can you talk us through the process of bringing the app to market? what do you – as a product manager – need to focus on? vivek: as a product manager deploying an app, there are three things you need to focus on. first, you want the whole world to be using your app, so channel distribution becomes key. how do you partner with a distributor who has a wide footprint? ideally, you want as many people as possible to see your app. the second thing is monetization. the way people monetize apps is much different today than it was even five years ago, so the feedback and insights you get from your channel partners is crucial. look for a partner that offers a portal that provides you with the flexibility to run promotions that will appeal to your users. ideally you would have access to a portal that allows you to change the prices very quickly and do discounts. you have to be nimble to maximize your profits. the right expertise coupled with the right infrastructure is crucial. the last piece of all of this is analytics. our goal is to make sure our end users are able to express themselves, so we need to know what resonates with people – what kind of fonts do people like? so, a good analytics platform is essential. we need to know how our different fonts are performing, how they are performing in different regions or how they are performing over time, and this helps us continue to build out and invest in developing fonts that people love. bryan, as a developer, what new technologies are you most excited about? bryan: we’re paying close attention to lots of different and emerging technologies. we’re looking at virtual and augmented reality; we’re playing with machine learning, playing with variable fonts, which is actually an old technology that’s resurging lately, and even to some extent, chatbots. so we’ve got our hands in all sorts of different things and what makes sense for our particular app. can you go deeper into your work with variable fonts? bryan: until recently, a font family consisted of a set of fonts. for example, the helvetica typeface is available in bold, roman, italic, bold italic, etc. for each of these instances, a separate font file existed which arguably created duplicate data. variable fonts is a technology that has been around for some time but recently has come back into focus because it provides the ability to generate font instances through embedded intelligence in the font and font engine to create font variations. in the helvetica example, we can actually build one font file with all the information in it to generate the italic instance. given monotype’s business success, what words of wisdom do you have for new developers that are just getting started? vivek: from a marketing perspective, i would say it all starts with the end user. for us, we always have an obsessive focus on making sure the user experience is excellent. once you create a great experience for the user, the revenue will follow. i strongly believe that’s the right approach. you really should put the user first and everything else will follow. trying to sort out things like financials on day one is not how you build a great product that people love. and, the second thing is seeking out the right expertise. once you find it, leverage it. you don’t have to go re-invent the wheel. bryan: i 100% agree with vivek. focus on user experience. ensure that everything is in place for that user to have a successful first experience. when users fire up an app, it has to work. if there’s even the slightest hint of confusion, you have to redo it so there is no confusion. i think another big part of this is leaving a sense of satisfaction with the user. when a user uses an application and they keep coming back to it, that says a lot about the effort you put into that user interface, that experience. so, again, we spend a lot of time understanding our users and how they feel before, during and after. you have to understand what you’re trying to accomplish with your application, and you need to deliver an experience that enables users to do whatever it is they want to do, seamlessly. why did you decide to publish with galaxy apps? bryan: our flipfont project started back in 2011. we were doing some custom work to personalize our app for other mobile devices, and it just made sense to take flipfont to a much broader audience. although our flipfont project started out as custom work, once we chose to move to the samsung platform, we were able to come up to speed quickly and deliver a high-quality application. samsung is a top global brand, particularly in the personal electronics space. from our perspective, it’s an area that we felt pushed not only personalization but also technology. so, for the amount of effort that we were putting into this application and development, we wanted to be able to reach a very, very large group of users in the end. publishing with samsung was a no-brainer for us. lastly, a question that we’re asking all of ‘devs doing it right’: what features do all great/successful apps have in common? bryan: we’ve spent a lot of time playing with applications and understanding what makes an awesome app different from a not-so-awesome app. and i think we’d all agree that it’s solving real, end-user issues. real pain points. we don’t try to re-invent the wheel. we analyze what our end-users are struggling with, and then go solve those problems.
Bryan Comeau & Vivek Vadakkuppattu
Connect Samsung Developer Conference
webtech sessions dive into the future of connected customer experiences through tech sessions by developers offering further insight into the innovations introduced in the keynote filter filter filter all reset apply there are no results. sessions contents & service, open innovation 8k visual quality and ecosystem in this session, we will present how the genuine 8k contents correctly displayed on 8k display devices could deliver our customers an immersive picture quality experience. we will start with a summary of the previous studies about user perceptions regarding the 8k visual quality. we then will explain why the full-frequency 8k contents are superior to the lower resolution in producing fine details on the image. we will also discuss some technical challenges we face toward adopting and utilizing 8k contents in a real-world environment and describe how we can overcome these hurdles. specifically, we will discuss technologies such as super-resolution and new image sensors to overcome the full-frequency barrier of 8k content. last, we will introduce the 8k association (8ka), a non-profit organization composed of key technology companies in the consumer and professional 8k ecosystem, and briefly mention 8ka's ongoing effects on the research, standardization, and promotion of 8k visual quality. sessions contents & service, developer program, mobile add samsung pay as your payment method in this session, we will share learnings from our experience developing the samsung pay mobile payment service, revealing insights that can be applied to your own platforms. we will also take a look at the samsung pay development kit and how you can use this for your own service. sessions game, ar, mobile ar emoji: your avatar, your experience the ar emoji feature on samsung devices enables users to create a 3d avatar model that can be used in other applications. similar to avatars currently available in games or in the metaverse, our ar emojis are a chance for users to express themselves, their style and their personality, digitally. but this is only the beginning. in this session, we’ll explore the future of ar emojis and how the ar emoji sdk is opening more opportunities for developers to collaborate with samsung to bring to life new services featuring these avatars and optimize them for the metaverse though our collaboration with unity. sessions ai, iot, smart appliances bixby 2022 what’s new what’s new with bixby in 2022? in this session, you will hear about some of the exciting improvements to the nlu and on-device bixby as well as updates to the bixby developer studio, which introduces a brand new javascript runtime that provides a modern, secure, high-performance environment. we will also take a closer look at the brand new bixby home studio, which allows smart device developers to customize and optimize voice control of smart devices, including allowing a single command to intelligently control multiple smart home devices. sessions contents & service, game creating spectacular galaxy game audio experiences with dolby atmos galaxy smartphones and tablets can produce spectacular game audio with dolby atmos. discover how you can create deeper emotional connections with players, keep them playing for longer, and earn their loyalty by unleashing the full power of samsung galaxy mobile game audio. in this session you will hear from dolby’s partner audiokinetic who will discuss how developers can make dolby atmos games, including a walkthrough of how to use dolby atmos plug-ins in audiokinetic's wwise audio middleware. moong labs – creators of epic cricket one, of india's most popular sports games – will also share how dolby atmos benefitted their game and you will find out how dolby supports game developers and other activities on our website. sessions health, wearable expand health experiences with galaxy watch the galaxy watch’s powerful bioactive sensor, together with the wear os powered by samsung, is transforming mobile health experiences. and now, this technology is even more powerful thanks to the samsung privileged health sdk. find out how the samsung privileged health sdk is allowing developers to retrieve raw or analyzed sensor data for their applications, including bia, ecg, blood oxygen level or sweat loss, and help users’ to accurately monitor their health stats. sessions web flexible and private web experience on samsung internet in this session, you will learn how to enhance and optimize your web experience for foldable devices using device posture api and viewport segment media query. we'll also take a closer look at how samsung internet protects users’ privacy online. sessions mobile, enterprise, developer program google and samsung strengthen enterprise ecosystem together samsung’s global mobile b2b team is working closely with the android enterprise team to build a galaxy ecosystem of partners who are bringing innovation into workplaces. discover how partner solutions create unique experiences on samsung devices and how we plan to work together to help future partners step into the samsung android ecosystem for enterprises and smbs. sessions contents & service, developer program, enterprise hdr10+/salt and automatic hdr video creations for productions hdr10+ is an essential technology for premium hdr viewing experience and it is widely reach to consumer displays including mobile devices. in order to provide hdr content services, it requires changing service provider's infra structure or workflows and video processing technology from sdr to hdr with a lot of engineering efforts. then, hdr10+/salt solutions and partnership program from samsung is designed to build an extremely cost effective automatic solution up for content creators, post production houses and ott service providers even including game developers. the solution package is designed with various standalone applications, reference apps, sdks on various oses and partnership programs to help 3rd parties for creation of hdr contents. hdr10+/salt partnership program provides full compatibility to hdr10+ llc certification program and major studios, ott service providers and tool makers are already partners of the program and samsung provides them the best hdr content quality. sessions developer program, open innovation, health healthcare research hub our open source project provides end-to-end solutions such as sdk, platform, and portal for various use cases from medical research studies to clinician services using wearable devices. medical research does not have to stay complicated. anyone can easily build and customize their own research studies or clinician services using this open source. recently, as the accuracy of sensors installed on wearable devices has improved, interest in healthcare research using wearable health data is increasing. however, it takes a lot of time for researchers to develop research applications and server infrastructure for storing and analyzing data from scratch. sr is developing android sdk and data platform solutions that support healthcare research using health data from our wearable devices (watch 4 and later versions) and provide them as open source in order to solve the pain points of these researchers and establish a digital health care research ecosystem centered on our wearable devices. sessions iot, monetization, smart appliances home connectivity alliance introduction of home connectivity alliance and how appliance manufactures can enable interoperability across brands. hear how hca interoperability can benefit consumers and partners including b2b (home builders, mfu, etc). join the hca and become a leader in innovation within the connected iot ecosystem. sessions ai, ar immersive audio we will demonstrate an audio system with dramatically improved immersive 3d audio experience. hardware will be similar to samsung’s critically acclaimed hw-q990b soundbar, but will include several new technologies that will be found in future samsung products. these technologies automatically correct for room acoustics and the location of the listeners and loudspeakers. visitors will compare the sound of the system before and after the system’s unique automated calibration process. listeners will enjoy improved spatial and timbral performance in stereo, surround and immersive audio formats with both music and cinematic content. sessions security & privacy introducing blockchain wallet with knox vault in this session, we introduce blockchain wallet for samsung smart tv. blockchain wallet allows our smart tv users to manage their blockchain accounts and transfer their cryptocurrency to another blockchain account. it ensures to retain a key for blockchain transactions in a secure way. dapp developers can build their tv dapp with blockchain wallet for blockchain functions such as blockchain connection and transaction signing. knox vault is an enhanced hardware-based security solution to protect sensitive data such as cryptographic keys, passwords and personal data. knox vault provides strong security guarantees against hardware attacks such as physical attack, side-channel attack and fault attack. as a core component of the knox security platform, knox vault is an isolated, tamper-proof, secure subsystem with its own secure processor and memory. sessions developer program, enterprise, android introducing samsung galaxy camera ecosystem discover how advanced camera technologies, based on samsung’s leading hardware and software, can enable developers to create more powerful camera experiences for their users. we will take a look at some of the incredible partnerships samsung has already formed with numerous app developers and reveal how these collaborations enriched users’ camera experiences. sessions mobile, android, productivity intuitive multitasking experience based upon android 12l join us to see how samsung continues to enhance the large screen user experience further with fast app switching and intuitive multitasking capabilities. to maximize the galaxy foldable experience, we're expanding flex mode even further with more apps and partners as well as google's ongoing collaborative effort in android 12l. sessions iot, mobile, uwb joint efforts on standardization toward open ecosystem of uwb services the presentation will introduce samsung's joint efforts with industry partners on the uwb tech/service standardization, which is essential for creating an interoperable open ecosystem of uwb products and services. especially, it will introduce activities at fira consortium, which was established by samsung jointly with industry leaders to provide interoperability specifications as well as certification programs. it may also include target uwb services and relevant standardization status & plan. sessions ar, game, tizen journey to immersive interactive exp in big screen with xr and avatar fw xr framework webapis enable developers to build xr applications on the tizen platform. we will go over features of the webapis, share some demos, and provide information on how to get started. additionally we will show you a sample code of how to capture and handle user's gestures and full body movement. avatar framework for tizen is a unified solution providing high level apis that allow samsung developers to easily include the 3d avatar models and features in their samsung tv applications. we will go over all the cool features and options of our framework in this video. sessions connectivity, android, mobile le audio: the future of wireless sound introducing le audio: a new standard for bluetooth technology on galaxy devices. le audio will enhance the performance of classic bluetooth audio and introduce isochronous communication, creating whole new wireless audio experience on galaxy devices. in this session, we will introduce the technical features of le audio, what it means for the galaxy ux and how you could enhance wireless audio experience of your app with le audio. sessions design, ui/ux one ui design principles in partnership one ui creates a unified experience across our galaxy devices, from phones and tablets to watches and galaxy books. in creating and refining one ui, we've followed four key principles: simplicity, effortlessness, consistency, and authenticity. with one ui, we've also made a commitment to openness, which means some of the best things in one ui come from partnerships. in this session, we'll talk about some of those partnerships and how we aligned them with our four design principles to get great results. sessions ui/ux, design, android one ui: customer centric design one ui starts with a true understanding what our customers want. hear more about what samsung have learned from listening to extensive customer feedback and usage data, and how we have adapted our designs in response. we'll take a look at some real-life examples of how the ux design of the calendar, settings and samsung health app has evolved over time to better meet customer needs. sessions enterprise, data, security & privacy our journey to responsibly handling data at samsung, we place personal data protection as one of our top priorities. learn how we responsibly handle personal data in our applications and platforms. we'll share with you our journey in protecting personal data. we'll talk about what it means to responsibly govern and access data in samsung's enterprise environment. we'll cover specifics on how to classify & protect data as a whole. pick up insights on privacy technologies and design patterns we apply in our data intensive applications today. sessions developer program, tizen, ui/ux prism: the new ux development tool and process in today’s environment of rapid and unpredictable transformation, establishing a creative and increasingly collaborative tech culture is one of the most challenging requirements. in this session, we would like to introduce a new method to revolutionize the tizen platform-based app development process. a new development process named prism automates most of the inefficient overheads from design to implementation of app ui, innovatively improving app development productivity. we will introduce prism-based development process and deliver this innovative app development culture to developers through the sessions. sessions developer program, smart appliances, tizen remote test lab: what’s new in tv development environment the current tizen tv development environment, represented by emulator and tv, is a very limited support method for developers. depending on the version of emulator, the latest features currently supported by the tv may not be available, and various models of physical tvs may be required to verify actual operation. rtl tv tries to overcome the limitations of the current development environment. sessions contents & service, monetization, data samsung tv plus: the advanced ad-tech and partnerships that fund free tv samsung’s free ad-supported tv (fast) service “tv plus” has been a breakout success. although it looks and feels like traditional tv, it is anything but! behind the scenes of this slick tv & mobile experience is high-performance technology, vast amounts of data & algorithms, and a thriving partner ecosystem. join this session to learn more about the mind-boggling world of advertising technology, how it works, and how multiple companies come together to provide free tv to millions of consumers worldwide. sessions android, contents & service samsung wallet, it's convenient, personal and safe as the growth of digital wallets skyrockets, samsung recently announced samsung wallet – a new platform bringing almost all of the cards you’d typically find in a physical wallet, as well as important documents, into one easy-to-use and secure mobile application. as samsung wallet rapidly expands its content set, find out more about the future of digital wallets and how open api’s can allow developers to build integrations for this service. sessions iot, security & privacy smartthings edge: the next level experience discover how samsung is transitioning the smartthings-published groovy dths to edge drivers while maintaining a seamless experience for our users. we’ll walk through the process of onboarding edge-based devices and how to set up an automation with an edge device that runs locally. sessions iot, monetization, smart appliances smartthings energy service introduction of smartthings energy service and how partners (energy companies, smart device mfgs, etc) can integrate to provide a seamless energy management service for their consumers leveraging samsung's smartthings energy ecosystem. sessions iot, contents & service, open innovation smartthings find: find alongside 200+ million users smartthings find is samsung’s fastest growing service, powered by more than 200 million galaxy users. discover some of the new features and functions added over the past year and learn how partners can leverage the service to innovate their own solutions to meet the needs of businesses and consumers alike. sessions iot, contents & service, open innovation smartthings platform enhancements for openness and interoperability the smartthings platform continues to evolve to promote openness and interoperability. in this session, we will share some exciting new updates to the smartthings platform to support matter and thread, and discuss the home connectivity alliance. sessions health, tizen telehealth in samsung devices samsung display device (smart tvs & smart monitors) users will be able to launch telemedicine service within the samsung products. once you pick your physician, you can use one of the approved usb cameras to connect to the tv and jump on a video call with a physician via external service provider's built-in web applications. after a few account setup process on mobile / pc, you can easily start your session any time on tv without any additional complicated inputs. at your session, you can also receive a prescription to be filled in at a mail-in online pharmacy (pc or mobile) to receive prescription drugs at your doorstep. sessions open innovation, enterprise, productivity the next generation samsung retail solutions in a mobile-first world, device convergence, simplification, ergonomically designed accessories, sw solutions and the connected galaxy ecosystem are helping to boost productivity and efficiency in the retail industry. in this session, we will explore how the next generation of retail solutions are shaping the industry’s future and will take a closer look at samsung’s three major retail solutions - data capturing, payment, and push-to-talk. sessions developer program, mobile, android the samsung knox partner program: partner success journey the samsung knox partner program (kpp) equips you with everything you need to build ideas and market your mobile solutions. in this session, we will take a look at some of our partners’ solutions and how collaborating with the samsung kpp has helped enhance their user experience. join us to see why kpp is causing a stir in the business developer community! sessions enterprise, tizen tizen everywhere this session highlighted samsung's direction and goals for the enterprise and b2b markets, focused on taking tizen to the next level on so many platforms. various enterpriser displays based on tizen and solutions suitable for business purposes will always be together. tizen enterprise platform will provide all the technology infrastructure you need, including the samsung developers portal for b2b for developer support and the samsung apps tv seller office for custom application support in your own business. after announcing "tizen open" at sdc in 2019, samsung established licensing system to provide tizen tv os to other tv makers. in order for partners to develop tizen tv products faster, samsung prepared reference tv solution. in europe, australia, türkiye, tizen tvs have been released sequentially through more than 10 tv brands since september 22. sessions wearable, design, android watch face studio's first journey and expectation for next a must-have to create beautiful watch faces! watch face studio (wfs) is now a little over a year old. hear the developers of wsh share the highs and lows of bringing the tool to life and meet the designers responsible for creating the eco watch face. this session is an insight into the year-long journey to create wfs – and the story of where we’re going next. sessions iot, tizen, ui/ux what's new in tizen? are you curious about the direction in which intelligent iot platform “tizen” is developing? this session introduces ui assistant technology and extended 3d ui framework for providing advanced user experience, and explains innovative technologies that make run the tizen platform on top of the android hardware abstraction layer to facilitate securing new hws. and introduce the iot standard 'matter', which will be newly supported on tizen. finally, we provide a guide and tip for cross platform application development. sessions ai, iot, smart appliances what’s new in bixby for smart home bixby brings the smart home experience to life with the power of voice. find out how our new tool, bixby home studio, will enable device manufacturers to build more intelligent, more engaging voice experiences for smartthings-connected devices. sessions mobile, design, ui/ux what’s new in one ui 5 one ui 5 pushes personalization and productivity to the next level. explore new features that enable you to build a galaxy experience that reflects your personal style and help you to get more done on all your devices, wherever or whenever you need to.
tutorials mobile
blognow that you have created an android app, game or watch design, the question is how do you get people to download your latest and greatest boon to mankind? unfortunately, the answer is you just did the easy job; the hard job of marketing your app has to be done. in this era of computer-generated online store lists, you need to be noticed to get on a list. and, the way to achieve that is through self-promotion. first a warning don’t fall for any scam that tells you it can increase downloads for free. it can’t, and it won’t be free. the first way to know it is a scam is that it is unsolicited. second, if you search for a company that will help you, they probably won’t help and it won’t be free. also, if a consultant is just doing search engine optimization (seo), it may tarnish your company’s image. now for the good news samsung developer program has created tools and documentation on how to do self-promotion that you can use whether you are an android app developer, themes designer, tizen app developer, or a watch face designer. the ten percent rule for some reason, and no one knows the reason, things often break down to roughly a ninety to ten percent distribution. there is an old saying in business that ninety percent of the work in an organization is done by ten percent of the people. when it comes to apps in an online store, ninety percent of the downloads on a list are from the first ten percent of the list. with computer-generated online lists, the app with the most downloads does not necessarily mean that the app will be the top featured app. stores like to change what is featured in a list so it isn’t always the same app in the same position. to do that they use a complex algorithm to generate their lists. i don’t know the algorithm but i have noticed some of the factors used by many online stores. here are my empirical observations: number of downloads does matter. download trends do matter. when your downloads are trending up, you move up the list. when downloads are trending down, you move down the list. click-to-download ratio does matter. that is, if five buyers view your app page and only one downloads it, that is a 20% click-to-download ratio. reviews and ratings do matter. no matter how many downloads you have, if your ratings are poor, the store does not want to list you. now we can discuss things you can do in your self-promotions that can help you improve downloads and increase visibility so you can self-perpetuate on the list. stand out from the competition i would travel by automobile four or more times a year for ten to twelve hours. wherever i got low on gasoline, there were many options for gas stations. but, i always chose the same brand because i knew it would have clean restrooms and friendly service. no matter how special or unique you think your app is, there will be competition. whether you have a single android app, a suite of android tools or dozens of watch or theme designs, how you present your company on social media and in the store is important. reduce the competition did you know that the placement on a grocery store shelf is paid for by the manufacturers? they pay to have the eye level shelf so consumers don’t see the competition. badges do this for online promotions. one of the most important things you can do in social media promotion is to use badges so consumers go directly to your product. by using badges, the consumer is taken directly to your software and does not see similar products as they would in a store search. the use of badges affects your click-to-download ratio as well as customer satisfaction. samsung documentation on galaxy store badges lists all the who, what, when, where and how to create and use galaxy store badges effectively. know who your consumer is a man noticed a stranger had been looking at the street under a street light for 15 minutes, so he walked up and asked him what he was looking for. the stranger said, “i dropped my keys when i got out of my car and i am looking for them.” not seeing a car, the man asked where the car was and the stranger pointed to a dark area half a city block away. “why are you looking here, if you dropped the keys there?” the man asked. the reply was “because here is where the light is.” in order to generate downloads, you need to know where the consumer is and not where it is convenient to market the product. if you have a camera app, promote yourself in a photography interest group, not in a mobile phone group. understand your customers, who they are and what devices they use. if your apps are selling well in france, be sure there are localized descriptions in french and that the price is localized in euros. gss customer data helps you target consumers and the marketing materials that are the most effective use of your resources. knowing your customer will directly affect your downloads, raise trending downloads, as well better customer satisfaction. inspire downloads there is a term used in marketing, cta, which stands for a call to action. it means words like “on sale,” “buy now,” and “new and improved” that inspire the consumer to purchase and purchase quickly. there are also subtle ways to inspire or use call-to-action in the ad copy that you write and the images that you use. if you have a fitness app, show people with a smile working out, not a bunch of charts on a mobile phone. show images and written text so consumers will think their life will be better with your app tailor your social media have you ever read a technical manual written by someone who is not fluent in your language and wondered what the documentation said? ninety percent of the world is like that. if you aren’t fluent in the written language, find someone who is. they should either write or proofread the descriptions for you. create social media ads that make your product inviting and entices them to download it. do not be overly clever do not hinder downloading by hiding the download link in some clever wording; make it obvious. do not overdo the number of hashtags so they become confusing. do not include links to other web sites. every time someone clicks to a page other than downloading your app is a chance to lose the download. get positive reviews while i was sitting in a restaurant enjoying a cup of coffee, a few tables away, two men were talking. when i heard them mention shoes, i sort of listened in as i needed some athletic shoes and wanted something different. one man was complaining that his shoes had worn out in three months while the other was saying his were extremely comfortable, even after a year of having them. i didn’t know either of these people. i didn’t know the cause for the ones to wear out faster than the other. there could have been dozens of things that caused one pair of shoes to wear out quicker. but that complaint stuck in my mind, and when i bought shoes, i bought the shoes with the positive review. positive online reviews will increase the likelihood of an app being downloaded. but, lower ratings, when responded to correctly, may also increase the chance of an app being downloaded. consumers pay attention to reviews and read what people say. so, unlike my experience, they may know the circumstances why a review was poor and if you corrected it. wait to ask for a review. the initial use of an app may be off-putting; but after a few uses, the customer starts to understand the benefits of an app which may outweigh everything else. when you get a bad review, respond to the customer in a positive manner. samsung has documented best practices for asking for reviews and how to read and respond to reviews in the galaxy store app review page. review ratings and the speed of a response may be used by a store in the placement on a computer-generated list. one more lesson when i was young, we had a large snowfall and i wanted to build a snowman. i started out with a small ball and pushed it around and it got larger. i looked at my dad and said, “this is hard work. i don’t think i can make a snowman.” he said, “son, if you want to make a snowman you have to keep pushing it.” the same is true with increasing your downloads. you need to keep pushing until you are top of the list. tony morelan’s samsung developer podcast recently interviewed the founder of skimble, maria ly. skimble is the 2021 best of galaxy store awards winner for the mobile fitness app workout trainer. during the interview, maria discussed skimble's use of marketing techniques for discoverability and monetization. i was inspired by how she grew a small diverse start-up into a worldwide enterprise. additional resources samsung developer program and galaxy store seller portal have documented much of the marketing methods above and even more to help you be a successful developer in the following links: galaxy store distribute page is the overview page for android apps, tizen apps, android games, smart tv apps and podcasts. galaxy store app page helps from start to finish on creating, publishing and marketing your apps. galaxy store seller portal guides include technical information on implementing the marketing techniques in seller portal. stay in touch with the latest news by subscribing to our monthly newsletter and stay up-to-date on all things related to the galaxy ecosystem by joining us on our developer forum.
Ron Liechty
Develop Galaxy Watch for Tizen
doctrial periods a trial period lets a customer try your watch face for free for a limited time if your watch face includes features that are hard to describe in words or convey in a screenshot or youtube video, a trial period is a great way to have a customer experience your watch face first hand trial periods use samsung in-app purchase iap iap is a payment service that makes it possible to sell items in galaxy store and is seamlessly integrated into galaxy watch studio gws that is, just like designing a watch face with gws, setting up a trial period in gws does not require you to learn the code needed to implement this feature after you have completed your watch face design, add a trial period in gws and, optionally, test it requirements in order to use trial periods in your watch face, the following requirements must be met you must have a commercial seller account in seller portal your customer must be able to purchase watch face apps from galaxy store your customer can only download your watch face which includes a trial period to a samsung watch running tizen 2 3 2 3 or higher see compatibility for a list of compatible devices notetrial periods cannot be used with weather text components such as weather type, temperature, humidity, city name weather , and last update time weather about distributing your watch faces with a trial period as a seller, a key metric is to measure and maximize the conversion from free trial period to purchase however, the most common business model for app purchases for galaxy watch in 2019 was the paid app model—without a trial period in the majority of cases, the consumer assesses the paid app based on the screenshots and consumer reviews in galaxy store, buys it and then sees the app on the watch the try-and-buy model allows the user to test the app risk-free on the watch for a trial period before buying it because trial periods are configured using iap, take the following into consideration typically, an in-app purchase is used to provide additional features and functionality that may be purchased for an app in this case, the in-app purchase is used to purchase the app your watch face galaxy store may list your watch face as an “in-app purchase” item this categorization may be confusing to the consumer when using a trial period, you must set the price of your watch face to free in seller portal if you do not prominently display that your watch face has a trial period, a customer may feel as if they have been misled after downloading your watch face be sure to include wording in the app title about the trial period for example, “try and buy” when configuring iap settings in gws, you can choose to limit the consumer to one installation of your watch face, forcing the customer to purchase your watch face to continue using it; or reset the trial period when the watch face is re-installed, allowing the customer to re-install your watch face continuously and use it for free add a trial period to add a trial period to your watch face, you’ll need to set the in-app purchase settings for your watch face in gws select a test mode when you build your project in gws configure in-app purchase when you register your watch face in seller portal set in-app purchase settings in gws after you have finished designing your watch face, set the options for the trial period launch gws and open your watch face project click the in-app purchase settings icon in the toolbar or select project > in app purchase settings enter the following information in the in app purchase settings window field name description enable in app purchase select to enable a trial period for your watch face option select the action that occurs when a customer re-installs your watch face configured with a trial period this option is ignored when testing your watch face once trial is expired, unable to reuse app – when the trial period is over, the customer cannot re-install your watch face nor restart the trial period that is, once the trial period is over, the customer must purchase your watch face to continue to use it trial is reset when app is re-installed – the customer can re-install your watch face and restart the trial period that is, the customer can re-install your watch face continuously and use it for free free for the length of time of the trial period the time must be at least 1 minute and at most 999 days, 23 hours, and 59 minutes a field cannot be blank or empty that is, you must enter a value, even if it is 0 zero noteif you enter a value for minutes that is greater than 59, each multiple of 60 in the value is added to the hour value for example, if you enter 0 days, 1 hour, and 99 minutes, the period will be automatically set to 0 days, 2 hours, and 39 minutes likewise, if you enter a value for hours that is greater than 23, each multiple of 24 in the value is added to the day value if the day value is set to 999 and the hour value is greater than 23, the day value resets to 100 tipif you will be testing the trial period, set the time to 1 minute to have the trial period expire quickly item id an id you create that is made up of letters, numbers, or some special characters such as - \ _ the id is used when registering an in-app item for your watch face in seller portal this id must be unique from all other in-app item ids for the same watch face you can check for uniqueness when you register your watch face in seller portal however, you will only be using one in-app item id when setting a trial period for your watch face click ok build your project before you can register your watch face in seller portal, you must build your project in gws in gws, click the build icon in the toolbar , f10, or select project > build in the build project window, set the iap test mode commercial – you are ready to sell your watch face in galaxy store if the customer purchases your watch face after the trial period ends, the customer is charged for this purchase success test – test what happens when the trial period ends and a customer purchases your watch face after the trial period ends, the tester may purchase the watch face however, the tester is not charged for this purchase failure test – test what happens when the trial period ends and a customer does not purchase your watch face after the trial period ends, the tester cannot purchase the watch face complete the rest of the fields in the build project window and click build a tpk file is created and is available to download to seller portal by default, this file is located in the \users\ <user name>\gearwatchdesigner\workspace directory of your pc register your watch face in seller portal when you are ready to test or sell your watch face, you must register it in seller portal for more information about seller portal, refer to the [online guides][4] log in to seller portal click add new application click galaxy watch, select a default language, and click next noteif you are registering your first watch face, you will see a message for a design review request before you can submit your first watch face, it must be approved by the galaxy watch review team see watch face design review for more information in the app information tab, enter the application title, under category, select watch faces and a subcategory, then click save if you are preparing to test your watch face, you only need to complete these two fields if you are preparing to sell your watch face, you must fill in all required fields it is recommended that you include wording in the app title about the trial period for example, “try and buy” otherwise, your customers may be surprised and unhappy when their trial period ends click the binary tab and click add binary select the galaxy watch resolution s and google mobile service option, click upload, navigate to and select your tpk file, and click save remove all gear s2 devices from the selected devices see was your galaxy watch app submission rejected due to gear s2 incompatibility? here's a solution for more information click the country/region & price tab and verify that the watch face price is free or, set it to free and click save cautiondo not set the price to paid if you set the watch face price to paid, the customer must pay for your watch face when it is initially downloaded that is, the customer must pay for the trial period then, after the trial period expires, the customer must pay for the watch face again if he decides to purchase it the price for your watch face with a free trial period is set in the in app purchase tab click the in app purchase tab and click add item enter the item id the same item id you configured in the in-app purchase settings in gws and click check if the item id can be used, click yes then, enter the item title, description, and price click apply after entering the price the price is charged when the customer chooses to purchase your watch face after the trial period has expired optionally enter prices for individual countries then, click save notethe item title is displayed when the customer is purchasing your watch face after the trial period has expired if the item id cannot be used, you must re-set the item id you configured in gws from in-app purchase settings , re-build your project, replace the binary in seller portal, and add the in-app purchase item if you are testing your watch face, continue to the next section, test the trial period if you are preparing to sell your watch face, complete all the required sections in seller portal before you submit it for validation for more information about seller portal, refer to the online guides noteif you are testing your watch face, you only have to register it it does not need to be submitted test the trial period after you have registered your watch face in seller portal, you can run your design on a watch to test the trial period in order to test your watch face, you must have a supported samsung watch running tizen 2 3 2 3 or higher and the phone paired to the watch must have the galaxy wearable app installed launch gws and open your watch face project click the run on device icon in the toolbar , f9, or select project > run on device select the device on which to test your watch face the watch face is installed on your device if no devices are listed, click scan devices if gws can’t find your device, see the faq, why can’t i connect to my device? when the trial period has expired, you will see the following message on the watch if you selected success test for the iap test mode when you built your watch face in gws click purchase on your phone, click continue complete the purchase of your watch face you will not be charged if you selected failure test for the iap test mode when you built your watch face in gws click purchase the purchase fails the watch face displays the initial message “free trial period has already expired” long press the watch face and select to uninstall it importantafter testing, when you are ready to sell your watch face, in gws, you must reset the iap test mode to commercial and re-build your project then, in seller portal, replace the binary with this re-built project file and complete all the required fields before submitting your watch face for validation and distribution track downloads and purchases if you want to compare the number of downloads of your watch face to the number of in-app items purchased the purchase of your watch face after the trial period has expired , use seller portal statistics log in to seller portal and click statistics the galaxy store statistics system opens in another page from the galaxy store statistics system, go to applications in the upper right corner, there is a date range click on it and then set the date range selection to the period of time in which you want to track your app scroll to the bottom of the page above the list of apps, select the new downloads filter then locate your watch face to determine the number of downloads during the date range you selected select the item purchases filter then locate your watch face to determine the number of purchases made of your watch face noteremember how long you set your trial period you will not see any sales of your watch face for that length of time after your watch face first appears for sale in galaxy store
success story game, mobile
blogin this first blog of a two part series, maxim kirilenko, chief business development officer at playrix, chats with samsung developer's senior marketing manager, jeanne hsu, about playrix and gardenscapes tm. jeanne hsu (jh): welcome maxim. how did your professional journey lead you to playrix? maxim kirilenko (mk): thank you. i've been in the gaming industry since 2007. i started off at the korean company gravity, working on pc games like ragnarök online and requiem online. i've come a long way in the industry since then—from quality assurance manager to executive director at a game publisher in russia. i also worked as director of business development for an it company doing internet advertising for a while. for three years, i helped the company penetrate foreign markets and launch new services in indonesia, brazil, poland, and thailand, to name a few. i was always fond of games and had played playrix's gardenscapes. while i was working in it, i was recruited by playrix. i realized i had wanted to return back to gaming, my passion. so in 2018, i joined playrix as head of marketing growth. i worked in business development in marketing originally until i combined it with business development in general. now i lead the business development and m&a (merger and acquisition) teams. jh: what's the history of playrix? mk: our team has been developing games since 2004, but the founders of playrix, dmitry and igor bukhman, started making games even earlier, back when they were still in school. by 2010, the company had released several successful pc games. around that time, they started developing social network games. the first facebook game, township, was released in 2012 and immediately made the top 50. it was also the first project to be released as a mobile game later on. the mobile version of fishdom came out in 2015, which is when the company became the leading mobile game developer in eastern europe. jh: i like your strategy. in 2004, your focus was pc games and then you switched to mobile in 2015. mk: in 2016, playrix released gardenscapes, which was the first game in our famous scapes series. the company was actively growing, and in 2018, we came to the conclusion that it was time to build new partnerships. so we started developing our m&a [merger and acquisition] strategy, and over the past four years, 13 studios from armenia, serbia, ukraine, russia, and belarus have joined the playrix group of companies. in 2020, playrix placed in the top three for leading game publishers worldwide according to app annie, and last year we climbed to second place. [app annie has been renamed data.ai] jh: that's amazing! what do you attribute to your success? mk: it was not random. we originally started with pc games, then social and web versions. next we switched to mobile. the switch to mobile really accelerated our rapid growth. growing with the m&a strategy and adding talented people really helped create aaa titles which accounts for our rapid growth. we want to keep focusing on creating more innovative games and new genres. jh: where is playrix located, and where do you live? mk: playrix employees can work remotely from anywhere or from one of our 17 offices located in ireland, ukraine, belarus, russia, serbia, kazakhstan, and armenia. i live in dublin, ireland, playrix's headquarters. jh: how many employees work at playrix? mk: playrix now employs more than 4,000 people, and that number continues to grow. jh: how did covid impact the team? mk: playrix has a hybrid approach that people can work from anywhere—the office, their home, the beach, anywhere in the world. our department had 50% were working remotely in their home offices or in other countries. we wanted to maintain that culture. after covid hit, we maintained the same approach. in dublin only 30% of the staff works in the office, others could be remote. they may decide they didn't want to commute during the winter when it's rainy season here. people could decide to work from home or other remote places and we didn't really have to make many changes to our work environment. we believe people can innovate in whatever space they want. jh: how did your relationship with samsung start? mk: in 2018, we met and befriended the samsung team at a local game dev conference, white nights in st. petersburg. we met the samsung u.s. and korea teams, which has resulted in a fruitful cooperation; five playrix games, including gardenscapes, were released in the galaxy store in december 2020. i'm in touch with a lot of samsung teams from the u.s., korea, and europe. playrix gardenscapes jh: playrix won the best of galaxy store award - best casual game 2021 for gardenscapes. what does it mean to win this award? mk: we were surprised and thrilled to receive this award. it's the result of close collaboration and hard work from both the samsung and playrix teams. it's really a mutual award between playrix and samsung. jh: in what ways have you promoted winning this award? mk: we announced this across our social channels on facebook and instagram, even on austin's page! austin, the butler, has his own page on instagram. he's very social with the players and actively posts about his life. he shared news how his favorite game (gardenscapes) received this award from samsung. players were excited. it increased player loyalty too. internally, we were all excited and congratulated each other. it was really good news for all of us! we also displayed our samsung badges and redesigned our website. we use our website to talk about our company, promote our awards, and recruit others. but we don't promote the award on mobile; we want our players to have the best experience possible, focused on the game. we have one unified loading screen no matter what the country or platform. jh: what drives your team at playrix? mk: our development team is focused on making the highest quality product that brings joy to millions of users around the world. we try to maintain players' interest in the product on a daily basis with additional content like themed events. jh: how did playrix come up with the game gardenscapes? mk: originally gardenscapes was a pc hidden object game—to beat levels, you had to open rooms, and search for items to help austin the butler restore the dilapidated mansion and garden. while developing the mobile version, the visuals of the game changed, but the mechanics stayed the same. the user still had to open rooms and could even change the outfit of the game's main character, austin the butler. during the soft launch, the metrics were alright, but they weren't groundbreaking. around 2014, at our annual company conference playrixcon, one of the teams suggested combining мatch-3 mechanics with the gardenscapes storyline during a creative contest. we decided to test the idea. the first game prototype was named green dream, and it was later soft-launched. the metrics were off the charts! in just six months, the hidden object mechanics were replaced with match-3 levels. the mobile game was later released in its updated form, in july 2016. with more players using their smartphones, we noticed hidden objects were more difficult to find in the condensed space vs. on a large pc display. we realized we could bring in more players by shifting from hidden objects to the match-3 concept. this was a major turning point for us. jh: how did you come up with the character austin the butler? mk: initially, the technical assignment was rather vague: "a butler, colonial style, should appeal to our target audience." the first sketches of austin were rather clichéd, so we started thinking about what would evoke warm feelings in players. we decided to draw inspiration from icons of the 60s and 70s, namely the beatles, to resonate with our target audience's memories of their youth. so that's how austin got his mustache and sideburns and started looking a bit like ringo starr. the suspenders, bow tie, and baldness added to his aristocratic image. but looks aren't the main reason why austin is so popular. he's mostly beloved for his personality—he has his own opinions and desires, he makes mistakes just like everybody else, and he can get nostalgic or crack a joke. jh: that's interesting austin was inspired by the beatles. that would appeal to many gamers. [austin was created 10 years ago by the game design team.] jh: what inspired the scapes series? mk: we wanted to create a game that would bring joy to millions of users around the world and distract them from the monotony of daily routines. it's our idea of a warm and cozy place, where you can relax by tending to the garden and renovating the surrounding area. and i think we achieved our goal. [playrix has gardenscapes, homescapes, farmscapes, and wildscapes as part of the scapes series.] game ideas, discoverability, and reach jh: how many games has playrix published, and how many are in galaxy store? mk: playrix has published seven mobile games in total, five of which are in galaxy store. [gardenscapes, homescapes, fishdom, township, and manor matters] jh: where do you get game ideas? mk: our game producers are open to new ideas that appear in the market—we keep track of new games of various genres, not only casual ones, and we are always ready to experiment. this applies both to game events and mechanics. our strategy is to stay abreast of what's going on in the market, explore the ever-changing preferences of users, and not be afraid to try new things. we have a fairly large game development team, which includes game designers and producers—these are creative people who not only draw ideas from their own imagination, but also closely follow trends and audience interests, and are not afraid to experiment. they could have mini-brainstorms, major brainstorms, thinking about new games. our goal is not to produce as many games as possible, but rather we are focused to create aaa games, games with high quality. that's why we don't focus on brainstorms as much. we also see gardenscapes as not just a match-3 game with decorations and a story line, but as an entertainment platform. for example, within gardenscapes, players can also play other genres as a mini-event; they can play mini-games like mini puzzles, collapse mechanics, merge mechanics. it's an entertainment platform. jh: so people could be online all day! those mini-games increase even more engagement. mk: yes, that's true! people could spend a whole day gaming. about a year ago during the pandemic, we received a lot of thanks from our customers. they appreciated our games. they didn't experience mental problems or depression being in stuck at home and started to get involved with austin's story and his family. it was a mini journey in a fantasy world. they were able to derive a lot of positive energy to overcome the tough lockdowns in the real world. jh: that's a great message, a very positive experience. the growth of gardenscapes and the other scapes games must have exploded. mk: yes, since people were in lockdown, they were looking for other things to do. we had "free to play" games. new customers started to play and joined our established core audience. with the samsung team, we were able to offer gardenscapes, homescapes, and other games at an opportune time via galaxy store. we feel we've brought a very positive input to the whole gaming world. jh: that's excellent. what was your ranking before and during the pandemic? mk: we were in the top 5 before and now we are in the top 2 or 3! one day we hope to be #1. it's definitely going in the right direction. jh: what is the workflow when designing, developing, and publishing a game? mk: our work processes don't differ significantly from those adopted by other companies. when our producers come up with an idea, they pass it on to the development team. they then implement a prototype of the game, which we first test internally to see how interested we are in developing it further. we do "soft launches" to a small external audience to test the games. we also use different marketing tools during internal testing to assess how the user will play the game. if it successfully passes this stage, we create a plan to support and develop the game—we plan new levels, in-game events that can be timed to national and international holidays, and launch the game. jh: what's your criteria for success? how do you determine if a new game will become a aaa game? mk: we measure the basic metrics of the game. we look at retention metrics: at day 1, 7, 14, 30, etc. based on these metrics, we can predict how many will continue playing the game after 30 days after download. we also look at pay metrics: the number of players who will pay in the game, the number of payments, login frequency, etc. plus, we look at the metrics from our established games and compare them to predict the next aaa game. jh: how long does it take to go from concept to published? mk: at playrix, we want to develop very high-quality games that will bring players joy for a long time, which is why we don't set any internal deadlines for development. it all depends on the specific game—we spend as much time on each title as we need to make it a aaa hit. jh: with all the competition for games, what has been your strategy for discoverability (for a new game) within galaxy store? mk: we use in-store support from the samsung team to show a new game will be visible and promote it at the maximum level in galaxy store. we also use promotional activity outside the store using our resources, such as social channels like instagram and some marketing campaigns. jh: how many downloads/users has gardenscapes had? mk: today, gardenscapes is one of our top hit games—more than 50,000 people play it every day on samsung devices, and the number of mau [monthly active users] has reached 250,000 users. jh: on your website, it says playrix is the 2nd successful mobile game developer in terms of revenue. what has been your strategy for generating revenue? mk: when the game you're working on is fun to play, its financial success depends on two factors—operation and marketing. the most amazing game with the perfect narrative won't succeed without good marketing. however, even if you invest a bunch of resources into marketing a bad game, it will still fail, which is why we pay close attention to both aspects. we're constantly looking for new creative concepts and testing marketing hypotheses, and the metrics tell us that our approach works. we also frequently introduce successful mini-game mechanics into our games that were previously only used in advertising. find out more about playrix in part 2 of this series. additional resources on the samsung developers site the samsung developers site has many resources for developers looking to build for and integrate with samsung devices and services. stay in touch with the latest news by creating a free account and subscribing to our monthly newsletter. visit the marketing resources page for information on promoting and distributing your apps. finally, our developer forum is an excellent way to stay up-to-date on all things related to the galaxy ecosystem.
Jeanne Hsu
Distribute Galaxy Store
docto get started in galaxy store, you'll need a samsung account that you register with seller portal and then you can apply for commercial seller status get started in galaxy store before you can begin to sell or distribute your apps in galaxy store, you'll need to complete some basic tasks sign up for a samsung account access to seller portal is dependent on access to this account register with seller portal apply for commercial seller status noteif you plan to have more than one person manage the apps registered in a seller portal account, you can set up a manager account for each person in order to be given manager account permissions, each person must be registered with seller portal manager accounts are not required to have commercial seller status sign up for a samsung account in order to register with seller portal, you will need to create a samsung account here are some tips for when you sign up for a samsung account the email address that you use to create your samsung account is the email address that you will use to log in to seller portal if you are applying for commercial seller status the seller portal account from which you are distributing free or paid apps must have commercial seller status , the email address should use a private or company domain name, not a public domain for example, don't use a gmail or yahoo email account if you must use an email account with a public domain, you will need to explain why when you apply for commercial seller status if you are signing up for a samsung account in order to register for a manager account in seller portal, you may use an email address that uses a public domain the only way to update the password and email address associated with your seller portal account is to update this information in your samsung account the country or region in your samsung account profile determines the country/region in your seller portal profile verify that this is set correctly in your samsung account before registering with seller portal you cannot change this in seller portal after registering your seller portal account if you lose access to your samsung account, you will also lose access to seller portal we recommend you set up a samsung account using an organization alias so that your samsung account can be accessed by more than one person go to https //seller samsungapps com/ and click sign up now blue box in the upper right click sign in with samsung account click create account located between the "next" and "sign in with google" buttons review all of the terms and notices and select the checkbox to agree to them, select any or none of the additional options, and click agree you must agree to all of the terms and notices in order to create a samsung account enter the required information and click next a verification code is sent to the email account you used to create your samsung account go to that email's inbox to get the verification code after you successfully enter the verification code, your samsung account is created if you signed up using the url listed in step 1, you are taken to the seller portal registration page go to the next section for more information about seller portal registration register with seller portal seller portal is a service used to register, publish, manage, and promote your apps in galaxy store if you want to distribute your apps in galaxy store, you must use seller portal to register with seller portal, go to https //seller samsungapps com/, click sign up now, and sign in using your samsung account follow the online instructions to register for a seller portal account see seller portal registration for more information about registering with seller portal here are some tips regarding your registration with seller portal type of member a private seller is if you are being added as a manager account to another seller portal account or if you do not plan to distribute apps you may apply for commercial seller status if you later decide to distribute apps from this account a corporate seller is if you want to sell your apps under a company name name the name entered in seller portal must match what is provided in your financial information when you apply for commercial seller status and must exactly match the provided government id if your government id has a first, middle, and last name, because the seller portal application form doesn’t have a field for your middle name, enter both your first and middle name in the “first name” field country/region if you are using an existing samsung account, you cannot change your country information after seller portal registration verify that this is set correctly in your samsung account before registering with seller portal the country in your seller portal profile must match your financial institution's country when you apply for commercial seller status other your seller name, company name, representative's name for a commercial seller , phone number, address, privacy policy url and support email are displayed in the overview section of galaxy store, accessible from the app details page apply for commercial seller status if you want to distribute free or paid apps in galaxy store, you must have commercial seller status if you are being added as a manager account in seller portal, commerical seller status is not required see commercial seller request for corporate sellers or commercial seller request for private sellers for more information there are many ways to start your application for commercial seller status here are a few when you log in, you may see this pop-up window click ok and another pop-up asking if you will be using a d‑u‑n‑s number displays see the tips in the business verification section below for tips about d‑u‑n‑s or how to apply without d‑u‑n‑s after you log in to seller portal, on the main screen in the upper right corner, click the request corporate commercial seller button the notice pop-up, described above, displays after you log in to seller portal, go to your profile page click profile in the header in the seller status section, click the request corporate commercial seller button the notice pop-up, described above, displays tips when applying for commercial seller status here are some tips regarding your commercial seller request name if you are a private seller, the name must match the name in your seller portal profile and the account holder name provided in the financial information section company name if you are a corporate seller, the company name must match the account holder name provided in the financial information section financial information using paypal is the easiest method for financial information verify your banking information is correct if the seller portal team can’t verify your banking information, your application will not be approved if you are a private seller, the account holder name must match the name in your seller portal profile and the name you provided in the basic information section if you are a corporate seller, the account holder name must match the company name the country of your financial institution must match the country in your seller portal profile all submitted information and documents must be in english or korean, if you are a citizen of south korea by request, many banks can provide a statement in english if you cannot open a bank account and paypal is not available, contact the seller portal team and ask if another option is available see how to contact the seller portal team see entering account information in the seller portal guide business verification business verification is easiest using d‑u‑n‑s if you are in the u s or canada, you can apply for your d‑u‑n‑s number here https //www dnb com/duns/get-a-duns html if you are outside of the u s , you can contact the dun & bradstreet dnb international office in your area you can find the global customer service centers here https //www dnb com/utility-pages/global-customer-service-centers html if you know the agency you need to work with, you may be able to find a link to them here https //www dnb com/duns/google-developers-duns-creation html note that outside of the u s , you may have to pay for your d‑u‑n‑s number if you cannot get a d‑u‑n‑s number, get a dba doing business as or other documentation your country uses all submitted information and documents must be in english or korean, if you are a citizen of south korea contact the seller portal team see how to contact the seller portal team and ask how to apply for commercial seller status if you don't have a d‑u‑n‑s number if using d‑u‑n‑s, if you add a business/industry description that is not related to app development because your business does more than app development, you will be asked to "provide an explanation of the type of application or game that you are planning to release in galaxy store and how your company industry aligns to it" in a follow-up submission to seller portal that is, describe the app s you plan to distribute, then explain why you chose the business/industry description in your profile and how it relates to the apps you plan to distribute if using d‑u‑n‑s, verify that all of your contact information in your d‑u‑n‑s profile is correct and complete for example, be sure to enter a valid phone number if using d‑u‑n‑s, verify all fields in your d‑u‑n‑s profile use standard english characters dnb's lookup api, used by seller portal to get your d‑u‑n‑s information, cannot parse non-english characters if you update information in your d‑u‑n‑s profile, it may take 2-5 business days for changes to be made globally across all dnb sites and up to 2 weeks for international agencies after waiting 5-10 business days for the changes to be made across all dnb sites, resubmit your d‑u‑n‑s to seller portal see submitting documents in the seller portal guide representative's name the representative's name is the contact person for your company, a person who can be contacted if any legal issues come up this must be the name of a person, not an email address nor the name of your business if you are using d‑u‑n‑s for your business verification and this name needs to be updated, you must update this field from your d‑u‑n‑s profile if the representative's name is blank in seller portal, verify you have entered a name in the key principal/principal name field in your d‑u‑n‑s profile seller portal uses the key principal from your d‑u‑n‑s profile to fill in this field you must enter a person's name as the key principal/principal name, not an email address nor the name of your business other if you are using an email account with a public domain, you must explain why you must use this type of email account in your application if you have commercial seller status in play store, mention it if you are a themes-only seller you will not be selling android apps , specify that in the application approval process it can take several days to be approved for commercial seller status it can take up to 10 business days to verify your d‑u‑n‑s number it can take up to 10 business days to verify your international bank account if you receive an email from the seller portal team, please read it closely to see if they are asking you to add or update information you have provided and if you need to resubmit your application if you receive a rejection email, read it carefully it should tell you why your application was rejected/what needs to be fixed if there is no explanation, contact the seller portal team for more information see how to contact the seller portal team if it has been more than 2-3 weeks since you have submitted your commercial seller application, contact the seller portal team and ask if there was something wrong with your application see how to contact the seller portal team how to contact the seller portal team log in to seller portal click help -> contact us click contact us at the customer center located near the bottom of the page if a pop-up with "did you mean samsung com?" appears, close the pop-up
FAQ game, smarttv
docsamsung checkout q&a this topic solves various issues you may face while creating applications that use samsung checkout service select the applicable section to see the most common questions about a specific subject, and click the section heading to access all the available questions for that subject faq search form search before submitting your application for samsung software quality assurance sqa q1 after developing the application with samsung checkout on the staging environment, i've found that it does not work properly on the operating environment what should i do? there are a few mistakes that are frequently made by the developer, check the list below to ensure that you followed the process correctly check that you have registered your product for the operating zone from the dpi portal your product needs to be registered in both staging and operating zones ensure that the application detects the service environment and sets the dpi api url and server type accordingly you can find more information under "prerequisites > 4 initialize the required variables > 4 4 set the dpi url and service environment depending on the server type" section in implementing the purchase process tv#samsung checkout#staging zone#operating zone#dpi portal#register application development issues q2 my application is getting the following error “[payresult] cancel” how can i send a question to samsung checkout team? below you can find a sample email that you can send to us through the samsung apps tv seller office 1 1 q&a section tv#error#tv seller office q3 i got the following error in response to the api "/billing/service/v2/paymethods/md" as { "status" "0410424", "result" "оформление покупки не поддерживается [da-0219-a7af33]", "resultlongmesg" "unavailable service support country ", "resulttitle" "недоступно" } what's wrong? the "md" at the end is the country code for "md moldova, republic of", which is not a supported country for the samsung checkout service to see all the list of country where samsung checkout is supported, go to the "country and currency codes" section in implementing the purchase process tv#error#country code q4 can i test how samsung checkout client works without registering the product on dpi? yes, you can use the information below in your test application to see how samsung checkout client works on the tv before using this information, set your tv's country setting to a supported country like the us in addition, make sure that the test information is only used at the development stage before setting up your own dpi, it must not be used in any real service parameter value appid 3201504002021 paymentserver dev paymentdetails orderitemid dp111000001962 ordertitle 0708_consumable ordertotal 1 5 ordercurrencyid usd table 1 buyitem method request parameters sample code var appid = "3201504002021"; var paymentserver = "dev"; var detailobj = new object ; detailobj orderitemid = "dp111000001962"; detailobj ordertitle = "0708_consumable"; detailobj ordertotal = "1 5"; detailobj ordercurrencyid = "usd"; detailobj ordercustomid = ""; var paymentdetails = json stringify detailobj ; var onsuccess = function data { }; var onerror = function error { }; webapis billing buyitem appid, paymentserver, paymentdetails, onsuccess, onerror ; tv#samsung checkout#register#dpi portal q5 if a user purchases a product which has only been made available in a single country, can that purchase be returned using the "invoice/list" endpoint even if it is using a different country code than the one the user purchased the product in? yes the response for "invoice/list" does not consider the country code of the api request parameter, it returns all of the purchases what the buyer has purchased regardless of country tv#purchase#refund#country code#endpoint q6 is there a checklist that i can follow in order to check if my application is integrating with samsung checkout api properly? yes, below is the minimum checklist for integration with samsung checkout, you can test each item in the checklist to make sure your application works properly when purchasing the product when the samsung checkout client is launched, it shows the loading by itself, no graphical overlapping should exist in user experiences during the transition for example, a 3rd party application should not show loading when launching the samsung checkout client check the purchase process based on the type of product consumable/dynamic item type the user should be able to use the appropriate payment method to buy the item, and the title and price on the purchase page should be same as intended subscription/free trial item type in addition to the above, the user should be able to see the next payment date or relevant information of the subscription item check the post-purchase process in the 3rd party application does the 3rd party application reflect the result of a purchase in the application properly after completing the purchase process? both the success case for a purchase and other cases should be handled is there any overlap when screen is switched from the samsung checkout client to the 3rd party application? check the purchase history based on the type of product go to the "tv menu > samsung account > payment info" to see the subscription or purchase history the user needs to be able to check the purchase history or subscriptions of the item the user needs to be able to check subscription details check the user purchase history from the user buyer portal to make sure the history is properly updated after making a purchase, go to the samsung checkout website and check whether your status is updated properly test for exceptions turn off the tv while the purchase is in progress and checks if any inappropriate status is observed for example, go to the "tv menu > samsung account > payment info" to see the subscriptions or purchase history after completing the purchase of the item, turn the tv off and on again and run the 3rd party application to see if the previous purchase is still in active status tv#checklist#api integration dpi portal usage guide from the dpi portal, partners can register and manage products for sale and access the transaction history logs and sales reports for the applications they own q7 how do price changes work? if you want to change the price of an existing item, go to the dpi site and select "app > product list on the left side > product id" from there, you can change the product price for countries where it is necessary to select a tax category, you need permission from the samsung administrator to change the price prices you set can be changed after three months and you must notify the consumers of the new price tv#price change#dpi portal q8 can we have a unique product for each country? when a buyer purchases a specific product which is sold in multiple countries, they have the right to access any of those versions therefore, if you want to give a right for the purchase only within a single country, you need to register products separately for each country the product id needs to be different tv#product id#register q9 are security keys tied to the appid value? for example, if we have 2 applications each with their own id, will each one have its own securitykey? this is correct, security keys are bound to the appid tv#security key#application id q10 when we login on the dpi site, our application is not listed on it how can we add it? when you enroll your application on the seller site, you need to check the appropriate options for using samsung checkout refer to the picture below tv#dpi portal#unlisted application q11 how long does it take to get approval to use the dpi site? for the staging zone development , approval takes a maximum of 2 days for the operating zone, contract terms and conditions need to be finalized between you and samsung before approval can be granted tv#approval#staging zone#operating zone operation of your service this section explains the issues related to the operation of your service q12 can i use samsung checkout service for hotel tv applications? no, samsung checkout service is available on only samsung smart tvs htv#hotel tv application#samsung checkout q13 can i use my tv to test samsung checkout? i bought samsung smart tv around 2016 yes, samsung checkout service is available since the 2016 samsung smart tv range however, the latest features are guaranteed to function only for the last three years, and there may be a difference in the functionality of each year tv#samsung checkout testing q14 does samsung send push notifications, e-mail, or any sort of messaging to users throughout the service lifecycle free trial, subscribe, cancel ? samsung sends an e-mail to users who buy items, subscribe, cancel, and refund in addition, samsung sends a notice e-mail to users whose subscription item payment has failed tv#notice emails q15 is there any additional information you can pass along on error response codes for the billing api, such as what the response is if the checkvalue is incorrect? yes, you can find additional information at the following page dpi > support > error code tv#billing api#error code q16 what happens to current users who are in the middle of their subscription, when cp changes the price? will the user get some notification when they renew next time? no the service provider must relay this information to the buyers before the changes are made, because samsung checkout does not send price change notifications to buyers who subscribe to subscription products tv#price change#notification q17 does the samsung checkout charge users based on local currency, or based on the credit card that is used? for example, can you pay with us credit card in columbia? will the card be charged in local currency, or in usd? you will be charged in local currency tv#local currency q18 what are "customid" and "ordercustomid"? "customid" and "ordercustomid" have the same value "customid" also uses the same value as "ordercustomid" when calling buyitem if you have a unique id, use it if not, use the samsung account uid tv#customid#ordercustomid q19 how is the provider's user account data matched with samsung checkout's transaction list? this is done using "ordercustomid" if the provider has a user account, they can put the value in the "ordercustomid" parameter when calling the buyitem api this value is mapped to the transaction list's "order custom id" column tv#ordercustomid#transaction list product type this section includes information related to product types that can be purchased using the samsung checkout service limited period q20 in the response data of the "invoice/list" api, are `period`, `appliedtime`, `limitendtime`, and `remaintime` always present for `invoicedetails` objects that have an `itemtype` of limited period? yes tv#limited period#invoice details#item type q21 in the api spec document for the response data of "invoice/list" api, `limitendtime` is listed as "limited period product end time, in 14-digit utc time" does this mean that the field is not mandatory, that it should either exist and be a 14-digit string, or that it should not exist? no, limitendtime must exist when a limited period product is applied tv#limited period#limited end time q22 from the response data of "invoice/list" api, what is the expected value of the `limitendtime` field when a purchase hasn’t been applied yet? it appears that for limited period item purchases that have not been applied `itemtype` is "3" , the `limitendtime` field is set to "" correct limitendtime is calculated based on the date and time when the purchase is applied tv#limited period#limited end time#item type subscription q23 in the response data of the "invoice/list" api, is `subscriptioninfo` ever present for `invoicedetails` objects that do not have an `itemtype` of subscription? subscriptioninfo is shown only when itemtype is subscription tv#subscription info#invoice details#item type q24 does an invoiceid ever change, or is it static? if a new purchase is made, does it always generate a new invoiceid? the invoiceid is generated when the buyer subscribes to a product for regular payment however, subscriptionid is generated only when the buyer subscribes a product for the first time samsung checkout uses the first invoiceid as the subscriptionid and it is never updated tv#invoiceid#subscriptionid q25 does subscription end date `subsendtime` get updated as soon as a user has been successfully billed for the upcoming period of the subscription? no, the subscription end date subsendtime describes the expiry time of this subscription not nextpaymenttime tv#subscription end time q26 how is a month defined in subscriptions? calendar month or 30/31 days? calendar month the next month's payment is made on the same day of the month as the day the consumer first applied for the subscription for example, if the consumer applied for a subscription on november 14th, the next payment is made on december 14th for months that don't have a day corresponding to the settlement date such as the 31st , payment is made at the end of the month tv#calendar month#subscription q27 would the canceling of a subscription/closing of the account automatically trigger a refund at samsung checkout? no even if the consumer withdraws their samsung account or cancels a subscription to the regular payment, this does not refund any payments already charged on the next settlement date, the subscription status is changed from 'active' to 'expired', and regular payment is stopped tv#subscription#samsung account#cancel#refund
Develop Samsung Internet
docweb development guide samsung internet for android provides many features to make browsing smooth and convenient on samsung galaxy devices here are some tips to make your web sites fully utilize our features, supported since the indicated version in each section the latest stable version is 6 2 samsung internet for android 6 x css grid version 6 0 introduced support for css grid, enabling web developers to better control how elements are arranged in multiple rows and columns to get started with grid, here is a guide which features examples for common responsive layouts samsung internet for android 5 x progressive web app indication badge since version 5 2, samsung internet detects when the page being viewed is a progressive web app, i e if the user can add it to their home screen and launch it as a standalone web application, even if they are offline if this is the case, the usual bookmark star icon in the url bar will be dynamically changed to a special 'plus' icon this provides a shortcut to add the web app to the homescreen, as well as bookmark it the criteria we use to display the icon are as follows the site is served over https the site registers a service worker the site registers a web app manifest the web app manifest has name or short_name the web app manifest has start_url the web app manifest has an icon where size is at least 144x144 the web app manifest has display set to 'standalone' or 'fullscreen' the exact criteria may be subject to change in the future samsung dex since v5 2, samsung internet supports samsung dex, providing a desktop browsing experience it is recommended to use responsive design to ensure that your site works well in larger desktop windows if you need to determine whether your site is being viewed in dex, you can check the user-agent string here is an example user-agent string when the browser is in dex mode mozilla/5 0 x11; linux x86_64 applewebkit/537 36 khtml, like gecko samsungbrowser/5 2 chrome/51 0 2704 106 safari/537 36 for comparison, here is an example user-agent string for the mobile browser not in dex mode mozilla/5 0 linux; android 7 0; samsung sm-g935f build/nrd90m applewebkit/537 36 khtml, like gecko samsungbrowser/5 0 chrome/51 0 2704 106 mobile safari/537 36 the progressive web app indication badge also applies to samsung internet for dex progressive web apps can have their own icon in the tray and on the desktop they can be launched in a standalone, resizable window, without the url bar the same criteria for the badge apply as above web payments and samsung pay since version 5 0, samsung internet supports the payment request api, providing a consistent, easy-to-use and secure check-out experience samsung internet also supports samsung pay as a payment method, subject to samsung pay availability by location see here for further details closeby introduced in version 5 2, closeby is samsung’s physical web service, allowing you to discover contextual websites based on the locations around you closeby detects physical web beacons that broadcast web pages using the eddystone-url format to enable closeby and see the list of beacons around you, see the extensions menu while enabled, you may see a silent notification displayed when nearby beacons are detected for a beacon to be displayed by closeby, the page that the url resolves to must be served over https must not be blocked by robots txt must not include malicious contents/ malware must be found and reachable, without timing out must not have an ssl certificate error must not be empty samsung internet for android 4 x custom tabs apps often need to provide users with a way to view web pages previously this required embedding a webview inside your app, or launching a browser and making the user come back to your app later since samsung internet for android 4 0, app developers can have more control over the overall web experience without using android webview, by launching a lightweight custom tab the followings are customizable for custom tabs menu items toolbar color samsung internet custom tabs service connection client apps can use the sample code below for connecting to custom tabs service provided if bindservice throws an exception, custom tabs is not supported in the installed version the package name must be set to samsung internet’s package name i e "com sec android app sbrowser" // package name of samsung internet public static final string samsung_internet_package_name = "com sec android app sbrowser"; // action for the service intent public static final string custom_tabs_connection = "android support customtabs action customtabsservice"; intent serviceintent = new intent custom_tabs_connection ; serviceintent setpackage samsung_internet_package_name ; context bindservice serviceintent, mserviceconnection, context bind_auto_create | context bind_waive_priority ; launching a custom tab once binding the custom tabs service, you can use an action\_view intent to launch a custom tab from your app // package name of samsung internet public static final string samsung_internet_package_name = "com sec android app sbrowser"; // action for the service intent public static final string custom_tabs_connection = "android support customtabs action customtabsservice"; intent serviceintent = new intent custom_tabs_connection ; serviceintent setpackage samsung_internet_package_name ; context bindservice serviceintent, mserviceconnection, context bind_auto_create | context bind_waive_priority ; customizing menu items client apps can add customized menu items to the custom tab the menu items are added using an array of bundles that consist of menu texts and pending intents // key for title string for custom menu item public static final string custom_tabs_menu_title = "android support customtabs customaction menu_item_title"; // key for pending intent public static final string custom_tabs_pending_intent = "android support customtabs customaction pending_intent"; // array list is used for specifying menu related params public static final string custom_tabs_extra_menu_items = "android support customtabs extra menu_items"; arraylist menuitembundlelist = new arraylist<bundle> ; // separate bundle for each menu item bundle menuitem = new bundle ; menuitem putstring custom_tabs_menu_title, menuitemtitle ; menuitem putparcelable custom_tabs_pending_intent, pendingintent ; menuitembundlelist add menuitem ; intent putparcelablearraylist custom_tabs_extra_menu_items, menuitembundlelist ; customizing toolbar color the color of the custom tab’s tool bar can be changed to be in sync in caller apps’ theme using intent extra // intent extra for changing the color for tool bar color of type int indicates a color private static final string custom_tabs_toolbar_color = "android support customtabs extra toolbar_color"; intent putextra custom_tabs_toolbar_color, color ; service worker service worker support was introduced in samsung internet for android 4 0, based on chromium 44 2403 with some additions and changes additions client manipulation client id windowclient navigate url navigator serviceworker serviceworkercontainer getregistrations registration serviceworkerregistration update that returns a promise cache cache addall requests cache matchall request, options changes client manipulation client postmessage message, transfer will result in a serviceworkermessageevent being fired on navigator serviceworker instead of a messageevent being fired on the client’s global window object clients matchall returns clients in mru order registration serviceworkerregistration update will only bypass the browser cache if the previous update check occurred over 24 hours ago cache api cache api is restricted to secure origins can be only used with https fetch related fetch api request flags for navigation requests have been changed from <mode "no-cors", credentials "same-origin"> to <mode "same-origin", credentials "include", redirect "manual"> fetchevent respondwith accepts cors responses for page loading or worker script loading requests web push web push notification allows users to "subscribe" to receive notifications from a web page, and users will receive the notification whether the web page is currently running or not push api depends on service workers to provide the offline functionality needed web push support was introduced in samsung internet for android 4 0 samsung internet for android 3 x quick access as one of the default homepages for samsung internet for android since version 3, the quick access page enables users to visit their favorite sites with a single click it is also loaded whenever users click the url bar giving your sites more exposure and leading more users to you quick access page contains a default list of sites that is adjustable by the user the default list varies according to countries, regions, carriers, etc it is updated independently from the samsung internet for android through the samsung quick access server for more effective exposure, we recommend adding a catchy icon that shows off the characteristics of your page the icon displayed for your site will be determined following this priority the apple-touch-icon declared in the content ex <link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/mytouchicon png"> the favicon set up in the content ex <link rel="icon" href="/myicon png"> a simple icon created by the samsung quickaccess server shortcut promotion banner based on the w3c manifest for web application standard, samsung android for internet lets web pages look and work more like native android applications with the ‘add to home’ feature, users are able to install your pages to their devices and launch and explore them without being aware of the browser container since version 3 0, samsung internet for android promotes ‘add to home’ with notification banners samsung internet for android will recommend shortcut installation for frequently* visited sites if it has a manifest declared in a link element this will give users easy access to the feature and certainly make users access your contents more frequently of course, samsung internet for android still provides the ‘add to home’ menu so users can install web applications to their home screens without going through the promotion banner * currently, the notification will show when the user visits a site at least 3 times during a 2 week period this policy may change secure web auto login using fingerprint authentication, samsung internet for android provides a more secure and easy way for users to login to sites once the user agrees to save their login info for a site, future sign-ins will be done with a single fingerprint scan after the user identity is verified with fingerprint, the password field is auto-filled and submitted for login where applicable since samsung internet for android 3 2, the number of sites supported for auto login has been highly increased use standard html forms and avoid overriding the ‘enter’ key to make the best use of this feature <form action="example_form asp"> id <input type="text" name="username" value="username"><br/> password <input type="password" name="password" value="password"><br/>> <input type="submit" value="submit"> </form> audio notification since version 3 0, samsung internet for android lets you provide audio contents to users with the experience of native music applications users can keep listening to audio streaming from your sites after switching to other tabs or applications the samsung internet for android icon is shown in the notification bar to indicate that audio streaming is coming from the web and when the user opens the notification drawer, a mini-controller for the audio element is displayed to enable quick and easy control of audio playback this mini-controller is also displayed on the lock screen for user convenience an icon and the title of the current audio streaming are shown in the mini-controller the icon displayed is determined following this priority the apple-touch-icon declared in the content ex <link rel="apple-touch-icon" href="/mytouchicon png"> the favicon set up in the content ex <link rel="icon" href="/myicon png"> a simple icon created by the samsung quickaccess server
Learn Developers Podcast
docseason 1, episode 4 previous episode | episode index | next episode this is a transcript of one episode of the samsung developers podcast, hosted by and produced by tony morelan a listing of all podcast transcripts can be found here host tony morelan senior developer evangelist, samsung developers instagram - twitter - linkedin guest roger kibbe senior developer evangelist, viv labs/samsung twitter - linkedin in this episode of pow, i interview roger kibbe, senior developer evangelist for bixby, samsung’s intelligent assistant technology roger is a tech geek when it comes to voice technology, even launching his own voice startup join us as we discuss roger’s journey to samsung and the great things around bixby learn how to get started building capsules for bixby, and the magic that drives viv, the bixby team at samsung listen download this episode topics covered intelligent assistant technology multi-modality bixby capsules bixby developer studio bixby marketplace bixby developers chat podcast adam cheyer viv labs helpful links bixby youtube twitter github news/blogs podcast more about bixby samsung bixby is a next-generation, ai platform that enables developers to build rich voice and conversational ai experiences for the bixby marketplace, and bixby devices including phones, watches, televisions, smart appliances, and more check out the bixby developers website at bixbydevelopers com to learn more about creating capsules using samsung’s bixby developer studio transcript note transcripts are provided by an automated service and reviewed by the samsung developers web team inaccuracies from the transcription process do occur, so please refer to the audio if you are in doubt about the transcript tony morelan 00 02 hey, i'm tony morelan and this is pow! podcasts of wisdom from the samsung developer program where we talk about the latest tech new trends and give insight into all of the opportunities available for developers looking to create for samsung on today's show, i interview roger kibbe, senior developer evangelist for bixby samsung's intelligent assistant technology roger is a tech geek when it comes to voice technology, even launched his own voice startup but it was when he entered a samsung hackathon and won, the bixby team said, we need this guy enjoy hey, roger, thanks very much for joining me on this podcast you know, i have to ask you first, who is roger kibbe? roger kibbe 00 44 well, i guess i can answer that question two ways well, one, i'm a husband and a father to two teenage daughters oh, boy but uh, yes, so it keeps me pretty busy these days but professionally, i'm a senior developer evangelist for samsung bixby and what does that mean? it really means i go out and talk to third party developers and agencies and companies and encourage them to go build upon the bixby platform you know, i have a long career in technology been doing it for about 25 years and salting i've been a technology architect, technology strategy i found in my own startup, and i've been in voice for the last several years about the last 18 months or so less than 18 months with samsung, tony morelan 01 27 right about the same time that i did and interesting we both have the same title at samsung me being a senior developer evangelist for the developer program, doing something similar to what you're doing, you know, going out and teaching developers and designers how to create for samsung, so pretty cool we're along the same lines roger kibbe 01 42 yeah, i think it's an it's an amazing job, actually kind of a combination of you got to be familiar with the technology but you also have your you know, love to go talk to people and understand what they're doing and figuring out how technology can help solve their problems or help enable them to do something amazing what a combination tony morelan 02 03 exactly so tell me a little bit how you actually got your start at samsung i heard that you actually won a contest at our developer conference and that's what put you on the radar at the folks at samsung so tell me a bit about that roger kibbe 02 19 yes, i heard about bixby in 2018 it was still a private beta in early 2018 and i was doing my own voice consulting and my own voice start up then and i thought, hey, there's this new platform they have this hackathon i love to play with new technology i'm one of those people that pies the first piece of new technology too much to my wife's chagrin often so i went downloaded it and started playing with it and i realized this is something really cool and doing things in a different way than what the other voice platforms are doing so i built this capsule is a voice application and bixby terminal technology, it was all about just being a can i recycle this? can i compost this? do i need to throw it in the trash? right question i often get from my daughters is dad, what bend is this going to is and then scratch my head, you know, three bins and i want to be a responsible citizen and put it in the right thing sure and i thought, hey, you know, that's a pretty good use case for voice because you want to know that right away so built that for bixby we had this hackathon i got enough finals and then in the sdc, samsung developers conference in 2018, all of us finalists were invited to go and then we presented on stage and i ended up winning that hackathon wow yeah and then that led to i met adam shire and a bunch of the bixby people had some good conversations one thing led to another deeper longer conversations that was in i believe, september 20 18th, and in january 2019, i joined samsung are joined this labs subsidiary of samsung is behind bixby tony morelan 04 04 you've been in this tech industry for about you said 2025 years assuming then that your education is in the tech field did you? was that what you majored in when you're in college? roger kibbe 04 13 no good question no, i actually have a psychology degree well, that comes in handy with two teenage daughters it does, indeed actually comes in handy in a lot of ways, actually because, you know, i think our success personally and professionally is, you know, interacting with people and in a lot of ways, but, uh, yeah, you know, i have a deep interest in human behavior and how that works and so i decided to major in psychology, but i've always been, you know, there's the geek in me and i've always played with technology and so for instance, i took a couple classes pewter science classes for fun, including a lisp class so if anybody knows lisp out there as a listener, that's usually not such a language that you to equate with fun, but i had a lot of fun with it tony morelan 04 58 expand a little bit more on listen, what is that? roger kibbe 05 02 well, it's a programming language that is used i would think pretty much only in academia by today, but it's often used to teach kind of the fundamental was i don't know what modern cs classes are probably moved beyond it, kind of fundamentals of programming and there's a lot of what's called recursion in it, where a function that you write calls itself so it gets very complicated if you're a developer, you know what i'm talking about, if you're not a developer, there's kind of this circular reasoning where it kind of just goes in circles and calls itself and calls itself so it's, it gets very confusing in a lot of ways at first, but, uh, it's actually a really good way to learn a lot of the fundamentals of programming i done programming for that i started in high school, actually, so graduate college, you actually get right into the tech industry just mentioned a little bit about this startup that you had created, and then how that led you into, you know, your interest in voice yeah, and you know, a little but it gets back to my thinking about my whole technology career, i served as a consultant and i worked in technology strategy for gapping for many years, and i've always looked for technology to go do something for us, and then get out of the way and one of the challenges i see with technology today is often yeah, it's incredibly powerful and does something useful for us or something we want it to do, but then it doesn't really get out of the way um, and when i first saw voice and start playing with voice assistance, i was like, i didn't get it at first but then after playing with him more and more as like, you know what this is, this kind of fulfills that kind of lifelong ambition of, hey, go get something done and get out of the way it's the best tech i know for getting out of the way so in back in 2017, i you know, i had a really good kind of technology job, but the big corporation caught my cushy, cushy, corporate tech job i decided to get you know, a little bit of an itch, i decided to be a little bit crazy and leave that bounced around a little bit with some startup opportunities and ended up founding my own voice startup with the idea being hey, it's really too hard to build voice applications today i'm going to make it much easier for you to do it or our tagline was wordpress for voice you know, wordpress is in the web world course yep, lots of templates makes it easy for small business to get online really easily we wanted to build that for voice i will say i think it's still a really good idea and a lot of ways kind of untapped but, um, you know, i think there's a saying that ideas are cheap, and execution is hard i certainly learned that, you know, i think we built a bunch of things, but we weren't fully executing it so i started veering over into the kind of consulting side and doing my own consulting work and that's when i entered that business hackathon one nad and those conversations led to where i currently am but i'm super happy i did it it was a it was a great experience it's something i'd always kind of the back of my head, hey, go off and do your own thing, right? whether succeeds or fails, it doesn't matter got it you got to itch that itch tony morelan 08 17 exactly i actually once heard that you learn more from failed startups than you do from successful startups so i too, have ventured into that area i too, have failed, and lots of great learnings that still come out of that so you had mentioned adam shire, viv labs, bixby, samsung, kind of tell me this whole relationship, how those all have come together what exactly is viv lab and who is adam shire? roger kibbe 08 42 yeah so let me tell you about adam first, a legend and voice and adam has been working in voice for like 25 years back he worked at stanford sri on voice ah, in the, i guess late 20s 2008 somewhere around there they founded a startup called siri and built really what was the first kind of consumer facing voices system? siri most people don't know was originally an app on ios and then very quickly apple bought it so adam and his co-founder dead kit law, worked with apple for a couple years and then went to leave because they really wanted to build kind of the next generation of conversational ai and voice assistance and that's when they founded viv labs and built out the vid labs technology and then a few years ago, samsung bought viv labs and used it as the foundations of some people called bixby to dotto or the new bixby but the current bixby that's on modern samsung phones, is based upon that viv labs acquisition so adam is our kind of our technology guru and leader and quite frankly, his vision and where he'd like to see this industry go is a lot of the reason why i chose viv labs because i really, i end is thinking about where voice and conversational ai can go tony morelan 10 07 wonderful so let me ask you a quick question about bixby itself can you tell me where the name bixby came from? roger kibbe 10 14 that's a great question and i'm going to tell you i actually don't know why 10 18 don't we ask bixby oh, roger kibbe 10 20 might as well bixby know best tony morelan 10 24 hey, bixby where did the name bixby come from? 10 28 i've heard that in some cultures bixby means one with great intelligence who raps maybe that's why samsung chosen for me roger kibbe 10 35 very good there we go so bixby is not a name that's a samsung invented that name on the original voice assistant samsung has a little bit of a history there's something called s voice that then became bixby and the original bixby is really largely focused on controlling the phone and not so much a general purpose voice assistant and then when they bought vans, it was really to build that into general purpose voice assistant i will say that the name bixby is a good name for a voice assistant why is that? yeah, good question um, so when you say hi bixby or alexa, or hey, google, what happens is on the local device, it has to understand that phrase, and then most of the rest of the processing of anything you say, really is done in the cloud but you need local processing power on that device to say, hey, i heard that pacific wake up word okay and now i'll wake up and i'll start listening in order to do that, on the local device, you need to be saying something that's kind of got the right kind of syllables got enough syllables and has a mixture of vowels and consonants that make it easy to understand that term, because you don't want to wake up for a false wake word that's a problem in the industry, is i say something and your voices is it wakes up and you weren't addressing bixby is a really good term because of that consonants and vowels and the way they're mixed in there and then also just, it's short but phonetically, the way it sounds is pretty distinct and so whoever came up with that word, they were definitely thinking about this when they came up with that as the as the wake word for samsung's voice assistant tony morelan 12 22 got it? and it's a pretty unique word too so i would think that it's not getting confused with maybe you know, something that could be more common roger kibbe 12 28 yeah, although there is a bixby there's a city called bixby i believe in oklahoma and then down in just south of us around monterrey there's a bixby bridge so it's fairly unique, but there is actually there are other big cities in the world tony morelan 12 45 i did not know that roger kibbe 12 48 and build bixby on and bill bixby played the incredible hulk oh, yes, he did yeah so interesting okay so not a common word, but there are other uses the word bixby bixby says interesting tony morelan 13 03 so now you had mentioned that you know bixby was available on samsung devices can you talk a little bit about other devices? is it just strictly for samsung devices for their phones? or is it beyond the phone? roger kibbe 13 14 yeah, so is for samsung devices right now here's the situation right now so right now you can go and develop a bixby capsule and you can deploy it on a samsung phone and there's a marketplace for end users of the phones to go and enable your capsule think about market the marketplace is the equivalent of the play store, the samsung store, the ios, the app store, there but it's for voice applications capsules, as we call them so that's all enabled for a phone so you can build from end to end to get it out to consumers on the phones and that's the bixby marketplace that's the biggest marketplace what you can do right now though, is you can build for the tv samsung is the world's biggest tv manufacturer by a pretty significant margin the watch, we're the world's second largest smartphone watch manufacturer, and for smart appliances so we have a refrigerator that has a screen on it it's a smart appliance and we're we have huge market share and appliances so you can build for all those devices, which to my mind is super exciting because i think voice assistants currently have been kind of driven primarily by smart speakers that's the first thing they introduced and now they're on phones but that's led to a little bit of kind of smart, speaker centric or phone centric thinking about what you can do when you add voice to the tv, or the watch or an appliance you start thinking of whole different and unique use cases where voice can unlock some pretty rich functionality as you can say, i could wayne go on and on about this i get pretty excited about the opportunities on those additional devices and so you can develop today in those, and in the marketplace is coming later this year so super exciting stuff coming from us tony morelan 15 12 okay, wonderful so tell me a little bit about you'd mentioned the i know there are their voice assistant, you know, the application software out there how is bixby different than its competitors? roger kibbe 15 24 um, so first, i already talked about all those different devices yep right and i think that that's a key differentiator and let me dive in a little bit one because one, i'm particularly excited i'm particularly excited about the tv and why i'm excited about that is i look at my so my two teenage daughters, they don't watch tv without their smartphone in her hand so and they will stop the tv and play with a smartphone they want interactive tv, and it doesn't really exist today and so they use a smartphone to enable that now i generally, you know, a different generation tv is kind of a thing and i listened to it but i've been thinking about the tv and thinking about, hey, what happens the tv was voice enabled, and i can ask it things even when something is playing the best example i like to think about a sports course so let's say i'm watching a sports game like, oh man, i want to hear more about that player or i don't know i'm watching a football game and they call clipping and maybe i'm new to football, and they're like, what's clipping? wouldn't it be cool? if i could ask the tv? hey, watching the warriors on tv? hey, tell me how many points for game is stephen curry or who's stephen curry it is me overlays some information about stefan curry there and i can go back to watching the game or a football example hey, what's clipping and show me what's clipping is and i could better understand the game i think that's incredibly powerful to bring kind of interactivity, to tv a in and kind of empower what i see this kind of younger generation seems to want when they have their, their phones with the tv and quite frankly, i will often say we have we have some smart speakers next our tv and we'll pause and ask it a question so we want it to, yes, build that right in the tv, build it into where it just shows up and then goes away if you gave permission, you know, and i think there's some privacy implications to this, but about what you are watching on the tv to the voices, and then it could be really incredibly contextually aware and give you a really amazing information so i'm really excited about the devices that are that are coming out for samsung, and that's a differentiator the second big differentiator is really related to those devices all those devices have screens so if you look at the voice market today, and you look at let's talk about because they're obviously our competitors, alexa 85 to 90% of their devices are screaming just a smart speaker okay, on the google side, there's a lot of them, they do have on the phone, a lot of uses on their smart speakers that are in the home so most of what's being built is voice only with samsung devices, because all those devices i talked about, and it's fair to say in the future, most samsung devices will have a screen you need to build not only for a voice experience, but also a screen experience, that kind of multi-modality, which i think opens up a ton of opportunities and quite frankly, in some cases, some challenges around multi-modality and building that but it's a new frontier and a lot of ways to build truly multimodal experiences, where you can interact with voice and screen and think about how they interplay with each other tony morelan 18 49 so i hadn't heard of that term before so multi-modality that is where you have voice and screen at the same time on the same device roger kibbe 18 59 yeah, actually, i really refers to kind of you actually are using it today when you use the mouse and the keyboard so to put a different input mechanism, i say into that is multimodal, you know, i was talking about swiping and typing as the two prompt dominant modalities right now voice being a third one, i will tell you it's pretty interesting if you look at kind of the rise of those modalities we went from kind of keyboard and then about 10 years later, the mouse arose in the gui and then that and then about 10 years later, ah, smartphones with touchscreens were introduced there so swiping became and tapping became without, well guess what? smartphones of screens are just a little over 10 years old so by that 10-year cycle, it's about time for another modality to kind of arise sure and voice definitely looks like a modality it does not replace typing and swiping what it does is it augments, there's things where voice is the very best way to interact with technology there’re things we're typing in the very best way to interact with technology, there's things we're swiping in your smartphone, the very best way to interact with technology, it opens up a different way of interacting with technology and kind of powers us to do more with our tech tony morelan 20 21 so then, let me ask you, where do you see voice going, you know, in the next year, and then even beyond that, you know, for talking five to 10 years give me give me your thoughts, your ideas of where we really could be taking voice roger kibbe 20 33 yeah, so voice is in its infancy right now i like to say that we're at the point where we're kind of barking commands okay, at the voice assistance another one, which gives me a laugh, is we're in the fart app stage so that was the original apps on smartphones were all apps that party, right? yeah so we're kind of in that stage with voice right now really early what i think i'd like to see in the next year or two is a little beyond just parking command and actually get some things done i'm actually pretty bullish about voice commerce and if not actually going and buying things actually starting the buying process, and actually kind of that top of the funnel kind of marketing and there's a whole idea of paid marketing by listening to the radio or tv, it's a one way push toward me voice if i could have a conversation about a product or right, i want more information i don't kind of more of a pull marketing, i like to call it that and then i also, um, let me just jump in really quickly it sounds tony morelan 21 35 like what you're saying that maybe where this could go is like, if i'm actually listening to an ad on the radio, i could, in a sense, have a conversation and ask more questions about that product that's being told to me yeah, yeah, because that would be amazing roger kibbe 21 51 yeah so it's interesting because i'll mention so both spotify and pandora started you know, they have a free ad tier yes, and many are experimenting just in the last month or two in 2020, certainly, with this idea of, if they're on a device that has a speaker, and that and you're using their client, they'll play an ad and say, do you want to hear more? if you say, yes, get more information, you say, no, you don't right and that's really kind of infant kind of simple stuff works yeah, that's pretty exciting to me is, hey, you know, i, like all, many of us, you know, i kind of tune out the ads when i want to, but every once in a while, there's something i'm like, oh, that is really interesting i'd like to learn more about that or i'd like to call book market, of course so i think there's a huge opportunity there to say, hey, remind me of this or wow, that sounds really interesting i'd like to hear more and start a conversation there so that kind of interactive audio advertising i don't know when that's all going to happen but i'd sure like to see that happen in voice in the next few years i think you did ask about like longer term by 10 years out there tony morelan 23 03 yeah, definitely roger kibbe 23 04 yeah so i guess the industry likes to call this idea of ambient computing just computing around us that just does things for us and sometimes it's just ai that knows we need to get things done and kind of preemptively does it for us but voice is a big part of that i could just walk into my house and start talking to it, or in my car or in my office and talk and get things done i'm reminded of there's a funny scene in one of the star trek movies, i think it's one of the early ones when they go back in time and they go back to earth, in a running lead to a hospital and scotty sees a mouse and he picks it up, he starts talking to the mouse and of course, he doesn't do it he kind of mumbles under his breath about, you know, how advanced they are you know, maybe we're going to get there where voice works well enough, where much of our interaction with tech is done through voice scores yeah, like i said, i think we'll see keyboards have been around forever, they'll probably still be here in 10 years, and miles on swiping and typing, i just think there's a bunch of things that if we think about it, we can do better with voice or voice is part to that multi-modality, part of that interaction with our technology so that's what i like to seek out five or 10 years be kind of a, not a novel thing, like it is now in a lot of ways but it just you expect yeah, tony morelan 24 26 and it's, you know, it's crazy to think, you know, it seems like smartphones have been around forever but it was not that long ago that truly the first smartphone was introduced to us and 10 years from now is not much and just think about the advancements that definitely voice will take over that time roger kibbe 24 42 yeah, absolutely absolutely you know, like truly understanding yep human voices really hard i can say something to you in 10 different ways can you understand i'm seeing the same thing? oh, yeah that's really hard for an ai to do that yeah part of the challenges we have right now voice is when you're developing a voice application need to be pretty deterministic about if a user says this this way, then this is what you do and here's some variations and how they say, because the ai gets better, you won't have to be so deterministic in your development they'll just say, when the user intends this is their intention right? thank you yes, something like that that's going to be huge, huge unlock for the industry but it is a really hard ai problem tony morelan 25 32 yeah, you know, actually some of the biggest laughs that we get in our house, so it's when we listen to my wife try and talk to one of those voice automated systems that you see on phone systems when you're asking a question trying to be transferred to a different department and the phone system doesn't understand what my wife says she doesn't say it any differently she just says it more aggressively she gets mad or she gets angrier, but she's still saying the same terms and it's still sending her to the wrong department and you know, myself, the kids, we all are just laughing as she just gets have tried to deal with this really, you know, low level ai system roger kibbe 26 05 yeah, you know, this industry calls us ivr so they mostly been around for a long time and you know that the driver there was cost reduction right so it's expensive for a csr to answer phones cause reduction we all understand it, but sometimes doesn't put people first and i think you saw that with ivr it's funny when you were mentioning your wife getting frustrated and i likewise, um, you know, i will say hitting 0000 in an ivr often kicks you out of it but uh um, there's even websites that actually tell you how to if you're stuck in ivr hell, like this is how you say or this is the buttons you press to get out of that which is pretty funny but that you caught up in something i think is pretty interesting we can all feel as humans emotions in our voice, happiness, sadness, excited, bored that the there is a lot of research being done around voice assistance, understanding kind of the emotion in there because just hearing a voice we as humans hear obviously the words we also understand the emotion they're subtle cues and how we say things obviously, they're face to face there's also a body language one of the challenges and then ai i talked about, is it just understand it's saying, here's the words, what are those words mean? if i could understand the emotion of the user, that could be another input into my understanding, or if you're pissed and angry, and you're talking to an ai voice assistant, maybe you don't want it to be happy, full of personality and cracking jokes you want it to be direct and to the point and the other hand if you're having fun, maybe the personality of the voice assistant the personas industries likes to call it is more fun and crack some jokes in this kind of friendly i think there's a big unlock for voices systems to understand kind of the emotional cues that we as humans are giving with the tone and how we say things sure tony morelan 28 17 so let's talk a little bit about discoverability oh, you know, i can only imagine if there's a lot of third-party apps out there what's bixby doing to help make discoverability? a little easier? roger kibbe 28 27 yeah, there are a lot of third-party applications for all the voice assistance and part of the challenge is, you have to use the name so if i use if i call my voice app would say voice, the podcast helper okay, if i want to use the podcast helper, i have to say something like, ask podcast helper to start or ask podcast helper to play my favorite podcast the problem there is that ask podcast helper, i have to remember that phrase and i have to remember that term for the name of application the problem with discoverability is people don't remember that and so they don't use it and so if i just say, tell my voices to play my favorite podcasts, it's going to use whatever built in functionality it has to play podcasts as an example, and not podcasts helper, and not podcast helper on the other hand, podcast helper may be a better experience sure i, as a user, feel that podcast helper is my favorite way to listen to podcasts so what we did with big suzy, introduced late last year, somebody called natural language categories, and it's really to address that and the whole idea is, is these categories are way categories of interactions so like playing a podcast, podcast is one of our categories i'll give you another example and give you an actual real-world example weather is one of our categories so if i ask bixby what's the weather like? whatsoever like today, what's the weather like next week? what's the weather like? he will answer that in the built-in weather capsule i answered that, but i actually in my big city, so there is a weather capsule called big sky that i really like goes into more detail it's kind of for weather geeks, and i like weather and so in bixby once i enable big sky what i can do, because it's part of the natural light, the weather natural language category, i as an end user can go and say, i want this to be the default so the next time i say, hi bixby, what's the weather, big sky answers, built in weather functionality so what lets you do is choose and personalize your voices system the closest thing i mean, look, look at android phones look at samsung phones if you install two different map apps on an android phone, the first time you go to launch a map, it says hey, you have map app, a or have that be which one you want to use? and do you want to make one-year default? well, bixby has really exactly the same thing but for voice so what's the weather? like if i've enabled two of them and say, hey, you have weather capsule a, or you have big sky? which one would you like to use? would you like to make one the default? so i said, hey, use big sky and make it the default and from then on big sky answers that i can always go into settings and change that or i can always go back to that old kind of invocation name and say, ask weather app pay for the weather and it'll override, right because then i'm specifically addressing the name of a capsule, and that will answer so we've had this in about 20 different categories we keep on building these and thinking about it we think it's a big unlock to not only developers kind of solving this discoverability problem, but to my mind, even more importantly, as a consumer i said, i like big sky over the in weather app, but everybody has their own preferences there so let the consumer choose what they want their experience to be sure their favorite provider for x, y, or z, and really personalize the experience to the consumer so suddenly, it may come across in how i'm describing it, but we're definitely super excited about because he thinks there's such amazing possibilities there tony morelan 32 21 yeah, no, that sounds that sounds great so let's talk about getting started if developers or designers want to think about getting into voice, what advice would you give them? yeah, so a couple roger kibbe 32 30 things come to mind the first is when you're thinking about what you want to build is voice the best interface for it right so, you know, obviously, i'm a fan of voice i think it's amazing i also think there's areas where typing on a keyboard, or swiping on a screen or better interfaces, right for what you're trying to do so you need to think about if it's easy are faster or better to do it swiping or typing i probably shy away from it okay on the other hand, if it's hard or difficult, i always like to think about things where i'm like, wow, i got to go through 12 different menus to go do this wow voice might be really amazing there so if you're going to replace some functionality, think about stuff that were voices a better interface or where voice is just brand new, it would not work well without voice being the kind of the modality with which you interact with that technology so that's number one number two, i'd say is follow your passion okay, you know, the very best apps, pc, a phone or for voice are typically where the developer had some passion about it so it really comes through so if you're passionate about cooking, hmm, maybe there's something cooking voice experience you can build if you're passionate about exercise maybe there's an exercise voice experience you can build so i say, follow your passions, because you're going to build something that passion will come through to people using your app and you know what? it's going to be a heck of a lot more fun to build yeah if it's something that follows your passions, you want to build something that you use right, exactly this is fun i'd use it this is so cool i want to share it with the world tony morelan 34 28 yeah, yeah, i think that's a lot of great entrepreneurs get started as they're doing something that they want, that they're excited about and then they worry about, you know, the money in the marketing later but yeah, completely agree with you so, in doing a little research for this interview, i, i discovered i learned that you actually host your own podcast tell me a little bit about the bixby developers chat podcast that you host roger kibbe 34 56 yeah, yeah so just started that in january this year, you know how to get started, i went and told my boss and said, i want to start a podcast he said, go for it i don't know what that means i mean, he knew what it meant but it was kind of like, go for it let's figure it out and see how it works and really the genesis is, you know, every time i go to a voice conference, i have these kinds of long in-depth kind of conversations with people around hey, what are you building with voice? what's your thinking about it? where can you go in the future? and i really wanted to share some of those conversations with the world you know, i'm passionate about voice and these great conversations with it to my earlier point about what you're passionate about, go share it, so wanted to go share it with the world and so i think we're done we've done 11 podcasts right now we do one every two weeks on breeding, typically people in the voice industry in when we talk about what they're doing, what they've built what they think the future will look like on these our general conversations we definitely talk about bixby somewhat, but i really the whole idea was a little bit kind of a halo effect is hey, people who are interested in voice would go listen to this podcast and yeah, absolutely we want them to go listen and go, hey, i got to go check out that bixby and go try it out or develop something on it i like what those guys are doing yeah but the podcast yep, wide ranging i've talked to voice designers, i talked to some podcasters i've talked to developers and i continue to think of who would be an interesting guest to talk about it it's a lot of fun um, i continue enjoy it listenership seems to be growing pretty well so i don't know for one podcaster to another yeah, i think podcasting is a lot of fun tony morelan 36 48 yeah, definitely so for our podcasting fans how can they find your podcast? where are you guys hosted? what's it called? roger kibbe 36 54 yeah, great question bixby developers chat so any of your major podcast players, if you start searching for bixby, your bixby developers that'll come across we're also built in the bixby capsule so if you enable it you can say hi bixby, play bixby developers chat and then we're online if you just search for bixby developers chat, and you can see it and please listen, and then let me know what you like your what you'd like to see in the future i think a lot of the value of podcasting is listening to your audience and they'll say, i love this i'd like more of this, less of this love to hear about it tony morelan 37 31 wonderful so you've been around voice for a long time in fact, you know, not just with your podcast, but prior to that with all of your work with voice i'm sure you've got a lot of experiences around voice so tell me some of your favorite experiences and why roger kibbe 37 43 yeah, i'm going to say maybe my favorite capsule and bixby is something built in it's the yelp capsule and why i really like that is i talked earlier about i said, grace is a great way to interface in many ways, but not always so voice is a really great input modality so if i wanted to find a chinese restaurant in san francisco, that's open past 10pm on saturday nights that's a pretty easy you, you can understand exactly what i'm saying sure, um, there's a lot of information than that now think about that if i was to search using a typical web interface, right, there's a lot of clicking and typing and things like that and drilling down i need to do there yeah, but if i just ask the bixby oh, capsule, something like that, it could parse all that input, and then show me the results so it's great for input modality on the other hand, i get a list of restaurants and a list of restaurants via voice may be kind of overwhelming so that's a great place where the screen etc screen, this list here and then i kind of go back to touch when i swipe through those and touch and find more information why i like that is it's a great example of multi-modality and kind of using the mix the modalities together so the yelp capsule and bixby the other thing i'll say one of my favorite things to do on voice is, or just generally is i love trivia there’re some pretty fun voice trivia experiences one i really like on a very popular question of the day it's actually quite simple but really well done so boom, start question of the day aspects be hi bixby star question of the day, it gives you one question, multiple choice answers if you get the answer right, you get a bonus question and you can ask that what's really well done in that is the content is really well done so the questions are great, the content is great i'm going to say our content is king invoice and that's a great example it's incredibly simple what they built but incredibly great because the content so great, there's experience that isn't on bixby i'd love to see come to bixby what's that? it's a trivia game called feel the pressure feel the pressure which is on alexa yeah and you've done great content and really great sound effects the sound effects in that game made me want to play that game more and i love the thinking of what set sound effects and the impact upon your kind of psyche are so i love that game but yeah, those are two examples of things that i think are done really, really well with voice tony morelan 40 22 excellent, excellent laughter definitely check those out so if people want to learn more about bixby or even you as an evangelist, what's the best way for them to get in touch with you? roger kibbe 40 29 yeah so for bixby so www bixbydevelopers com that is our website and by the way, that is where you can go i mean, today, you can start developing for bixby so you download the bixby developer studio or id, you can do all your development there's even a simulator in there so if you don't yet have a samsung device, you can go and build that simulator and just from a phone to watch the tv and smart appliance so you can build all that so that's www bixbydevelopers com kind of your home hub for everything big sweet the other things i'd say follow us on social we try to be pretty active on twitter so at bixby developers can also find us at facebook bixby developers search for bixby developers on social myself i am definitely pretty active on twitter at roger kibbe i love to talk about voice what people are doing, what's happening, learn about new areas that people are exploring so let's connect and continue the conversation on twitter tony morelan 41 37 excellent, excellent so let me ask you a few questions about bixby studio so that's the software that's used to create your capsules tell me a little bit about getting bixby studio is this free? does it cost? roger kibbe 41 49 yeah, hundred percent free you literally it's on the homepage of bixby developers calm for mac, windows and linux you download it it's a full-blown id with develop debug, there's a testing suite in there there's a simulator, like i said, so you can go from end to end testing and you all do it in that id, there's no it automatically syncs to the cloud that's actually kind of a big competitive advantage for us is our idx some of our competitors require you to do things and kind of sync to the cloud or use two different interfaces everything in bixby developer studio isn't one you can do it all there and do all your development there until you're ready to submit to the marketplace and then you start that within that, that studio as well so is there a process where developers have to be approved to publish their capsules? yeah, so much like what happens with the other voice assistants and happens in various mobile phone app stores there is a process so you submit your capsule with information for the marketplace and that is some information with the reviewers if necessary, and then there's a review process and they make sure you know, there's certain rules around, you know, appropriate content, or have you does that actually work particularly tricky with voice, right? people won't always phrase something the same way so you want to build over flexibility you create these things called hints, which are kind of phrases that will kick off your voice experience or capsule you want those to work so the reviewers check all that and make sure it all works and if that's all working, then we'll go live in the marketplace and if it doesn't, they'll give you some feedback one of the things we're particularly proud about is our developer kind of outreach in a lot of areas around there and if somebody doesn't pass, we try to give really useful feedback about hey, here's what you need to fix and we also get feedback around hey, this, maybe this went live, but this could be even better x, y or z because it's always in our interest to have really great capsules on the marketplace, so our developers spend our, our capsule review team spends a little more time reviewing things, because part of their job is to give some constructive feedback on sure you know, good degrade, i like to say, tony morelan 44 18 exactly so not just does it work or does it not, you know, pass or fail? you're actually giving more insight on how to improve this to get more success yeah, roger kibbe 44 25 absolutely tony morelan 44 26 wow that's great that's great all right so i am going to finish off with our last question here, our last topic, in doing a little research on viv labs and adam shire i came across this penn and teller video of him doing magic so and i've been found some other videos of adam doing magic, and i'm wondering, does magic work its way into viv labs i mean, a little bit about that roger kibbe 44 53 yeah, so absolutely this so adam is actually this pretty talented amateur magician he probably kickoff professional if you really put his mind to it so he loves to talk about magic and he seems to know everyone in the magic industry, he's incredibly well connected there um, so a couple things happen one, we have what we call friday magic so every friday afternoon, kind of near the end of the day, we have a magician come in use of magic, which is really kind of a cool way to start the weekend, you know? sure all right, you know, the work week is over, well laugh and be entertained with some magic and then we all we all go home that happens it's a lot of fun we definitely when we go to trade shows, we often bring magician in place, sometimes very entertaining results there but yeah, it's just one of these fun little side things that happens we had that friday, magic we talked about it we do it at trade shows and yeah, it makes me smile thinking about it tony morelan 45 59 yeah no, that's awesome that those things were great it was a it was a nice discovery well, hey, roger, absolutely appreciate you taking the time this has been a great interview i love getting to know more about you and also about bixby and voice so again, thank you very much for joining me on today's podcast roger kibbe 46 13 oh, my pleasure always love to talk to voice thanks so much tony morelan 46 17 so before i end this show, i want to do something a little fun with bixby bixby said she can rap but i want to know hey bixby, can you beatbox? roger kibbe 46 28 check this out outro 46 39 looking to start creating for samsung, download the latest tools to code your next app, or get software for designing apps without coding at all sell your apps to the world on the samsung galaxy store check out developer samsung com today and start your journey with samsung the pow! podcast is brought to you by the samsung developer program and produced by tony morelan
success story game, marketplace, mobile
blogjeanne hsu, senior marketing manager for developer relations at samsung, chatted with george airiyan, the development director of whalekit (part of my.games). his job entails business development and execution of all external partnerships with the help of a small research & innovations department he manages. jeanne hsu (jh): george tell us a little about you. what was your professional journey that led you to whalekit? george airiyan (ga): i’ve been in the mobile games industry for 16 years. my background is it and linguistics. while i was at the university, i started working as a programmer for it companies, leading teams and managing small software projects. then i felt i was ready for my next move and was offered a job as a project manager/producer at a mobile games company. i really loved the people, the atmosphere, and being part of the creative process so i stayed in the gaming industry and have worked with some of my colleagues for more than 15 years. jh: it sounds like the people were an important part in your journey into gaming. ga: yes. some of those people i met in the gaming industry 15 years ago, are now part of the core team at whalekit. jh: tell us about my.games. ga: my.games is an international brand with 13 regional offices in europe, the us and asia, with more than 1,800 staff employees and 14 internal studios including whalekit. my.games develops games for the pc, consoles and mobile devices. the company operates more than 80 titles with a total portfolio count of 150 games, including in-house made hits like war robots, hustle castle, rush royale, left to survive, as well as skyforge and allods online. there are more than 900 million players registered in my.games titles around the world. the company also has its own media portal, the my.games store platform, investment division mgvc, and other assets. jh: tell us about whalekit. whalekit is a team of professionals whose core members started making mobile games in 2004-2005. we have been making 2d and 3d games since the pre-smartphone era. with the adoption of smartphones, our business and operation models changed reflective of the industry: instead of “release and forget” paid titles, we shifted to games as services and free-to-play, regular live operations, social features and much more. we have always aimed at the highest possible quality level, and these days left to survive is also available on pc along with major mobile stores. whalekit is one of my.games’ largest studios with more than 120 employees. it specializes in developing hi-tech 3d-action mobile games. among the games produced by this team over the years, there are hit titles like deer hunter, contract killer, and frontline commando. in 2018, we released zombie apocalypse shooter left to survive, which found millions of mobile fans. whalekit’s vast mobile development experience allows the studio to keep trying something new, train its staff, as well as solve complex creative and technical issues. jh: how did the relationship with samsung first start? ga: we had a meeting with samsung representatives at gdc 2019 where we discussed the opportunities and agreed to work on the partnership. jh: congratulations on winning the 2021 best of galaxy store award-best action game for whalekit left to survive for samsung. what does it mean to win this award? ga: we are happy and honored to win this award. it’s a sign of appreciation for the whole team. our specialty is action games; it's something we think we do the best. we know that the game is interesting, enjoyable, and addictive. but it's always great to be recognized by the industry. jh: how did you come up with the concept for the left to survive game with players fighting the zombies that have overrun the earth? ga: our team has specialized in action and shooting titles, including zombie shooters, for a long time. we were thinking of how to take our games to the next level and realized that players wanted a deeper sense of progression and more variety in the gameplay modes. that’s how the traditional campaign mode got interconnected with base building, pvp and base raids. we noticed interesting demographic trends, with female players showing an inclination in zombie shooters as well. so we decided to take this theme and grow it. [pvp means player versus player, interactive games between human players.] jh: what are future plans for the game? ga: we know that players like our game, with many of them playing for months and even years. we are going to continue providing unique content and engaging mechanics, so more players will stay even longer. left to survive - 2021 best action game game ideas, discoverability, and reach jh: what games from my.games are on galaxy store? ga: we have left to survive and warface: global operations (both from the whalekit studio), american dad! apocalypse soon (from the nord studio), rush royale for samsung (from the itt studio) and storyngton hall (from bit.games). jh: where do you get your game ideas? ga: everybody in the studio can come up with their own ideas. we don’t limit ourselves to a certain genre or theme. naturally the overall potential is estimated by studio experts when we decide to proceed with a new idea. jh: how does it mesh with your motto “free to create and ready to explore”? ga: we sometimes have game jams. it's sort of a standard thing for the gaming industry, when a studio breaks down into several small teams, not the whole studio, just those who want to participate. they’ll spend one day, two days, or a three-day weekend, creating prototypes of the games that they think are fun. then everybody in the studio looks at them, and votes for the top idea for the best implementation. some of them even make it further to prototypes of real games that could be a potential future project. as for the idea of exploration, these game jams aren't limited to any theme or genre or scale. it could be anything. jh: with all the competition for games, what has been your strategy for discoverability? ga: making a great game always comes first. while discoverability isn’t trivial, as long as the game has good metrics, our marketing team will do their best to advertise it on various channels. it's also important to optimize app pages and work closely with the stores. jh: what platform do you use to develop your games? ga: we use unity 3d. it allows us to create high quality visuals on a wide variety of devices. we programmatically detect the hardware in terms of performance. for lower-end devices, we show optimized graphics, switching out some of the visual effects so people can still play it. the game is not as visually rich at the lower end, but it's still playable. but for higher-end devices, we switch on all the bells and whistles. we’re quite happy with what unity allows us to do. jh: on your website, it says my.games has $562m in annual revenue (2020 figures). that’s amazing. what has been your strategy for generating revenue? ga: there are several factors at play here. primarily it’s the company’s diversified portfolio with 150 titles across various genres for different audiences. anyone can find what they’re looking for in the my.games catalog. the second factor is that we are proactively developing our mobile projects as the mobile market is the biggest and fastest-developing sector and therefore more promising. 75% of our revenue accounts for it. finally, the third factor is our global focus. this is why international sales accounted for 77% of my.games revenue in q3 2021, with the u.s., germany and france as the top markets. jh: why is it important to offer your game on galaxy store? ga: galaxy store is a great way to increase the player base in important territories. the biggest territory for gaming companies is the united states, of course. and we see quite good coverage in the u.s. for galaxy store. it’s been a very positive experience for us. marketing and user acquisition jh: what are some of the ways you promote left to survive? ga: here are our websites and channels: my.games: https://my.games/ left to survive: https://lts.my.games/ facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lefttosurvive youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/whalekitgames/featured jh: i noticed you have left to survive video trailers for your active facebook community. ga: we actually use some of these trailers for user acquisition. we have an in-house team to produce these video creatives. some of them are really cool. some of them are quite funny. this is something we pay quite a lot of attention to. because nowadays, most of the user acquisition is done via advertising in other applications. it’s done with videos; every company does that as a standard way of looking for new users. you just show your ads in somebody else's application and people may click on it. jh: i see the trailer for the game like a movie trailer at the theaters or online; if it looks interesting, i will make a mental note to go see it. maybe after watching the trailer for left to survive, i’ll want to learn more about the game and try it. very clever. diversity and inclusion jh: what is my.games doing related to diversity and inclusion? ga:. my.games believes in equal opportunities for everyone. we never look at nationality, race, sex or beliefs. the ratio of women to men, for instance, is around 40% to 60% and growing. it’s quite common to see women in all positions, including management, engineering, marketing, game design, qa. jh: what do you do for fun outside of work? ga: i love playing beach volleyball. even in winter, when there’s snow outside, there are indoor “beaches” where you can play beach volleyball. jh: i’ve never heard of an indoor beach. ga: yeah, they bring in net posts and lots of sand. it’s a lot of fun. jh: what else? ga: i love sports as a whole. i used to play quite a lot of football (soccer). i love travelling with my wife and three-year-old son. we’ll take a car and drive somewhere. of course, with a small kid, it's not as easy. but now he's growing up and can handle longer journeys. we’ll do more of this again. jh: thank you for your time george. it’s been a pleasure getting to know you and whalekit. congratulations again to your team! ga: you’re welcome.
Jeanne Hsu
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