Android Platform development
Img src: http://gopinaths.gitlab.io/post/android-audio-framework-architecture/
Project Result
I was performing as a team lead of developing Audio frameworks, music player and audio liveshare of Android platform development team. Samsung is a leading smarting development company and our responsibilities were to release Android binaries for the MEA (Middle East and Africa) region. As a team lead, I have released all deliverables on time and ensured the product quality by solving issues within a very short time.
Results were significant. Along with other features, music player and live share was one of the coolest features running on top strong audio frameworks which produce quality of audio data from any sources.
Although in overall phone (smart+feature phone) maker ranking, Samsung was second but it was the top smartphone maker in MEA and accounts for 18.3 percent of the overall handset market for the second quarter of 2013. The company, however, controls nearly half of the smartphone market, currently outselling Nokia by nearly five to one. The data reveals that last year’s Galaxy S3 and the S3 Mini are doing quite well, outselling Apple’s iPhone 5 and even the current flagship, the Galaxy S4.(See the reference url).
Business Implications
Samsung is the one of the leading smartphone developer companies in the world. Because of it's quality of hardware and efficient and bug free software, it is dominating different markets all over the world.
Music player and music liveshares are the popular features in Samsung phones and widely used by users. Moreover, Audio framework is the heart of audio processing, recorder, play into a wide range of accessories which increase the trust in Samsung phone expands Samsung market. As a team lead of Audio Framework, music player, voice recorder and live share, I have contributed a lot by producing quality software and helping Samsung to release flagship and mass phone models in different markets.
Samsung holds 49.4% of smartphone market share at December, 2013, UAE which was significant and top of the smartphone market share.
Difficulty of the Project
There are different stakeholders who are responsible for developing and performing certain types of jobs. Like, Software developers, hardware engineers, product planning management, quality assurance, sales and marketing teams have to work together to make a successful launch of an Android smartphone. As a team lead of audio platforms and music applications, we have to develop quality of music player as well as a stable audio platform which are the heart of lot's top level application related with audio. It was a big challenge for our team to maintain good synergy with other teams to develop the dependencies. Because any miscommunications might cause delay and possible threats of quality control.
Not only that, but also we have to keep track of the issues faced by real users and review the suggestions of new features which are very difficult to track down and solve reported issues on time. Moreover, there are a vast number of different vendor's accessories like headsets that must have to comply with audio framework.
Innovative& Unique Methodology
Audio Framework is an amazing library that we have developed on top of kernel and device drivers. Any kind of application which has dependencies with audio must be run on top of audio framework. We have provided support for recorders which will take raw pcm data from microphone and encode it for either send over the network or save to device memory. Depending on the bitrate, we have an adaptive bit rate module which can adjust the audio bit rate depending on the network bandwidth when audio data is sent over the network.
When it needs to play any audio either from a network like for call application or any online music player or from storage, audio data must be decoded first and then write it to speaker or any external accessory thread. Again, we have to maintain the quality of incoming audio by reducing the noise and use standard codec with acceleration for getting improved quality.
Music player, live share and voice recorder which we develop and so many 3rd party applications run on top of audio framework. I have received the icon of the month award because of the significant contribution of developing audio modules in Android phones.