In this article, you will find out some behind the curtain information. Feel free to brew your cup of hot drink and read an inspirational story of SERGEY CHUPRIN, the author of AutoTagger.
Where the idea comes from for your AutoTagger mobile app?
The idea had come to me in times when I was a student. I used to love to listen to music on my android device, but I was tired of the lack of metadata in the music files I listened to. I’ve used Poweramp player those times, and it had a feature allowing me to download cover arts for my songs, but every time I’ve had changed my phone or reinstalled the app, they were gone.
So I’ve decided to create an app for filling this gap. I wanted to organise my music automatically and grab missing music metadata such as cover art, title, artist, album, etc. An audio recognition came to my mind. There was no such music tag editor in Google Play, and I’ve started creating my own. Also, it was a great chance to get familiar with android development in general.
Can you share your tech stack with us? Do you use Java, Kotlin or something else?
Being that I’ve rewritten AutoTagger 3 times, my current stack is pretty modern:
- 100% Kotlin
- Custom MVI implementation for presentation layer architecture
- Clear architecture approach for the business logic organisation
- High AndroidX usage
- Android Architecture components
- Dagger 2 for dependency injection
- RxJava 2 for data streams
- Room and StorIO for persistency
- Retrofit for networking
- Spek and MockK for unit tests
- And other exciting stuff like ViewPager2, Material Components and e.t.c ¨
Do you use Firebase or similar services?
Yep, I use multiple analytic trackers: Amplitude as a primary tracker, Firebase and AppMetrica. Also, I have my custom solution for tracking different app usage metrics to analyse user’s behaviour inside the app. This helps me to do exciting things like showing a promo banner to the user or show app rating request.
Would you recommend some cool libraries to your fellow developers?
I have some cool Gradle plugins created by me:
How many users do you have?
It’s close to 400k installs I guess. 35k MAU.
Why do you want to translate your app to other languages? Do you think it could bring you more users? Or you want to improve the user experience? Are your users actively asking for translation?
Sure, I want users to have a seamless app usage experience with their mother language. And of course, I believe it will bring more users to my app and will increase retention. Very few users are asking for a translation. But some volunteers are appearing from time to time. Despite this, it’s tough to keep strings up-to-date with all updated and new features being rolled out. I would say that translation is my pain №1. When I think about adding a new feature to app, I think how I can translate new strings to combine them into this update without spending a lot of money. My app has ~12 languages, so it’s hard to do.
No. I’ve made few attempts to do so but was never really satisfied. I’m only the developer by nature, so it’s hard for me to do such kind of work. Can only say that Reddit is a place where you can catch user attention to your app very simple. The only requirement - your app must be handy. Any promotion of useless app is a waste of money.
What are your goals with your app?
I need to feel myself a creator. Need to do something useful to people. Also, I need to live and satisfy my needs (by money).
How did you find Localazy and why do you think it is the right fit for your app localization?
Quora I think. I think Localazy is more useful and more affordable for my purposes than some other services I’ve tried.
Where are you from?
I am from Russia.
What do you do when you do not work on AutoTagger?
It’s another pain point for me because I do programming a lot and often I don’t know what else to do beside programming. Well, sometimes I play computer games, drink beer or just go for a walk. I love nature and traveling.
Is your app AutoTagger just a hobby or is it able to pay for its costs?
AutoTagger is a hobby which has grown to a commercial project that feeds me.
Do you have any other projects you would like to mention?
Unfortunately, no, not yet.
What would you like to say to your potential app users? What is the single most crucial benefit which may be the only reason to choose your app?
I want to say for all users: don’t be silent, always complain because feedback is king. What about benefits of using my app instead of others: I really do care about user experience, my app has a rich set of features that no one other tag editor has, and it’s well designed. I really enjoy using it.
How had you been maintaining multilingual support before Localazy?
OneSky service. But it’s very inconvenient, however free.
Would you love to help SERGEY CHUPRIN with the translation of his app AutoTagger? You can now become a translator, or you can send Sergey a small donation to help make his app better.
AutoTagger App
App will help you organize your music collection with ease, find and edit music tags, download high quality cover art. AutoTagger allows you edit music in batches, change cover art in batches and automatically search tags using music recognition.
📝Editing song title, cover art, artist, album, album artist, year, genre, track number, disc number, comment, lyrics. App supports editing tags for MP3 (ID3v1, ID3v2), MP4, M4A, FLAC, OGG, WMA, WAV and editing music on SD-card.
Auto tag search
🔍App will find tags for your music in seconds and you need only choose best result!
Batch editing
📦Edit songs, albums or artists in batch. Rename your files in batch using customizable patterns. Also you can set cover art for multiple songs at once.
Cover art editing
🎨Automatically and manual downloading high quality cover art, choosing from a gallery.
Reliability
🛡️ Music tags and cover art are written directly into files and don’t disappear after files moving or device rebooting.
And more:
⭐ Album tracks numeration. ⭐ Viewing music folders. ⭐ In-built media-scanner. ⭐ Customizable sortings. ⭐ Dark theme. ⭐ Excellent Material Design!
👉Join AutoTagger communities:
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://localazy.com/blog/about-modern-tech-stack-of-autotagger-app-and-more-with-sergey-chuprin