Android launchers · ReachMobi · 2022–2024
News Home & Weather Mode
At ReachMobi I led development of two Android home-screen launchers: apps that replace the phone's home screen and put news or weather one swipe away. I worked on the launcher architecture, the feeds behind them, and how fast they start, which decided whether users kept them as their default.
- Role
- Android Software Engineer
- Company
- ReachMobi (published under its app LLCs)
- Apps
- News Home · Weather Mode
- Stack
- Kotlin · Android
What I worked on
- Launcher UI architecture: multi-page home screens, dynamic regions, gesture systems and animations for both apps.
- Cold start: I raised the launcher default-set rate from about 55% to over 75% by reworking cold-start execution, reorganizing async work, and taking initialization off the main thread with lazy loading.
- Feeds and networking: REST layers with batching, caching, pagination and async parsing, plus prefetch pipelines that cut load latency.
- Tooling: Kotlin and Bash scripts for content ingestion, transformation and QA, and CLI tools for test data, feed simulation and deployment support.
News Home
A launcher with breaking news one swipe right of the home screen: users pick their sources and topics, get alerts, and watch video news without leaving the home screen.
Weather Mode
A launcher that puts current conditions, the hourly and 7-day forecast, and multiple locations one swipe right of the home screen.
Get All Weather Mode on Google Play → · The app has been updated since I left; these screens are from its February 2024 listing.
Let's build something.
I'm open to full-time and contract roles in AI/agent engineering, mobile, and full-stack TypeScript, remote or hybrid around NYC and Philadelphia.