Learn Buddhism - Interview with the developer of a fantastic app

Did you have any prior development or coding experience?

Yes, I have been coding since 1989. However, for this project, I have a dev team.

What was the most challenging aspect of developing mobile app?

There are no other apps out there that join disparate islands of data across languages, formats, and websites. Finding data and presentation models that work across all of them (languages, file formats, organizations, and websites) was the most challenging aspect.

_{Dhamma Publishers}

The answers were arranged by Mr. Bhikkhu Mahinda from Dhamma Publishers that publishes translations, and educational materials, and develops Apps related to Buddhism and Meditation.

Name a few of your favorite apps and reason you love them.

Uber for booking transportation and Happycow with which I can locate veg/vegan establishments.

How long have you been working on this app?

Since Feb 2021 when we did the v1 on Android as PoC.

What need of the user did you have in mind when developing this app?

Currently, users have to go through many (literally 100s of) websites to find the material they want to study. In the Learn Buddhism App, all this disparate and distributed data is presented in a logical way - organized by Scripture and by Author-Publisher-Keywords. Thus, this app provides a one-stop experience to the user. Further, the user can search by many criteria to narrow down the search, saving valuable time and effort.

In what way do you think your app is better than similar apps on the market? Please describe in detail what innovation you think you bring and what you are proud of in your app.

Learn Buddhism is the only app in the market that consolidates information across scores of websites and presents to the user in a unified interface. Further, this allows the user to compare teachings or translations in the same language as well as across different languages. The app offers bookmarking facility, a Q&A board, and Search facility. Some Statistics:
- We have 4 User Interface languages
- We have data from 61 different languages
- We have data in 19 file formats
- As of now, we have harvested data from 113 websites, representing approx 46,500 teachings/readings/videos

What are your future plans and expected features of the coming new versions of this app?

In the upcoming v3, slated to be released in September 2023, we will implement a new UI, Text to Speech capability, organizing Bookmarks in Collections, and many other improvements. Development has already started!

Assuming new users of your app are reading this page. What do you want to ask them to do (contact you about X, Share the app, etc.)?

Please download and use the app and let us know what worked and what needs improvement :)