Lock&Stock – Unlock Your Life! - Interview with the developer of a fantastic app

Did you have any prior development or coding experience?

Prior to working on Lock&Stock, I had 7 years of experience in mobile app development across both iOS and Android. In this time, I’ve published 10 apps that I have built from scratch.

This includes an app that helps people listen to devotional music, an app that helps teachers and educators share study/reading material with students, and an app that helps people improve their memory.

My personal favorite is eTrucknow, which allows people to send packages across states in India and track delivery. This app had two versions for the customer and the driver and has been very successful.

What was the most challenging aspect of developing mobile app?

The most challenging part of developing this application was the UI. Staying off social media is difficult, so we wanted to build an interface that brought the experience to life.

The designs we have are unique and robust, hence translating those designs into a fully-functional application across all sorts of devices and platforms was challenging and exciting. Our main aim was to focus on the best interface and experience for the user across devices while not compromising on functionality.

_{Raviteja Emandi}

The interviewee, Raviteja Emandi, is the Head of Application Development at Lock&Stock.
He has 7 years of experience in app development and his goal is that one day there will be a sizeable population around the world using an app that he has built.

We built Lock&Stock to help people live healthier, more productive lives, and channel this activity toward educating underprivileged children.
Our mission is to make digital wellness a habit and make the world a better place along the way.

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

I’m a person who believes in continuous learning and improvement. I think that tomorrow, I must always be better than I was yesterday. Hence my favorite apps are LinkedIn and Udemy because LinkedIn helps me connect with people who have similar knowledge and interests, and Udemy helps me learn about new concepts and technologies.

How long have you been working on this app?

Developing the Lock&Stock app took around 5 months because of our laser-eyed focus on the UI. The main purpose of the application is helping people stay off social media and rewarding them for the same, so because this was the core functionality, perfecting this also took time.

However, what you currently see on the App Store and Play Store is just the start. We have an eight month product roadmap ahead of us, and we hope to further build on our application by making the experience as amazing and exciting for the user as possible.

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

We built Lock&Stock to help people find balance in life and reconnect with the real world. To do this, we had to deliver an experience to people that makes staying off their social media a fun and engaging experience. Users will only perform an action if they are incentivized for it and that is what we kept in mind while developing this application.

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.

In trying to help people stay off their social media and reconnect with life, our mission is truly unique. With the use of gamification elements, we have made staying off social media and reducing your screen time an uplifting experience, by allowing users to use their rewards to sponsor classes for underprivileged children. Our mission is to help 50 million people around the world live healthier, more productive lives, and channel their rewards to send 50,000 children to school every year.

With the use of pre-caching of images and data, we also allow users an uninterrupted experience caused by low network or low data as well as allowing them to access features of the application when offline. The Lock&Stock app requires running in the background while the lock session is on and most apps would consume battery while doing so, however, we have optimized the application for more efficient battery consumption during both foreground as well as a background use. Our API integrations allow for faster use of the application and its features. And finally, the UI is optimized to fit screens as small as 4.5 inches all the way up to 6.5 inches.

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

We have an eight-month product roadmap planned ahead, with a lot of exciting new features to come. One of our key focus areas moving forward is to further utilize gamification to trigger dopamine reflexes in the user so as to make staying off social media as engaging as possible.

We also want to help make the experience of staying offline community or group-oriented, such as a family sitting at the dinner table, students working together on a presentation, or colleagues in the office working on a project. We believe that while technology makes the world a better place, there are moments where we should put down our phones and live in the present. We want to bring these moments to life.

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.)?

We are sure you will like the app! Share the app with your family and friends and help them make the best of their time by staying off the phone as much as they can.