UnderBooks: reading and listening as one product

UnderBooks is a platform for books in two modes: reading on screen and listening — with the ability to switch between them without losing the place. It is designed for smartphone, tablet and desktop, keeps progress in sync across devices, supports offline access for downloaded titles, and recommends what to read or listen to next based on what a person has already chosen.

Reading and listening look like one feature and are two different products. Text needs typography, search, annotation and fast rendering; audio needs streaming, buffering, background playback and a position that survives a phone call. The unifying logic is a single place in the book that both modes share. Getting that right is the difference between an app with an audio button and a product people actually switch modes in.

For a content platform, product logic starts outside the code. Rights and catalogue: what can be offered, where, on which terms, and how that is tracked. The economics of the format: subscription, per-title or a mix — and the retention each of them requires. Accessibility: for some people listening is not a convenience but the only way in. These are product decisions, not engineering ones, and they have to be settled before the first sprint. This is what «no development without product logic» means in practice.

The same structure serves any content or media product: learning platforms with text and audio, corporate knowledge libraries, subscription media apps, children's content with family controls. Logics7 builds these with the mobile-grade engineering it brings from games and real-time systems — background playback, offline tolerance, sync — and operates them after launch.

If you are working on a content or media product, start with the right route.