owlsbooks Chapter 437 Spark App Store
Chapter 437 Spark App Store
The preview version of the Spark App Store will be launched on Friday at 5 PM.
Wang Jianguo said the timing was bad; who could concentrate on work on a Friday afternoon? Ling Yun said it was a must to work on Fridays; truly dedicated people would work all night over the weekend.
The launch was simple—Wang Jianguo posted a thread on the Spark Developer Forum titled "Spark OS App Store Developer Preview Officially Released," with less than 300 words in the text. Below it were a download link for the SDK compressed package, an entry point for developer documentation, and a URL for the application submission backend.
The post concluded with the sentence: "We believe that the next decade will be the decade of mobile applications. Spark App Store will become the premier platform connecting developers and hundreds of millions of users. —Lingyun"
Ten minutes after the post was published, the first reply was: "Really?"
The second reply was: "Download the document first."
The third reply consisted of only two words: "Holy shit."
Ling Yun sat in his office, the forum page on his screen refreshing every few seconds. Wang Jianguo sent him a data summary to his email every ten minutes.
First email: SDK downloads: 32 times. Second email: 117 times. Third email: 280 times.
By 7 p.m., the number had jumped to nearly 500. Wang Jianguo added a sentence to the email body: "Bandwidth is a bit tight, I'm adding bandwidth."
Ling Yun replied with four words: "Add, don't skimp."
The first batch of applications was submitted early Saturday morning. The submission backend showed twelve new applications, eight of which were small tools such as calculators, flashlights, and unit converters; two were Snake games; one was an image viewer; and the last one—Lingyun paused for a moment as he scrolled down—was a weather forecast.
The icon is poorly drawn; it shows a sun perched on a cloud, and the colors look like they were applied using a drawing board—the cloud is gray and the sun is yellow. The developer's name is listed as "Liu Hao".
Lingyun clicked on the application description, which contained only one line: "Connects to the weather interface and can show three days' worth of weather data."
He approved the application.
Wang Jianguo messaged him asking if he needed his review comments. Ling Yun typed two words in the review notes: "Approved."
By 10 a.m. on Sunday, the number of submitted applications had jumped to over thirty.
Wang Jianguo sent a message: "A developer submitted a bus route query, the data only supports Jinan, but the code is very clean. Should we approve it?" Ling Yun replied: "Approve."
A few minutes later, Wang Jianguo sent another message: "There's an MP3 player, the interface is modified from our prototype, and it has an added playlist function. Should we approve it?" Ling Yun replied: "Approved."
By Sunday afternoon, a total of twenty-seven apps had been approved. Lingyun asked Wang Jianguo to compile a list of the approved apps and post it on the forum.
Wang Jianguo titled his post "First Batch of Apps Released," followed by a table with the app name in the first column, the developer's name in the second, and a brief description in the third. At the bottom, he added: "More apps are under review. Developer submission link: [link]".
The forum started to buzz. Some people reported bugs in the comments, others complained that the registration process was too complicated, and still others asked when the app store would be available directly on their phones.
A user with the ID "Code Farmer Xiao Zhao" replied: "I just uploaded the Spark version of UCWEB's adaptation package, and it was approved in four hours. That's much faster than some big companies."
There were about ten replies below, some asking about the interface, some about the adaptation progress, and others about how to pass parameters for a certain function in the SDK. Wang Jianguo personally replied to each one, and by the time he finished, it was already past 1 a.m.
On Monday morning, when Lingyun arrived at the office, there was a cup of steaming tea on the table, next to a printed weekly report.
The last paragraph of the weekly report contained a line of numbers: 27 applications were approved, the SDK was downloaded 1,800 times, and 300 new developers registered on the forum.
Ling Yun drew a small checkmark below.
Wang Jianguo pushed open the door and came in, his eyes so dark they looked like they'd been drawn with charcoal. "President Ling, there's something I need to discuss."
"explain."
"He Xiaopeng from UCWEB called and said they wanted to launch the Spark version on the app store ahead of schedule, and asked if they could go through a fast track."
"Did you use their version?"
"I've used it. It's been running on my development machine for three days and it's stable, but the icon is still the old one; I haven't had time to change it yet."
"Give it to them. Let them fill in the icon later."
Wang Jianguo nodded and didn't leave.
"Is there anything else?"
"WPS has also been submitted," Wang Jianguo said, taking a USB drive out of his pocket and placing it on the table. "Boss Lei personally called and said that their people worked two nights straight to finish it. The code isn't even fully organized yet, and the functions are limited to basic text editing; it can't even open tables. He said to reserve a spot for now, and they'll update a version every week thereafter."
Ling Yun picked up the USB drive and examined it. A small strip of tape covered it, with "WPS Mobile v0.1" written on it in ballpoint pen. He plugged it into his computer, installed it, and opened it. A blank document appeared on the screen. He typed a few words, saved it, exited, and reopened it—the words were still there.
"Pass."
Wang Jianguo made a note in his notebook, then closed it and walked out. He was stopped by Ling Yun at the door.
"The seeds of ecology have been planted," Lingyun said. "Whether they sprout or not depends on you."
Wang Jianguo didn't turn around, but he tightened his grip on the doorknob. He opened the door, stood in the doorway, and turned halfway to the side.
"Mr. Ling, do you know what I saw on the forum? There was a post where the poster said he was a sophomore who wrote a Snake game using our SDK in his dorm room. His roommate played it all night and queued up until 3 a.m.
He wrote a sentence in the post—"Wang Jianguo's voice was a little unsteady, "He said this was the first time he felt that writing code could change something."
Ling Yun looked at him.
"It's not enough that the code is working; people are actually using it."
Someone called Wang Jianguo's name in the hallway. He turned his head and answered, then turned back and closed the door. Before the door closed, Ling Yun heard him say to someone, "Coming, coming. What bug? Crash? Which page crashed? Send me the log."
Lingyun switched his computer screen to the forum page, scrolled down a few pages, and found the Snake game post. It was posted at 3:40 AM, and contained no screenshots, only a text description and a code snippet.
The last line read: "Thanks, Spark. This is the worst code I've written in my two years of university, but it's also the first piece of code that someone is waiting for." There were seven replies below, the earliest of which came four minutes later: "Bro, the logic for the snake hitting the wall seems to have a boundary value problem. Check line 47."