Legacy App Maintenance & Development

Nick Jr.

Preschool Entertainment Streaming Platform for ViacomCBS

2019 - 2021
ViacomCBS
iOS, Android
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Project Overview

Nick Jr. stands as the premier preschool entertainment brand, delivering age-appropriate educational content, beloved characters, and interactive learning experiences for young learners worldwide.

As an integral component of the ViacomCBS streaming ecosystem expansion, we provided comprehensive legacy app maintenance and development services for the Nick Jr. mobile applications across iOS and Android platforms. Our team ensured the applications remained current, secure, and engaging while seamlessly integrating new content from Nickelodeon's extensive preschool programming library.

The platform provides young viewers with unlimited access to full episodes of beloved series, educational games, interactive activities, and classic shows featuring PAW Patrol, Blaze and the Monster Machines, Bubble Guppies, Blue's Clues, Dora the Explorer, and more. Our implementation focused on delivering reliable DRM-protected streaming, COPPA-compliant data handling, parental controls, and age-appropriate user interface design across all supported devices.

20M+
Global Downloads
2
Platforms
1000+
Episodes Available
Nick Jr. App Showcase

Our Role & Responsibilities

Technical contributions and key deliverables

Native Mobile Development

  • Maintained and evolved existing iOS codebase using Swift and Objective-C with MVVM architecture for scalable, testable application structure with reactive programming patterns
  • Maintained and evolved existing Android codebase using Kotlin and Java with modern architecture components, ExoPlayer integration, and coroutine-based async operations
  • Updated and optimized video player components to meet evolving DRM requirements including FairPlay (iOS) and Widevine (Android) compliance with kids-safe streaming features
  • Implemented comprehensive parental controls and COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act) compliance features with age verification and content filtering systems

Enterprise Collaboration

  • Coordinated directly with ViacomCBS internal teams across product, platform, content, and legal divisions for synchronized feature releases and compliance verification
  • Participated in bi-weekly agile sprint cycles, daily standups, sprint planning, and retrospectives within the client's scaled agile framework (SAFe)
  • Collaborated comprehensively with QA organization on child-safety testing, COPPA compliance verification, and production validation across extensive device matrices
  • Partnered with content operations and programming teams on new show launches, educational content curation, and age-appropriate feature development

Technical Implementation

  • Integrated privacy-compliant analytics SDKs with COPPA-compliant tracking, audience segmentation without PII collection, and parental consent management workflows
  • Implemented sophisticated push notification system with parent-only targeting, scheduled delivery for new episode alerts, and content promotion with strict privacy controls
  • Managed beta testing programs through TestFlight (iOS) and AppCenter (Android) with phased rollouts, crash-free release monitoring, and parent feedback collection
  • Optimized application performance for various tablet and phone screen sizes including responsive layouts, adaptive bitrates, and device-specific optimizations

Kids Safety & Compliance

  • Ensured full COPPA (Children's Online Privacy Protection Act) compliance with comprehensive data handling policies, parental consent flows, and privacy-by-design architecture
  • Implemented kid-safe UI/UX design with no external links, no third-party advertising, no in-app purchases without parental gates, and age-appropriate content presentation
  • Added comprehensive parental gates for all settings, purchases, account management, and external content with multi-step verification and PIN protection
  • Created sophisticated age-appropriate content filtering system with content rating validation, episode appropriateness scoring, and parental control customization

Technical Challenges & Solutions

Complex problems we solved during development

COPPA Compliance

  • Challenge: Children's app required strict COPPA compliance with zero tolerance for privacy violations and data collection without parental consent
  • Solution: Implemented privacy-by-design architecture with data minimization, parental consent workflows, audit logging, and regular compliance audits
  • Result: 100% COPPA compliance with zero violations during production operation and successful FTC compliance reviews

Parental Gate Implementation

  • Challenge: Preventing children from accessing settings, purchases, and external content while maintaining usability for parents
  • Solution: Built multi-step parental gate system with PIN protection, math challenges, and timed interactions that children cannot bypass
  • Result: 99.9% effective prevention of unauthorized access with positive parent feedback on usability

Performance Optimization

  • Challenge: App needed to perform smoothly on older devices used by families while maintaining rich interactive experiences for children
  • Solution: Implemented aggressive asset optimization, lazy loading, image caching, and memory management with device-specific quality adjustments
  • Result: 50% reduction in app size and 40% improvement in load times on older devices while maintaining visual quality

Multi-Device Support

  • Challenge: Supporting diverse device ecosystem from phones to tablets with varying screen sizes, resolutions, and aspect ratios for kids' usage patterns
  • Solution: Built responsive UI system with adaptive layouts, touch-target optimization for small hands, and device-specific interaction patterns
  • Result: Seamless experience across all supported devices with 4.4+ star rating for usability

App Screenshots

Explore the user interface and key features

Games Screen
Games Screen
Home Screen
Home Screen
iPad Home Screen
Home Screen On iPad
Video Player
Video Player

Technical Stack

Technologies, frameworks, and tools

iOS

Swift 5+ Objective-C MVVM RxSwift AVKit AVFoundation FairPlay DRM Parental Controls TestFlight

Android

Kotlin Java 8+ MVVM ExoPlayer Coroutines Flow Widevine DRM Parental Controls AppCenter

Backend & DevOps

Jenkins Fastlane Bitbucket GitHub Enterprise CI/CD AWS CloudFront CDN

Integrations

Braze NewRelic Google Analytics (COPPA) COPPA Compliance DRM (FairPlay/Widevine) TV Provider Auth Parental Gates

Project Outcomes

Measurable results and achievements

Market Performance

  • 20M+ downloads across iOS and Android platforms
  • Top 5 Kids & Family app in multiple markets
  • 4.4+ star average rating across App Store and Google Play

Streaming Performance

  • 99.3% playback success rate across all supported devices
  • <3 second video start time on standard broadband connections
  • HD streaming support with adaptive bitrate optimization

Technical Excellence

  • 99.8% crash-free session rate in production environment
  • 50% reduction in app size through optimization
  • 100% COPPA compliance with zero violations

Content Launches

  • Successfully supported major show launches (PAW Patrol, Blue's Clues, Bubble Guppies)
  • Delivered seamless streaming for educational content and interactive episodes
  • Maintained 99.5% uptime during high-traffic periods and new episode releases

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