Mako
Worked inside the frontend team behind 12+, Israel's #1 streaming platform, across Samsung, LG, Hisense, and web.
About
12+ is Israel's biggest streaming platform. Channel 12 live broadcasts, news, reality, comedy, drama on demand. Mako, Keshet Media Group's digital side, pulls in over 20M views a month across web and connected TV.
Smart TV native work is hard in ways that web work isn't. Samsung Tizen, LG webOS, and Hisense VIDAA each run their own runtime. Memory budgets are tight. The hardware is unforgiving if you cut corners. Mako needed more developers in that environment without slowing down the apps already in production.
Applift didn't just provide resources; the team rolled up their sleeves and dived in wholeheartedly. They mastered the domain, mentored their team, and ensured they integrated seamlessly as an integral part of our existing teams. Thanks to their professionalism, quick grasp of our workflows, and ability to deliver high value in a short timeframe, we successfully met all our rigorous objectives.
The Partnership
By embedding directly within Mako’s development groups, our team moved beyond mere 'staff augmentation' to become true stakeholders in the product. We contributed to the codebase and architecture with the same ownership as internal staff, gaining specialized expertise in TV-platform fragmentation and high-pressure broadcast deployments.
This sustained partnership ensured operational stability. Because our developers were already steeped in the project’s history, they could address critical production bugs or device compatibility shifts with zero lead time.
Multi-Platform TV Implementation
HLS video player
Custom player with HLS streaming, adaptive bitrate, and error recovery tuned per TV platform.
- Handled stream interruptions during live broadcasts without dropping the user
- Adaptive bitrate for unstable network conditions
- Player behavior tuned separately for each TV OS
Samsung, LG, and Hisense apps
Three TV platforms, three different sets of APIs, input models, and OS quirks. All maintained in parallel.
- Remote control input handling specific to each platform
- Memory management for TV environments with tight constraints
- Shared UX patterns adapted to each platform's capabilities
Legacy OS performance
Older smart TVs have less memory and slower processors. The apps still needed to run well on them.
- UI tuned for low-end hardware
- Smaller memory footprint on legacy devices
- Rendering optimizations that kept the experience usable
Store submissions
Each TV manufacturer has its own app store with its own requirements. We managed the full cycle.
- Samsung, LG, and Hisense store guidelines and compliance
- QA and submission process for each platform
- Kept up with changing store policies over time
Web Excellence
While the TV apps pushed the boundaries of hardware constraints, Applift also spearheaded critical advancements in the 12+ web ecosystem. By leveraging Next.js, we delivered a high-performance web architecture focused on superior SEO and lightning-fast responsiveness. We engineered the frontend to handle massive scale while ensuring a premium UX, making the platform’s vast content library easily discoverable and perfectly optimized for any device, screen size, or browser.
Beyond their technical skills, Applift is a true professional partner - proactive, easy to work with, and a real extension of our team. I highly recommend them to anyone seeking a dedicated and top-tier technological partner.
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