My Dream App

Blossom is another great idea, that has the disadvantage of being a very hard sell. There are two reasons. First, the app seems like it will have a high starting curve unless there’s a really good way to have a strong starting curve for good and bad that works for most people. Even though the contestant has come up with a clever and quick way of customizing good and bad settings, i think it’s still probably be too much work for most people. This could probably be overcome. However, the second problem is that even with ray-tracing and dedicated processing it’s really difficult to get a good-looking plant, much less one that’s growing or changing every day. If the final Blossom looks like one of the procedural plants I’ve seen in various places, I just don’t think people are going to buy it. If it’s made by custom artwork, that’s a more viable option but then you have to have drawings of the plant in each stage and you can’t really animate it. The twin challenges of requiring a really good looking plant as the key to selling Blossom, along with a higher setup curve, compared to the immediate satisfaction or payoff that many people look for? That knocks Blossom out of my top three.

I like this idea a lot and the mockups Dan has posted have really convinced me that it’s possible to accurately gauge how much work you’re doing and how much goofing around you’re doing. I’d agree with some of the judges comments that todo integration with this kind of thing could be an amazing feature. Imaging beine able to check off a todo item with a high priority and seeing your plant buds flower. I tend to group Atmosphere and Blossom together as the two “status” apps. Obviously they are functionally different, but between the two I think Blossom has a lot more real world appeal. This is the kind of app that people won’t know they need until they see it and try it, and then if the cool factor kicks in properly they’ll be sold for sure.

Blossom seems like a lot of fun. I would keep it really, really simple to make it useful on a long-term basis. I’d definitely consider creating this app to apply only to the Apple Mail app - the more emails I answer, the more my plant grows; I know Merlin Mann will love this: getting my in-box to zero is a the number one sign of my productivity and I’d love to have a full-grown plant as a prize when I get there!

I used the Chia Pet widget for a few days, but for some reason I just wanted to kill it so I could see it roll over and die. I guess what I’m trying to say is that Blossom needs to be more than just another gimmicky app, it needs to be easy-to-use and actually useful for something more than just a few days of plant-growing fun.

This was by far my favourite idea of all, and the one that I would want to use personally. The fact that the mockup showed time spent in Safari, and on what sites struck an immediate chord with me. Knowing where my time went, and being able to identify where time is being sucked away on non-work activities. Its not always obvious where that time goes, and this would spell it out without having to manually record time.

Combine that with the impetus to make something grow like a work fuelled Tamagotchi, and this a real winner. My only criticism is that I found the ‘initial set up’ window a little confusing at first, whereas everything else was instantly obvious. This is a minor niggle however, as may only need an explanatory title (”How much should you be using this? for example) to make it crystal clear.

The detail I would like to see, that wasn’t covered by the mockups would be how easy it is to switch profiles. Presumably this would to be automatic, based on time, but if you were, for example, working in an evening, how you could remember to switch profile? It needs to use as little thought as possible for it to work. Anyway, I want this app!

I loved Blossom in the beginning, but I just became more and more lukewarm with it as the contest went on. It seems like a great idea until you really take a good look at it and try to think about exactly how it’d all work. The way it’s spec’d out right now, it seems like it’d be more of a hindrance to productivity than something that helps increase it.

I work hard enough that I just don’t want to stress out over taking a break to browse digg or watch a YouTube video. If your job is so awful that you need a virtual plant to keep you on track, then you should seriously consider a career change.

completely unecessary, yet delightful. i’m not sure how long the average user will stay engaged with it, but i guess we’ll find out once blossom is out there on macbooks everywhere. moving to the good/bad slider concept was a great simplification and i think it will come down to the implementation – ambient effects and the diversity of plant types will be key to keeping people’s interest. like atmosphere, i’m torn about having it on the desktop and as a dashboard fan, i’d probably prefer it as a widget and even possibly a screensaver (perhaps with time lapsed daily/weekly growth?). there’s some pretty cool algorithms out there in this space that will make this one fun to code and an obvious sequel feature is to build gardens with friends and track their “productivity”.

Pure genius. What more powerful way to get you working (and stop playing World of Warcraft) than seeing something living start to die when you’re procrastinating? Here’s why I think this would really work well. Blossom has potential to get you attached to this virtual plant, by having it grow slowly, require some serious nurturing, and grow into something entirely unique for each user based on what they do. Once you’re at this stage, after your seedling has grown into your own flowering plant after a month, would you really kill it with a gaming binge? Or for that matter, by ending the trial period?

I’m kind of sad about Blossom, as I’m the one who pushed for it to become a finalist. I still love the idea - using positive feedback to increase productivity by way of an emotional attachment. Psychologically, it’s brilliant, and looking at historically similar ideas, I think it would sell like a mofo.

That said, it’s really hard to code and it’s got to be just right or it won’t sell at all. The plant algorithms are hard, obviously. They’ve got to be compelling and interesting, and continually so. Getting it right would take a lot of work.

Collecting the performance metrics (is an app/window good or bad) is hard too, as it involves lots of weirdness with the Accessibility APIs and lots of special case code. More hard coding.

Moreover, Blossom would need a gadjillion special case things to keep the user interested. Cutesy things like a bee occasionally coming to investigate a flower, or a snail slowly making its way up the tree, stuff like that. Each of those is coding time, and it would need a ton of surprises like that to keep the user engaged over a long time span.

But my big problem with Blossom is that I just don’t like how it’s been fleshed out over the course of this contest. It’s become less compelling to me than it was at the beginning. I’m just not enthusiastic about it anymore.

Ease Of Programming: low
Potential Earnings: high
Social Good: high

Finally, I didn’t really ever get a sense of how Dan would be to work with. I’m not sure why - he’s been active during the course of the contest. Maybe it’s because I don’t feel as though I have personally interacted with him much.

Don’t vote for Blossom…

This would only be remotely entertaining if the plant was marijuana or opium and when you did certain things like actually work, you killed your crop. Maybe you could make virtual cash and compete online for the best cash crop. In order to grow the weed and heroin you have to browse certain web sites that would require you be smoking weed to start with; like the Microsoft.com Vista developer site.

Blossom grew on me and then died. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that a fake plant had limited powers of motivation. It’s one of those things that everyone realizes that it is a good idea to do (motivate to be more productive), but in practice, I think this solution would contradict with human nature as to render it more of a bane than a blessing. Basically, it boils down to being a representation of your conscience. A botanic Jiminy Cricket if you will. Most people are either already sensitive to the dictates of their conscience or are vigorously trying to repress it. Those that are sensitive, usually have better motivators than a few thousand lines of code. Those that are on the repressive side, well, let’s just say that I doubt a tomagotchi bonsai will change that tendency. Anybody over the age of 13 that develops emotional attachments to a digital shrub needs more help than software can provide. I think it would be initially popular as a curiosity download, and maybe I’m wrong here, but I just cannot see people wanting to pay money for this.

Conscience issues aside, I have been impressed with all of the graphics and logo and preference panels, etc. It’s obvious that Dan has put a lot of thought and time into this. But I have yet to see an actual plant that I would want on my desktop. I’m sorry, the plants so far are lame. Now maybe that could be addressed in development, but I would have really liked to have seen something that dropped my jaw more than has been shown so far. Hopefully, Dan will be posting more stuff this week, but as of this writing, I am not impressed.

Blossom is an idea, like Atmosphere, that has genuine appeal and I would venture to say that there is a market out there. But I have a hard time seeing people paying to have a dead plant nagging their conscience. For any type of revenue, I still maintain that this should be a site-licensed, network-installed, employee motivator. It might be a Dream App, but it’s still sleeping.

I don’t even need a plant to be growing…just show me where I’m spending my time in the pie chart. I’m afraid of what I’ll find out if this software gets made.

The most original idea in the contest. It seemed a little bit strange to me at the beginning but tempting. The idea has been refined during the contest but never lost it’s focus. It has been visualized in beautiful mock-ups. It’s originality and visualizations have convinced many people. Now it’s one of my favorites.

Man, this one takes me back. Remember the old System 7 days? Interaction with your actual desktop was the hot idea of the day. Googly Eyes used to follow your cursor…Talking Moose would make fun of you when it detected idleness…After Dark’s Lawnmower Man screensaver would mow the pixels off your screen, one row at a time. This one has a little bit of the Tamagotchi/Pet Rock thing happening, with just enough Aquarium simulator.

You *do* plan to offer a choice of different plants, don’t you?

Anyway, this one’s my favorite seed of an idea; I hope it takes root. I’ll bet that if it blossomed, it would flower on the world’s Mac desktops like creeping ivy.

I’m starting to like this idea. It’s focused and unique and just needs a few details fleshed out. Are there some heuristics which could atomically categorize documents you work on as “good” or “bad” for your plant. You can specify apps of course but sometimes you need to distinguish on the document level but without listing each and every document. Is the plant visualized on the desktop and if so how could it be done without getting in the way with all my items on the desktop? But generally speaking I think it’s a cool idea and it should be implemented.

So, the more you use an app, the better the plant will grow? What if you use Word to write a long series of mash notes to Paris Hilton? Use Entourage to send anti-gay emails to hrc@hrc.org? Use Photoshop to digitally airbrush your collection of kiddie porn? The time spent doing those useless or skanky tasks would invigorate you virtual plant? I hope not. Time spent working does not equal quality of work. With such a flawed basic premise, this app’s elaboration of growth stats is useless.

Feedback is an interesting thing.

Diets trade long-term positive feedback (I look hawt!) for short-term negative feedback (tastes good, want now!!!). That’s why they’re hard.

Blossom doesn’t involve any trades - it’s long-term positive feedback (better productivity) and short-term positive feedback (the plant that I’ve become emotionally attached to grew a new flower).

This is, in a peapod, why I like Blossom.

This app runs the risk of becoming a Tamagotchi — battery drained, dusty and forgotten at the bottom of my Applications folder. And yet I find it amazingly compelling. The thing that makes Blossom work for me is that it’s not meant to be a game you play — it’s meant to just react to what you do on your Mac during the day. It’s eye candy, it’s a productivity enhancer, and it’s even an opportunity for great artists to sell add-on packs!

Very cool idea - although I’d simplify it a bit. I’d also love to see this applied my to-do list. The more tasks I complete, the healthier my plant.

I like this idea. It’s just innovative and quirky enough to capture the imagination of Mac users. Blossom offers a positive feedback loop that will help users be more productive without coercion. The trick is going to be to make it easy for users to configure their parameters. It has to be simple, yet effective or the whole idea fails. But if you get it working put me down for a copy.

By far, the most creative idea in the contest. A sort of fauna chia-pet Tomagachi for the masses! I agree with other judge’s comments that it would have to be extremely realistic and visualized in 3D for it to really work. There would have to be a way to “minimize” it so you could keep an eye on it while you work, but also peek in on it from time to time and make sure your efforts were really helping out.

The quandary comes in when the Blossom must calculate the time you spend taking care of Blossom. Does checking in on it, looking at it, playing in the preferences, etc count as “work time” or “play time”? You’re not really being productive, you are just checking to SEE if you’ve been productive. Why do I feel like I’m stuck in a temporal loop now???

This is a solid idea, but it’ll all come down to the implementation. First, I think you’ll really need to simplify that control panel even more, make it easy as pie to learn. Then, you need to throw in lots of customizations to the actual plant. Really, it doesn’t have to be a plant at all. It could be a skyscraper that is being built. There are tons of great illustrators out there, all they’d need to do is construct a linear series of progress images. Our Picture Framer widget ships with ten different frames, this should come with at least as many. Also, it’s a great angle for shareware - give away two themes, only the paid version supports other themes. Lastly, you should support hue shifting, because I might want five flowers growing on my desktop for different things, one red, one yellow, etc.

This is the most original idea I’ve read here but it’d be quite interesting to see how developer will pull this complex plant growth/death simulation trick.

There used to be a screensaver for Mac OS X way back in year 2000 that simulates plant/tree growth called Maya Paint Effects Screen Saver X (still available at Versiontracker )

I’m not sure if developer is able to extract anything useful out of that screensaver but it showed that it’s possible to do detailed plant/tree using paint algorithm.

Several UI challenges you’re going to have to figure out is where exactly to place the plant on the desktop and how big it will be. It’s either out of your sight or in-your-face.

I want this, badly. I think I’ve said something about it every round, and I’m not going to stop - Blossom rules. Increasing productivity by associating it with a nurturing instinct is just flat-out brilliant.

This is a truly unique idea setting it apart from the rest of the finalists. At first I thought this is weird but consider how this simple idea of a growing plant could motivate you and help you achieving your goals. The idea is focused and the first mock-ups are very promising. A very simple interface for setting up the rules and that’s basically what you need. The possibilities of a design for growing plants are plentiful. It’s definitely another favorite on my list particularly because of its unique character.

Blossom is a neat idea. I have to say that I was unsure of how easy it would be to define what productivity means to you, but the latest mockup proved me otherwise. If it is really that straightforward to tell Blossom what to qualify as work and what to qualify as goof off or play time, then I have no doubts about the cool factor of having a plant grow.

This app fills a very weird niche - I’d call it a metaproductivity tool. While it’s purpose and projected functionality are awesome, I have reservations to the interface. First of all buttons - there are four styles of them in the mockup. This doesn’t improve neither consistency nor looks. I would limit them to maximum two styles. Second - iTunes-like scrollbar. It’s just my personal opinion but I find new iTunes UI elements simply horrible. I’d go for standard Aqua scrollbars, at least until Leopard is released. Third: app logo looks completely out of place. Again personal, aesthetic opinion - it looks bad. Horizontal glow put on each letter, yellow outer glow and blurred, squished reflection… It might be a good idea, a starting point but it sure needs a lot of work.

Blossom’s a great concept but also one of the more risky ones from a marketing standpoint. If it wins it’ll either be a big hit or a big flop. A lot depends on the execution of course, but comparing this with something like Cookbook, it’s not the kind of app that you can immediately “get”.

It’s ranking pretty high in the voting results but Dan’s going to have to do something remarkable soon to push it into the top 3.

I’d buy this in a second if I could get a freaky organic plant on my desktop. It’d be the epitome of functional eye-candy. Would also be awesome if there was some way to create a few petal, leaf, and branch styles and let the app generate the plant off of those, then the customizing junkies (like myself) would really jump on board.

A really really neat idea… beyond the plant, this is the sort of thing where the interface should be dead-simple, like screensaver simple (how’s that for input!). Either that or something completely over the top like the KPT Fractal surfing interfaces of old. Behavior-wise, I think it would be amazing if it were possible to ensure that no two plants looked alike by using random seeds and a genetic evolution as previously suggested. I’d also like to see the plant from an almost top-down but 3D perspective shooting runners randomly out across the desktop rather than just sitting in a pot. I would also hope that some sort of continuous sense of life be given to the plant through subtle cycling movement or something. Unfortunately, it does seem like the sort of app that could lose its novelty rather quickly if it’s birthed half-baked and isn’t mind-blowingly cool from the get go. Still, a very original and inspiring idea if done properly.

I like the idea of trying to visualize boring columnar data in unusual, ambient ways. Another approach, that’s a bit more ambitious (similar to multiple plants as you describe), might be to portray a _garden_, where the different areas (tomatoes, daisies, loco weed, whatever) reflect the health of different areas of your life. If you play to much WoW, the rose bushes representing your relationship with your spouse turns brown, etc. :)

Having said that, this would be a bitch to pull off — tools and their usage are not inherent markers of anything but tool usagee. So, for myself, I’m unsure how, e.g., email usage would fit into this. Ideally my plant would flourish based on _dispensing_ emails efficiently — and having my plant penalized for a day where I got a lot off my plate would suck.

Promising idea, though.

This is the best idea in the whole batch: it’s feasible, it would be useful, it might be fun, and people might actually buy it. I can’t say those things about any other idea.

You really need to concentrate on making it as easy, quick, and obvious as possible to configure goals and rules. If it’s too complicated, or if it takes too many clicks to make adjustments, then people aren’t going to actually use it, even if they want to. An anti-procrastination tool or system can’t feel like work itself; if it does, people will procrastinate to avoid the tool or system.

The whole point is to get you to concentrate on the things you want to be concentrating on; Blossom needs to be a motivator, not a distraction in and of itself. Make it as simple as you possibly can. Ask yourself how Apple would do this — think about the options and preferences that they would remove just to make it simpler and more obvious. (Another good thing about your idea is that this is the sort of app that Apple would never actually do themselves — but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t think about how they would do it if they did.)

Another way to turn my Mac into an ambient device, and I like it. I’m not sure if I would actually use this application (I’m a master of ‘Not Getting Things Done’) but the idea is very cool. I can imagine people getting into the idea of trying to make their blooms better than their co-workers because in the end it is all about being better than someone else.

Dan, you’ve captivated me with your UI concept. A fun app idea with a great fill of eye candy. I would finally be able to see how much time I spend in various apps everyday. It’s a truly original idea with a phenomenal featureset and has never been done before. I’m rooting (lol) for ya!

A very original idea. Is there anything like scientific research that this could be based upon?

At first I didn’t really like this idea. But the more I thought about it, the more I thought I might actually use it. I remember when I used the Chia Pet widget in dashboard. Every day I would excitedly open the dashboard to see if it’s grown any and I would water it. Heck, I’d even stop in several times a day to water it just to be sure I didn’t forget earlier or to make sure it registered my click from earlier, etc. When I forgot to water it one weekend and saw it upside dead on that dreadful Monday morning, I was devastated. What had I done to my poor chia pet??

This suspension of disbelief could keep me using the app for a while, I think. My only concern is being able to tell it what programs are considered healthy and which are considered procrastination apps. For example, a typical workday for me involves using a Jabber chatroom and browsing (and typing in) multiple tabs in multiple windows of Firefox. These 2 primary tools for me would equal imminent death for my poor plant since I *have* to use them to do my job. Other than that, it could be intriguing. Once I begin goofing off (maybe you could set specific urls to be considered bad, such as youtube, google video, facebook, etc), perhaps I could audibly hear my plant slowly being wilting, recovering, etc.

I suspect this application would be used as intended for a very short time. How long before even casual Mac users start learning to game the system? An excellent implementation of this idea only makes the situation worse. The better the reward (e.g., photorealistic, procedurally rendered plants swaying in the wind), the greater the temptation to fast-forward to the end to see the big payoff. Anyone with enough discipline to actually stick to the (self-imposed, remember) rules probably also has enough discipline to achieve his goals without a digital plant beckoning him from the finish line.

On the other hand, few people are self-aware enough to recognize their own utter lack of self-control, so this thing may sell well regardless of its practical worth as a productivity tool. Plus, make the plant growth effects cool enough and you’ve got yourself a decent screen-saver, at the very least.

Weird enough to be great. That’s all I can say.

Staying productive seems to be all the rage on the internet nowadays, between the countless apps that organize your information and the life hacking techniques being invented. These do you very little good if, like me, you are easily distracted and regularly hijacked by an interesting news link. While the idea behind Blossom seems a little cutesy, the ability to visualize your efficiency could lead to some interesting revelations and, more importantly, better awareness of your activities. It may take a little time to get used to it, but Blossom could certainly help people stay on track.

This is a neat idea. While it may be tricky to specify what it means to be “actively” using an app (do you have to be typing? how does the program detect this?), I think it’s worth exploring.

Wow, I really like this idea, and I can’t think of anything else out there like it. Nothing is cooler than an untapped area for programmers to explore.

Where I think Blossom would take root (haha) would be in the UI obviously. There’s so much room for neat ways to get the point across that you’re not living up to your own standards. Wilting, flowers, little bees could pollinate across plants. Can I get this on my desktop like Konfabulator? What about if I’m _really_ productive one day? Can I get little nitrogen tablets to use at a later date when I’m feeling lazy? And the programmer in me says “this is reasonable, go for it”. I say go for this one.

I’m always thinking about clever ways to solve the problem of work procrastination. I’m one of these guys who will accomplish a task on my to-do list, then immediately take a reward of ten minutes of stupid web browsing, like a mouse eating a piece of e-cheese. Thus, I think this idea is really quite clever — if I know I’m going to be killing a beautiful flower on my desktop by arguing about video games on the internets for twenty minutes, I honestly (honestly!) might think twice about it and go back to work. It’s a great way to try to exercise on-task self-control in a fun way — without resorting to, you know, firewalls or electric shock therapy. I’m not entirely sure it would be a huge seller, because it’s really not the kind of thing anyone wants to admit to paying for. But, if it was cheap and cheerful enough, it could find an audience.

If I may, I’d like to see the plant be 3D via OpenGL, so you could easily rotate it and set an angle that looks best, with a nice shadow underneath it so it really looks like it is sitting on your desktop. Maybe add a way to publish your plant status — iChat picture? Web page? — so your friends can ridicule you when your plant dies after 2 days. And what if you can fully customize and trade plants with friends? Don’t forget to include a couple super-cute, cartoon-styled plants, for kids, Japan, and me.