First of all, let me voice my appreciation to Phillip, the developers, judges, and everyone else behind the scenes of this event. The quality, organization, and hard work was immediately apparent and it’s incredibly exciting to see something like this rise to such heights, so fast, in the ever growing Mac community. Fantastic idea that couldn’t have been executed any better. I’m honored, humbled and frickin’ excited to be a part of something so cool. Also, I admire a lot of the other entries that Hijack happens to be competing with so far… I’d like to see all of these developed!
I first found out about this competition through Digg.com. Immediately a couple apps i’ve been pining for came to mind, so I quickly registered and submitted. However, my first idea (iJob, which has been described in the Critique My Dream App forum) was an app that I’ve always had a need for, but I can see that it wouldn’t have as broad of an appeal as Hijack would.
Hijack is something that everyone never knew they needed. You’re going to wonder how you ever lived without it. If you’re a typical web denizen like me, then you post to message boards A LOT. And if you don’t, you’re probably not using the internet right, and should stop before you break something, or worse yet, hurt yourself or a loved one. Anyway, at any given time, I might have around 2-5 threads started across many different forums or message boards that I’m trying to stay on top of. Added to that, I might be subscribed to many different threads, or if not subscribed, then I might just be moderately interested in a discussion. HEY?! Let’s make an app!
The obvious way to handle such a thing might be to have a centralized app that you can drag threads right into from your browser. It would be compatible with most BBs, and automatically load in all the avatars, smilies, post counts, time stamps, images… what have you. Maybe you can even create virtual forums, so you don’t even need to use your browser once you point Hijack in the right direction for certain forums you visit all the time. But most importantly, it keeps track of posts you’ve started and threads you’re interested in. Of course it’ll alert or show you when there’s been a new reply and all that crazy stuff… but what gets me really excited are ways to work in new Leopard technologies, like automatic grammar checking, that new Alex voice for reading posts, and maybe some cool Core Animation stuff because it’s there and we should use it. Also, all these threads will probably be saved locally, and easily searched with Spotlight or archived. Lots of crap to keep those developers from slackin’. Anyway, it’s gonna be sexy, smooth and all in ONE place.
This is all just base idea stuff, but I’m sure it can be greatly expanded upon. I’d love to hear what everyone has to say, and how all of us can make this truly an app for everybody!
Fire away…
