My Dream App

Martin Ott is a Mac software developer who co-founded TheCodingMonkeys, a company determined to produce software that stands up to the Macintosh ease-of-use while solving complex problems. With the release of SubEthaEdit 1.0, his company revolutionized real-time text collaboration. He commits his experience and passion to My Dream App to make your dream come true. Find out more about him on his blog here.

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I can’t help myself but I’m still not into forums. Hijack is quite a cool idea nonetheless. A lot has been talked about its feasability and while there won’t be a clean way for every forum it should be possible. The recently suggested training mode is a very neat idea. Along with the mock-ups this shows how the idea evolved.

This idea get me caught right from the beginning. From day one it featured great mock-ups. They were detailed, well thought-out, and looked beautiful. It amazed me again and again how you can present seemingly boring things such as recipes. Since it started as a solid idea from the beginning it could concentrate on elaborating specific details over the course of the contest. It looks beautiful. I want it and so it’s one of my favorites.

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.

Starting with its initial submission this was a plain and simple idea. It has evolved steadily over the weeks which has shown off in very nice mock-ups. The concept kept focused and to the point. It’s basically beautifully rendered weather information right on your desktop. Almost everyone I know wants this app and it’s also one of my favorites.

A file synching with nice progress animation app idea. I think a solid synching app is needed because the solutions out there don’t fit my needs. Portal could fill that niche but seems to rely too much on fancy animations instead of building on a solid synching concept. The mock-ups have evolved to a more useful interface but I’m still not happy with them, but that’s just my gut feeling.

It’s a fun idea. I like it’s initial idea about enabling everyone creating cool music on their Macs. The mock-ups don’t quite meet this goal, yet. I like the idea but I’m torn about its current state. The basic idea is cool and fun but it’s interface and feasability is still in question.

This idea hasn’t really evolved in my opinion. Sure, the flow of action is centered around the GTD actions but this is not enough. It needs to get fleshed out more thoroughly to get a clearer picture how you would interact with it. At the moment the concept is somewhat vague. But it is necessary to get a better understanding of its interaction styles, i.e. how do you work with iGTD in detail. Especially because of the strong competition with other GTD apps it’s important to show how it would differentiate and would make not only a viable but superior player in this arena.

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.

At first I was a little bit skeptical about this idea. It sounds great and it could be a lot of fun to use. But is it really feasible? I don’t know much about audio processing so I’m not able to answer this question. But if it is feasible then it would be a cool application. The concept is solid even though it has to be refined and tightened a little bit more. It should focus on getting the whistling recognized and make it able to use it even for novice users who don’t know much about the music background.

A question which still seems to be unanswered is what’s happening if there are conflicting versions of the files you want to synchronize? That’s an important issue for every synching app. Do you have a master setup where files from the master automatically overwrite the files on the other machines? Do you want to ask the user in case of a conflict and on what type of information is she supposed to solve the conflict? Portal needs a convincing answer to this question.

Just a short comment this time: I want it!

I haven’t been an avid user of web forums so far. Part of the reason is probably the crappy user experience most of them have. Hijack should solve this problem by providing a great interface to the as many of the online forums as possible. Some judges think that interfacing with all the kinds of forums out there shouldn’t be a problem and some think it will be a very cumbersome and difficult. I think it can be done but probably not the elegant and clean way which I definitely prefer. Marketability shouldn’t be an issue for Hijack because a lot of people like to see and buy such an app but I’m personally not so much into it.

I like this idea very much. It’s focused and could be looking pretty good. I often launch dashboard to check the weather stats so I have to admit that I’m more or less addicted to weather forecasts and “weather pictures”. Merlin Mann put it right: People love weather pr0n. Getting people to buy it could be more difficult but John Gruber’s suggestion on this might be the right approach.

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.

The idea sounds like a lot of fun. Like some others I procrastinate sometimes and play a short game. Desktops Wars seems to be made for this. What I’m still missing here is a more detailed game concept. The basic idea sounds quite good but at the moment it seems to be too much or not specific enough. Is it about a short few minutes distraction or is it more about a strategy kind of game you play for hours? How interactive is it going to be? A full-blown game might take a lot of time to develop. You also need to consider that game development is probably a profession of its own. It relies so much more on great graphics and sounds which have already a high standard in regular app development. I think Desktop Wars is only feasible in the context of this contest if it is reduced to a concise concept and simple interaction styles.

The new round of mock-ups are pretty nice and are a selling point for the idea right away. It’s one of my favorite ideas in this contest. This time I would like to comment briefly on the grocery service feature. I don’t think that this feature is absolutely vital but it’s pretty cool and therefore it should be available all over the world. Cookbook should be extensible so that it could support different retailers. We don’t have amazon’s grocery service in germany, for example. But there are other companies and even small local retailers which offer these kind of services.

This idea sounds intriguing to me especially the vision behind it. But I think it’s not feasible at the moment. You need to aggregate information from several data sources probably held by various app which often don’t let you get to their data that easily. You could go the other route and tap the different data sources yourself presenting them in your own unique interface and make relations between them. Then you have the problem that you either have redundant configurations and apps for the same kind of data or you just stick with the new one. Leopard would probably lower the barrier to make this happen. But while I’m fascinated by the vision behind it I think we’re not there yet.

Telepath is a nice idea but I think it has some flaws. At first your Mac would have to be always on and on the net otherwise it couldn’t relay any messages to your phone. An alternative would be a hosted service which would require the Mac to upload upcoming notifications before it’s going offline. SMS are pretty cheap so that shouldn’t be a problem. The way back from the phone to the Mac has the same issues. Part of functionality of this idea could be solved by storing events with automatic reminders in your calender and then sync them to your phone that’s what I am doing today. Well, the issues with this workflow is the necessity to sync my phone.

What I like about the idea is putting a more user-friendly face on consuming RSS feeds. But putting it into the context of newspapers is not the right way to go. Digital newspapers tried to get off ground for several years now without real success. Much of the content I subscribed via RSS is more or less throw-away content which isn’t worth the paper it should be printed on. Focusing this idea on making RSS more accessible to the masses makes more sense to me but the newspaper idea has worn off.

Look at the beautiful mock-ups of this idea. They look great. I like the idea very much and I like cooking. It’s important that Cookbook isn’t totally focused on recipe management because that’s boring. Of course it does recipe management but above all it supports you preparing the meal. Full-screen mode, reading the recipe for you and reacting to voice commands, and timers for monitoring the cooking time are features which are of great use for this kind of app. The idea is very well thought-out and is now my favorite.

The mock-up of Bookroom looks cool. eBook, digital paper, and digital ink have their revival every few years but no one really seems to care. I hate reading long texts on computer screens. The additional ideas regarding note-taking, adding snippets, and voice-over are making the whole thing more interesting. But I still don’t like reading lots of text on the screen.

Getting Things Done is huge. The voting results of the first elemination round seem to support this view. I’m not part of the GTD “cult” yet but I’m tempted to give it a try. What’s needed is a dedicated application supporting the GTD methodology. iGTD is the idea for that kind of application. I think a lot of Mac users are looking for a GTD app right now. I’m pretty sure that there are developers out there working on this but competition is great.

Portal is a cool idea but not new though. There are several applications out there offering synchronization but none of them really turns me on. Portal could be file synching done right. The “Wow factor” of this idea is definitely the wormhole metaphor for the synchronization process. Imagine a vortex where your files get sucked in and then spit out at the other side. I totally like the metaphor for this kind of action. Besides the interface key to this idea is to make its underlying file synchronziation bullet-proof. And this is going to be the hard part. Because lots of attempts in this area showed that it’s difficult to come up with a working synchronization scheme.

Chatboard as a peer-to-peer file sharing space is very interesting and should work but doing a shared workspace where you can literally work on the shared resouces (i.e. editing them together) is much more harder. I’ve been using mostly iChat for ad-hoc file exchange with my colleagues and friends but it often just don’t work because of networking issues. Chatboad could do it right. But as it is with most networking apps the people you work with also need it otherwise it doesn’t make sense for you. Marketability could be Chatboard’s number one issue.

This idea reminded me off applications that allow to relate pictures and other resources to a location on a map. Destinations is obviously much more. I really like the idea about planning your trip, exploring the route you may go on a map and look for local information at various waypoints. I imagine a beautifully crafted interface allowing you to fly along your planned route. It’s overlayed with information you gathered for the trip. After you enjoyed the anticipation and had a great trip, Destinations completes the experience by integrating with iLife to attach pictures and movies you took on your trip. Eventually it serves as a great travel book. I’m sold on this idea.

That’s a new approach for using your iSight :-) Taking pictures of your clothes for your virtual wardrobe. Then take a picture of yourself and try different outfits and styles in your virtual dressing room. It’s probably not only for women. I might even use it :-) The dressing room could be a real challenge to code depending on what approach you’ll take. A more realstic 3D kind of approach might be very difficult. I would probably try a more playful and somewhat abstract approach, overlaying the various pieces just like you do when you hold a shirt or pants in front of you to see whether they fit or can be combined. I like the idea because it’s something new and not the usual stuff. It uses the Mac as a tool to create and share outfits and keeps a connection to the real world.

Man, I need a cool file synching application so much. Portal is a cool idea but not new though. There are several applications out there offering synchronization but none of them really turns me on. Portal could be file synching done right. I need this for synching my home on my PowerBook with the home on my Mac at work. The “Wow factor” of this idea is definitely the wormhole metaphor for the synchronization process. Imagine a vortex where your files get sucked in and then spit out at the other side. I totally like the metaphor for this kind of action. It’s probably not a mass-market product because it pays off only if you work with multiple Macs or at least work some friend or colleagues on the network. But the cool interface would have mass-appeal.

When I first read the idea I thought it was kind of lame. After looking at the mock-ups I thought differently. It blends functions of the Dock and major Dashboard widgets together for really easy access to your calender, mail and what not. The aggregated information is really at your fingertips. The Dock status icons usually only feature some kind of badge giving you a hint that something is going on, but with Ground Control you get more. The suggested plug-in architecture is very important for customizing it for the users needs and also for being open for new kind of apps. It’s also great for releasing a 1.0 version with just the basic set of plug-in, e.g. mail, calender, and weather. Then it can be extended in future versions with new plug-ins and functionality. You can also create a community around it for providing plug-ins. What worries me is the fact that it is more or less yet another Dashboard-widget-aggregation kind of app. But Ground Control seems to make it right.

It’s like Captain’s log feature in Star Trek. The function is plain and simple. Capture audio and video to create a vlog entry which you can then publish on your site. What intrigued me about this idea is that I could keep a personal video journal just like the Captain’s log. I always wanted to have something like this since I saw it the first time on Star Trek. I wouldn’t totally focus the application on the vlogging hype but would also make sure that it’s great for keeing your personal journal. It’s still no clear whether vlogging takes off. Otherwise the idea focuses on its primary function and avoids bloat by not offering features like hard-core video editing. If it is done right it could be a hit.