Wozniak to Judge American Idol-Inspired Mac App Contest

cmundhe writes "Mac entrepreneur Phill Ryu today launched My Dream App, a new American Idol-inspired online competition where contestants can win the chance to have their killer app idea realized by experienced Mac developers. Over forty industry luminaries, including Apple founder Steve Wozniak, have signed on to My Dream App as guest judges to help contestants hone their ideas."

Comments

Outsourcing gone mad or a good idea?

[epo001]

I'm alternating between thinking that this idea is ridiculously stupid, or alternatively, truly inspired.

I propose an optimisation, let the winner be the one with the best elevator pitch - "It's like excel meets my-space, you arrange your friends into rows and columns ..."

just like high-concept movie ideas where a one-sentence summary gets turned into a 90-minute film.

David Watanabe

[Anonymous Coward]

It should be noted that author of Acquisition and GPL violator Mr. David Watanabe is one of the judges according to Phill Ryu's blog.

"Hi. My name is Phill and I am an 18 year old Mac user (the super cool, hip, college student kind)." - Phill Ryu

LOL!

Let me clarify

[Propaganda13]

Successful implementation of a good idea is incredibly valuable. You don't have to come up with a new idea, you just have to implement it better than others. Do you think the Ipod was the first mp3 player?

Little People Patents

[Dareth]

"The ideas that "little people" never had the resources to implement are a resource that can be valuable and is easily tapped."

Unless they protect them with patents prior to entering them in the contest. Does the winner get a royalty? Ever wonder if the "recording contract" an American Idol wins is better than a regular "slave contract" other artist sign?

Hopefully just submitting the idea is considering publishing it. Software patents are bad enough without someone else patenting your idea.

Do you suppose the first caveman who sharpened a stick hired another caveman to club the second guy to sharpen a stick? Lawyer, world's second oldest profession.

Non-coders aren't the problem...

[stokes]

[1] I'm sorry, but if long experience developing has taught me anything, it's this: If you don't know how to code, and have no experience of coding, you have no idea what you want.

I disagree. I think people who know how to code can sometimes get tunnel vision; they try to think of an idea but unconsciously return to what they know about coding -- standard UI widgets, common practices, how other applications they've written worked, et cetera. I sometimes get trapped like this myself. Someone who is just a user will describe what they want and not consider that stock widget x can't do what they're describing. The problem isn't people who don't know how to code, but people who don't think things through.

Re:"open," eh?

[RabidMonkey]

Now, I know this goes against the prevailing wisdumb, but ...

Whats wrong with this? If the person decides to enter this contest, they do so knowing that Apple will be taking their app and 'taking it and running with it'... so whats bad about this?

I know we're supposed to be against anyone doing anything thats not open around here - fine and dandy, but I'm sure there are some people out there that would love the

a) exposure (great resume fodder)
b) prize
c) coolness of having their app included in MacOS

So whats so bad about this? It's not like Apple is saying 'hey, you give us this idea, and we'll give it to the community' then turning around and taking it and not giving back. They're doing exactly what they say they will.

There is nothing wrong with a company wanting to make money, and make it off good ideas. To me, thats much better than making money off of bad ideas.

But hey, I don't toe the party line that well, so I could be completly wrong here.