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My Dream App For the Mac
Steve Streza writes "My Dream App, a Mac contest in search of the next killer app, features Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki, and Xbox and zune creator J. Allard as guest judges for its final round. Visitors can vote for their 3 favorite app ideas, and receive free licenses to both Overflow 2 and the Apple Design Award winning PhotoPresenter. Voting is open until Tuesday at 8:00 PM EDT, at which point the three winners will be announced. The winners, who will have emerged from an initial pool of more than 2,700 entrants, will see their app idea realized as a Mac shareware application and earn royalties on sales. "
Sheesh, you call those choices? Give the people what they really want!
The revolution will NOT be televised.
exchange a trillion dollar software idea for a legal copy of those other trillion dollar apps? Do I at least get a bumper sticker?
Im willing to offer up licensed copies of Linux. IF you can provide me with the next killer app.
It seems to me that more and more companies are running dry in the innovation department. I think its a combination of a few things. 1) Companies aren't listening to what consumers want. 2) Their creative talent is aging and young blood is harder to keep. 3) They're skimping on R&D money. Much lack of innovation might clear up by solving one of the three problems. I find it pretty pathetic that a company has to say to its customers, "We got nothin'. If you help us we'll give you royalties." However, at the same time. It would be fun to participate and at least there is a real payoff for the participants who win, so it isn't all bad.
One day the toilets of the world will rise up... And I'm going to nuke them.
Maybe if they have a contest for a 'killer app', one of the choices should actually BE a 'killer app'.
The only ones that come close to useful is file sync and the music maker. And they're far from 'killer app' status. Nobody is going to convert from PC to Mac because it has some sync software or music, especially when other software already exists for that platform and others.
The others are all in the 'ooh eyecandy' category.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
How exactly is Apple making money on this?
Except for the fact that these applications are Mac applications, and are therefore run on Apple hardware, as far as I know Apple has absolutely nothing to do with this.
It's a joke, he was joking. Woz has always been a sarcastic joker.
BTW, he didn't "invent" the Mac.
No doubt Apple's new cell phone offering will include vibrate mode.
Where were you when the voynix came?
"its Indian spam"
The curry-sauce makes it a lot easier to choke down.
Where were you when the voynix came?
A virtual plant? That's about as pointless as a virtual bicycle.
(Also, it's "Mac" not "MAC", and Woz didn't create it, he created the original Apple/Apple II systems-- singlehandedly)
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
I think you're confusing shareware with freeware.
Shareware means there is a demo version that you're encouraged to share, but there is also a full version that you have to pay for.
Freeware is just that: free (as in beer).
if there was a contest where you were asked to give up an idea for, say, a chance to win a year's worth of professional retouching, it would be a great idea for people who would value that service. for me, as a graphic designer and retoucher, it's obviously not worth it to give up IP to gain something i could easily do on my own to a higher standard. but i'd at least recognize that it's a useful prize to some people.
Nah, that's pretty weak. Read John Dvorak's columns to learn to troll Mac users successfully.
"Be nice, veer left, and never stop thinking" Iain Banks - Walking On Glass
Put the weather on your desktop.A virtual window to the outdoors for your desktop. View a virtual representation of your area's weather when too busy to go outside.
Too bust to go outside? WTF? Look out the window you lazy sow! NOT a killer app - more of a stupid idea, along the lines of Segway
Blossom
A virtual plant that responds to productivity, not sunlight and water. Had a good session in Excel? Your plant will thrive. Play too much Warcraft? Expect some withering.
Suck great steaming tourdes out of the boss's ass? Instant rainforest. Write 3000 lines of code? A garden of flowers? But what if all the code is crap? Does Blossom do QA? A REALLY bad idea, and impossible to properly implement. Blossom is fascism with a happy face - "here come the suede denim secret police! ... California! Uber Alles!"
Whistler
Music creation has never been this easy or fun. Ever had the urge to create a song until you realized it was harder than it was worth? With Whistler, just whistle, hum, or tap out your creation into music app importable form.
Now THIS is a cool thing - a REAL application that empowers people to do something they never could before. Albeit, if you're a tone deaf couch potato with no sense of rhythm, you will have a somewhat tougher time. But basically, this idea has actual use value compared to the previous ideas.
Cookbook
The ultimate cookbook application, with online grocery shopping, thousands of recipes, Leopard voiceover technology integration, shopping list sharing, and more.
This is a sort-of-cool idea. I don't think it has quite the scope and brilliant of Whistler, but this is something I could actually almost use... IF I were stupid enough to put a computer in the kitchen... DOH!
Portal
File syncing from the future. Sync folders and documents between Macs effortlessly and watch transfer progress through a cool, highly visual wormhole user interface.
If I needed to sync a bunch of macs together, I guess this would be useful. However, most Mac owners I know have ONE (perhaps 2) macs. Heck - I have two. But I also have three or four PCs floating around chez Spoilsport. If it could co-ordinate them too, then I'd be impressed... as it is, this comes under "A Really Good Idea" but not "Killer App".
so, I would rank them as follows:
1. Whistler - good stuff! A - A-
2. Portal - not bad - useful! B+
3. Cookbook - Pretty good, as soon as I get the olive oil cleaned out of my powerbook. B-
4. Atmosphere - stupid idea with marginal use for quadraplegics who wonder what they're missing. C
5. Blossom - an actively Bad Idea. F
RS
Shoes for Industry. Shoes for the Dead.
Yeah, man. And I am stuck on linux because I really need to run Word and there is no WINE for windows yet. Dang it!
It's kinda sad, actually.
Two months before I heard of this, I thought it would be cute to make an iBonsai program. Screensaver-simple, as one of these judges said. A bonsai tree with a variable time scale, from 1x to 20x. Lets you snip twigs or pinch buds to control the overall growth direction, replace the pot when it get large enough, watch it grow under different seasons, and that's about it. There are dozens of tree varieties that work well in bonsai, but it's a bit fussier than practical for those of us who don't have a green thumb or the proper humid environment.
Killer app, NO WAY. $5 shareware cute product, for some people, yes. Less manic than a Tamagotchi, but the same basic idea.
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As it's been said, only a couple of the finalists are horribly innovative applications. Do they actually propose to try and publically shame the next guy who comes out with a cookbook app?
(Yes, for the record, I am playing around with an implementation for someline like one of the apps on the list. It's far from the same application they're proposing, but it's similar enough in overall theme that they might try to 'condemn my actions' and claim copycat. I think I've got a decent app in development, but it puts a damper on it knowing that if it gets popular enough I'm going to have these folks screaming 'he stole the idea'.)
For OSS Mac stuff, a good guide is OpenSourceMac.