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What Isn't There an App For?
An anonymous reader writes: "There's an app for that!" It's been both an educational comment and a joke for years, now. There are so many small, single-purpose pieces of software available that it's impossible to keep track of everything apps can do. Indeed, when I'm looking for more usefulness out of my phone, I tend to browse the various app stores for interesting software, trying to figure out what more the phone can do for me. But a recent article turns that around and asks: for what tasks does the software have yet to be written? Though most of the article itself doesn't focus on that subject, it got me thinking about apps I'd like to see. (Which was harder than I expected.) I'd like an app that'd help me diagnose bad noises my car makes. I'd like one that can aggregate all my communication channels into one screen. I'd like one that can easily pick up program states from one PC — like an IDE session — and carry them to another PC. What apps are you still waiting for?
Dashboard camera app that scans license plates and alerts when police ghost cars are immediately ahead or behind. Connects to a user-maintained database of known ghost car plates.
May not be legal?
I'd like to be able to take a picture of a plant or mushroom and have it identified for me. Bonus points if it tells me if it is edible. Bonus Bonus points for preparation instructions and recipes.
Over reliance on apps.
Case in point: a GPS app, because even experienced drivers are too afraid to get lost. Never mind if getting lost allows you to discover new places, and more importantly, makes you learn from the mistake. People these days are so risk averse, always expecting to get it right the first time.
And Linux stole unix. Linux also stole all the command names from unix. They also stole much of the underlying mathematical concepts from boolean algebra.
Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
I had a friend who was very quiet but one hell of a programmer and made his own circuit boards for his programs. I pushed an Amiga digitizer for him on my BBS. It was freeware, unless he constructed the board himself.
He was always asking if anybody wanted a program they needed, I got a printer buffer that showed how much was left to print, this after I printed some 200+ pages (dot matrix) and no clue when it would end.
He was working on car sensors, one would plug in a serial cable to their computer and it would show defects or problems, as far as I know he only used his car for this. I've noticed that this is a commercial product now (not his).
Last I talked to him he wanted a 3D map of Mt. Rainier, and was at a loss of how to do it; not with contour maps, nor a 3D printer (not out then) but how to scan the Mountain itself, just a tad eccentric.
I'd be very interested to know what he's up to now.
So for him a mountain scanner :)
As a mobile developer and architect (primarily iOS now), I hate to say that there is much truth in that statement. In 2010, I started developing apps for both myself and corporate. The trend, which became very apparent in the early days, is that even if you have a great idea, you are up against several roadblocks. At the very least, an app/applet/program on a mobile device is supposed to do one thing and do it really well.
In the private, consumer world:
1) You have to set a price point that people will pay. That's typically either free, $0.99 or $1.99. And, it's why some developers people incorporate ads into their apps in the hopes of eeking out a living.
2) Then, you have to get it noticed. For some reason, insanely stupid or novel apps make it on the chart. The apps that provide utility never rank high so they become to find.
3) Then, you have have the copy-cats. They say copying is the finest form of flattery. Great - if it gets one a date with a really hot member of your preferred sexual preference. But, don't cut into my profits with that bullshit because you can't come up with an original idea of your own and then resell mine at a lower cost or give it away.
4) Lastly, there is the app lifecycle and planned obsolesce. You app has a limited lifetime. Any slowness during loading or awkwardness in its UI and it will, likely, meet the squiggly icon of doom rather quickly.
Platform of choice? Android and iOS.
The Commercial world is where the money is to be made. Large corporations have products they want to sell and marketing/sales folks who keep coming up with ways to get their products out there. They also have the money to fund development of limited purpose apps. Most still prefer to use web-based apps as well as they understand the web platform and how it can get their message across and it tends to be cheaper. Done with it? Just turn it off. Users aren't out any money. Typically, doing so is no harm no foul. Their platform of choice? iOS. Android is not making a dent in our industry (Pharma and Health) BECAUSE it is so open.
So, where does that leave us developers? Well, the market keeps evolving. First we had the older BREW and SYMBIAN phones (what a PITA). Then, we got smartphones followed by tablets. Now, through emerging tech, we have wearable devices. That will be the next market - finding the best ways to marry wearable tech with mobile, tablet and desktop technology to give the user something they find useful and affords the chance of making money. People might not like the ApplePhone or Pebble or whatever. But, it's coming.
Case in point - My youngest son, now 15, said he wanted an AppleWatch. Why? He finds reaching into his pocket to see the time (he doesn't walk around with it in his hand all the time, oblivious to the world around him as many teenagers do). Still, he wants something that does more than just tell the time (he's a competitive swimmer...not that the AppleWatch will help him there as it's not, supposedly, waterproof).
I still think a good online service providing utility via the web AND offering a useful web-service API is the way to go. I can build a mobile, tablet or tethered device to it when I am ready and think the market is ready and willing to pay for it.
Amazon's Echo -- Echo, for anyone who doesn't know, is a device that sits around and waits for you to ask it, or tell it, things. Like "set a timer for 22 minutes" or "what's the weather" or "what is 22 divided by 7" or "Play some classical music" and a whole host of similarly useful things. We have one and are most impressed with it -- as a first step.
The way it works is you wake it up with its name, then ask, it sends the audio to servers on the net, which speech-to-text it, and then they figure out how to answer you, send it back, and there you go. Which means that the questions and answers it can handle will be limited to generally known or knowable data of only a somewhat local nature (e.g. the current weather.) So "Alexa, what's the weather?" gets you "In Podunk, it's -12 degrees with mostly sunny skies."
So I wrote them and suggested an API over the local wifi network (it's on wifi already in every installation) where a local computer could hook in, and either pre-or post Amazon's evaluation after the speech-to-text, take a swing at answering the question or obeying the command.
So you could say, "Dad will be at the gym from 5pm till 6 pm today", Amazon would evaluate that as WTF, it'd get passed to the local system, which would store the info and tell the Echo that the input was handled, and pass back a confirmation like "Got it" or "Ok, amending dad's schedule today to add the gym from 5 to 6 pm." Later, little Seymour could ask (between four and five) "Where's daddy?" and the app could respond with "Probably at the gym until 6pm", and Echo would then text-to-speech the answer and hand it over to little Seymour.
Likewise, local in-house temperature, alarm status, variously local DB driven inquiries (inventories, expert systems, etc.)
All Amazon really needs for this is an SSH port hooked to the result of WTF (currently WTF gets you "I'm sorry, I didn't understand the question")
Then we could build our own Echo application ecosystem.
I already have extensive code that parses questions in text form and appropriately queries an expert DB, returning variously deep answers in text. Given the hooks as described, I think I could have Echo answering custom queries and taking custom data in under an hour, most of which would be spent reading the new docs to figure out talking to the Echo itself. :)
I got a nice letter back thanking me for the idea. Here's hoping.
I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
App(lication)s need to be appropriate to the platform. When people are using phone apps, they are usually looking for one of 3 things:
1) Communication.
2) Quick retrieval of information.
3) Fill in some time with some entertainment. (Casual games, Youtube, Social apps. etc)
Tablets, nearly the same.
If someone's going to do spreadsheet work for example, they'll likely be at a desk, or they'll take their laptop with them.
For example, just the other day I wanted to listen to a sound file on my phone and it was a really long file. Something like 12 hours long. And generally when I am dealing with these files, I split them into 10 minute segments so they can be listened to easily without having to remember where in the giant file I was last time. I just remember I was on file 25 at 3 minutes. Most sound listening programs also don't deal with really large sound files very well. So it makes everything more manageable when they're split up.
Anyway, long story short, I looked for such a program on android and it apparently doesn't exist. Lots of stuff for making ringtones but that isn't what I'm after.
You can't really compete with the wealth of software on desktop OS's They've been around too long and the bars for entry are non-existent.
That said, if someone knows of such a program, then please let me know.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Nope, the problem is in your head.
I can put an app on the desktop (or home sreen, whatever. same shit different name) to do stuff.
But it's not "same shit different name". Desktop metaphor is desktop with multiple opened documents side by side, and a filing cabinet and folder metaphor for data storage. Generally with pull down/ drop down menus. WinCE and the old GEOS Nokia Communicators used it. Modern phones don't.
A phone which has random files placed around it's file system by the user is a phone with a broken OS.
You mean the browse around to fine where some app has saved something?
Clearly I don't. I mean for example the people who want to spend time organising MP3 files when they have apps available that sync up songs between multiple devices, organise them in albums or artists or whatever order, and display metadata at it's best.
So why can't I put a file there too.
Why can't you program using dip switches and blinken-lights any more? Because higher abstractions are more powerful.
Files have become too low an abstraction even on the desktop. Take Office documents, these days they are stored in multiple files, but file systems are in general too dumb to coordinate multiple files as a single thing, so they are zipped up to make them into a single file. Not only does that add to loading and saving time, it means that VCSs can't generally deal properly with their XML and end up storing them as undiffable binaries.
Or take applications. On Linux you need a package manager to deal with the multiple files. Or deal with tar and gzip. Windows requires installer apps to unpackage and then distribute the files around a filing system. MacOS has a bundle system that's not supported by foreign file systems. And all of them have the problem of leaving detritus when deleting the app.
But mobile OSs have this issue sorted. To a user an app is always single thing. You download it from an app store, or you delete it as a single thing. The abstraction of the multiple files required is complete.