Thinking of writing a smartphone app and I was wondering what kind of app people would like to use but don’t have now. I have some ideas myself but I want to get feedback from others.
Sounds like you need a smartphone app that comes up with ideas for smartphone apps. 
An app that disables other smartphones in theaters, libraries, etc etc, and then shuts itself off too.
I’m looking for an offline browser for iOS. There are a couple but they aren’t meant for regular updating. Ideally I could have a list of websites, each website can have additional pages (eg <url>page=2, page=3 etc) and I’d be able to say update the entire list, or update individual sites. Tags and background/scheduled updates would be great.
I had Advanced OS and LED on my Blackberry and loved it.
I just bought an android, Samsung Galaxy Note II, and I wish I could find something similar.
I wish VideoETA had an app for Droid. Best I can tell, they don’t, and I use that site constantly at my job at the video store. (Google takes a little longer, and there’s no 4G coverage in town, just 3G).
You are no doubt looking for something easier and trademark free, but there are some older games I’d love to see as apps - Grim Fandango, Starship Titanic, the various Sims especially SimEarth, Gravity, the various Infocom and Lucasarts games.
Pretty much every app could benefit from being able to function at least partially offline, so there’s an improvement you could offer in your own version of an already existing app.
There’s an idea for a productivity app I have been thinking of working on, but if you’re interested, PM me, because I’d want to be involved.
There’s a few google apps that aren’t available on the iPhone so there’s a market for a apps similar to those.
Tools for gamers and fictional media creators would be cool - things like fictional map, world, and character creation, both user and randomly (or parameter) based.
An app that identifies and transcribes notes you sing would be useful for amateur song writers.
A Twitter app that auto translates would be great for those who follow international friends.
Something like the desktop Mac’s PhotoBooth could be fun.
A media database that lets you keep track of your favorite bands, movies, writers etc. Should interface with iTunes, imdb, amazon, and goodreads to sync your ratings, reviews, wish lists, loans, and inventory, etc.
Turtles. Anything to do with turtles.
Shifting mandalas for meditation, perhaps with soundscapes.
Simple vector illustration app.
Enhanced reality graffiti. Go anywhere and place secret art, messages, virtual objects or avatars, helpful info in a real environment that can only be seen in the app.
Guide to hair styles, including facial hair, color, and accessories like hats. Can mix and match on a virtual face, or on your own. Gives advice on best style options for different head shapes, hair types, skin color, and amount of hair. Must include monkey tail.
Good citizen app. Gives personalized or searchable info based on location. Emergency numbers, government contact, garbage schedule, town calendar, voting place and ballot options, candidate profiles, local charities and volunteer opportunities.
Amateur electronic teaching app.
“Game of life” app with customizable cell rules.
Any kind of physics sim or physics based game is always cool. I’d like to see a astronomical body sim, with orbits, impacts, and variable time rate.
Basically any science sim where you can mess with the variables and elements to see what happens.
A genetic life sim or sim game, where you can either selectively mate your organism to evolve, separate to cause natural speciation due to differential drift, cause selection pressure due to environmental changes, or directly modify the genome.
An app version of those cool magnet toys.
A general within proximity file or info exchange app.
A biofeedback app.
A multiple intelligence types training app.
A biological chemical pathways app.
A visual acuity training app.
A shareable-sets flash card app.
Calendar app that tells you the time and date for every calendar and location, present and historical.
Continental drift app. Include past and future of Earth, as well as sim for personally created planetary bodies or randomly (or parameter based) generated ones.
Generally, anything related to simulation, or procedural generation, or sandbox.
An app version of ContextFree.
Chimera creator. Mix and match animals. Sandbox and / or game.
App version of any of the java apps on Greg Egan’s page.
A FarmVille/Smurf Village style game with an interstellar theme, or any weird or cool theme.
I don’t know what stoners would like, but I imagine there’s a huge market there.
In general, the top apps seem to be
- games - simple physics based like Angry Birds, or simple sim/farming games, or simple multiplayer games like words with friends
- productivity - to do, accounting, lists, notes, contacts, calendars, file sharing, etc
- social like Facebook/twitter/Skype/Tapatalk, especially when there’s a creative aspect like Instagram/Tumblr
An app version of chat rooms / irc under its own network.
An Eat Poop You Cat / Telephone Pictionary style app with better drawing tools.
A party games app.
A meme creator (lol cat, demotivational, etc) app.
A reverse image search app that gets results from tineye, google, etc.
An easily programmable math / object interaction sim.
Something like the MIDI themed object oriented MAX but not just for MIDI.
A good app for parking in the city would be awesome, and something I would use all the time. I’ve seen some apps to help find parking, but nothing that seems really good.
So, for the ideal parking app, you could enter where you want to go, and it would show/tell you what parking lots are near by, if they are free or how much they cost, show you where street parking is or isn’t allowed, when you are required to feed the meter or not, and other needed information. It might be difficult to get all this information and keep it updated, but I guess you could start with New York or whatever and update it with new cities as you go along.
These are the two ideas I like the best. If I see an actor or director I like right now, I can look up on IMDB what they’ve been in before. But it would be great if there was an app that would update me when they are in a new movie and when that movie is in theaters near me, or when it’s released on DVD. Or when the actor is in a new TV show and lets me know when and where the TV show is available.
With music, it’s pretty easy to be aware when some big band like Radiohead has a new album or new songs coming out, because it’s big news. But an app where I could keep track of the smaller bands and when they have new songs or albums coming out would be handy. Especially if it could also keep track of side projects and guest appearances, and performances on TV shows.
I would love a good citizen app. Information about recycling or recycling pickup would also be great.
One of the first apps I saw on iOS (I think it was the 2nd iPhone) was a nifty little thing where somehow it made the illusion of a 3d image (I think some kind of line art or character) actually popping out of the phone. You had to spin the phone or look at it from a particular angle or something.
I’d love to see this for Android.
Thanks to this I can swim with my iPod Touch. But there’s no good way to automatically count or time laps. There might be something, but all I’ve seen I’d have to stop, turn on the screen and touch a button or something to indicate a lap being done. I could buy a $170 watch to do the task but I’ve already got a $200 machine with a gyroscope strapped to my arm. There needs to be something inbetween.