Smartphone Apps

I've been toying around with the idea of making a program for either the iPhone or Gphone (Android) or both. Every time I come up with an idea though I always think that nobody would use it or find that someone has already built a similar app, usually far superior to my idea. Developing on this platform is interesting to me because a smartphone is the convergence of nearly every electronic gadget that you own. Computer, MP3 player, GPS, TV, calculator, watch,... all of these functions can be performed by one device. The main problem being that it is a jack of all trades master of none (I guess it is master of mobility). For example, your not going to write your dissertation on an iPhone and the calculator on the Gphone isn't going to graph 3D equations like your TI-89 but the you could in fact perform both of these on a smartphone.

Mobile applications are by far the most interesting market to me. Sometimes they seem like magic. Take for example Wikitude. This app uses the phones gps and Wikipedia to find interesting things around you. Using the phones camera you can create an augmented reality that points at the location. Have you ever been looking for a museum or store only to find out you were right next to it all along? Wikitude to the rescue! From the website...

The truly compelling feature is the augmented reality cam view, users may hold the phone’s camera against a spectacular mountain range and see the names and heights displayed as overlay mapped with the mountains in the camera. Users may look out of an airplane window to see what is down there. Users may walk through a city like Seville, Spain, holding the phone’s camera against a building and Wikitude tells what it is.

Click here to look at the demo.

The question I have is will people buy these types of applications and how much will they pay for them.

Assuming your phone does the basic things like calling, calender, email, etc... If you could have any application on a phone what would it be? What do want that nobody is making?

Settling In

We got the keys to our new house on 3 October and spent our first night here the next evening. Getting to know our new house has been fun for us. The previous owners left us a house in emaculate shape. The left window coverings for windows in all of the rooms and everything seems to be in really good shape. One bonus we've found is that our house gets alot of heat from the sun. In the living room there are five large windows and one sliding glass doors. These windows face East, West and South so the room always has direct sunlight. All of this sunlight warms the room up to ten degrees warmer than outside. Hopefully the drapes and blinds will deflect that heat next July. 

One thing we've found is that while it's a long and expensive process to buy a house it's an even longer and arguably more expensive process to fill it. Luckily we've had some good luck at garage sales. With the help of my mother, the expert garage saler and West Salem navigator, we've managed to take up some of the room in our house with various furnishings. We spent $20 on a really nice dining room table with four chairs. And got two La-Z-boy recliners for $80. Our mattress was a different story. My expectations was to spend around $300 on a "decent" mattress/box spring set. Having never purchased one before I was shocked to find that "decent" mattresses start at $600 and those are really more bottom line. We looked on craigslist and at garage sales but didn't have any luck finding one so we bit the bullet and got a really comfortable one for $850. We also spent retail on a nice washer/dryer set. Well, it actually wasn't a set. The dryer that matched our washer was $700. I asked the salesperson what the difference between the matching one and one for $300 was and he said "This one matches". Due to some generous gift cards from our wedding and a Sears card that got us 15% off and no payments or interest for a year this wasn't quite as big of a blow as the mattress set. Next month we'll probably start shopping for a couch and a TV. For now, the saying "Shop till you drop" applies to us, only it's our checking account that is doing the dropping.

Oliver enjoying the "new" La-Z-boy...

Megan viewing a rainbow from our back deck...

The rainbow in it's vivid glory...

(Note: there is a perched humming bird on a branch of the tree on the right)

Welcome Connor!

Monday morning (11:22am East Coast) my sister, Kate, gave birth to a healthy baby boy, Connor. Kate was really tired, so I think she'll appreciate my not posting her picture just yet. Here's one with a proud grandma, and one with the relieved dad.