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Ask HN: Stuff you want but doesn't exist?

10 points by Nib ↗ HN
I've been thinking a lot lately and I've not been able to come up with ANY ideas for a new app that want to be my first published app at the App Store. So, I've decided to ask HN, what are your thoughts ? What apps/websites/ideas/stuff you really want to make life better for you ?

P.S. I've come up with a few myself:

1. A nice and beautiful(flat) Calculator app

2. A better Assistant(Better than Siri, atleast :P)

3. A better alarm clock. (One that's capable of waking ME up)

EDIT: I am asking for software, unlike quite a few people who wanted hardware stuff to exist, sure, that was great, but please, restrict yourself to software for future ideas, hackers!

25 comments

[ 12.1 ms ] story [ 1684 ms ] thread
hodgesmr
Dustin Curtis has some ideas: http://dcurt.is/the-future
Nib
Hi,

I have checked out that list and truthfully, it's a pretty awesome read but well, again, I want ideas for software/websites/apps and that is a pretty assorted list of things Mr. Curtis wants and not something that I can, atleast in the skills I presently have, can make with ease :)

P.S. I have saved that list to my Pocket and will be quite surely reading it from time to time...

rahimnathwani
There are apps for iphone and android which display 2D movie files duplicated side-by-side, so that you can get the big-screen experience using a VR headset like Durovis Dive or Google Cardboard.

I would like to be able to do other 2D things with a headset, like speed reading with one if those apps which flashes three words at a time. Or reading HN.

Nib
Are you talking about it like the Kickstrter device "Reading Rainbow" does ?

I'm not quite sure as to what you meant, because I want to make software, and truth be told, I don't know anything about hardware...

rahimnathwani
I'm thinking of a cross between these two iphone apps:

- 3dtube

- velocireader

vishalzone2002
It would be good to have an ability to have more knowledge about my commute. Ex: what is the best time to leave, do i need an umbrella, what shops will come on my way, what interesting places i can stop by,etc.
Udo
An alternative to F.lux on the Mac would be great. I'd pay for it, even if it was just a port of Redshift.

When I say alternative, I mean a program that adjusts the system color palette based on the time of day (or the light curve as captured by the webcam).

While F.lux kind of does that - barely - it's designed for something completely different: it's some kind of weird Zen sleep optimizer. What I want is to use a less harsh screen at night, whereas F.lux asserts that I shouldn't be on the computer at all during that time. Consequently, it's almost impossible to configure its behavior.

Nib
Let me check that out, it sounds like a good idea, but it'll be quite a lot of work to make that...
_delirium
> even if it was just a port of Redshift.

I believe the github-head version of Redshift has experimental OSX support, merged in mid-May. Discussion in this issue (with a list of merged patches at the end): https://github.com/jonls/redshift/pull/69

chrisbennet
I wish there was a web site where I could find movies and actors/actresses by things they had in common (they were in the same movie, etc):

For example:

Who was the actor who was in Blade Runner and Cowboys and Aliens?

What was the name of the movie that had ben stiller and the guy who costarred with with jackie chan in a cowboy movie?

dlwiest
I actually started developing this but shelved it because I couldn't figure out how to pitch it.

"So what's this app you're building do?" "Well... have you ever had that problem where you know you recognize an actor from another movie, but you don't know his name, and you don't feel like cross checking the movies' IMDB pages?" "No." "Oh. Okay."

knd775
You could just try to pitch it as a movie finder. It could be setup like WebMD, where you select a few symptoms and it determines what a possible diagnosis may be. You could select a few actors, the genre and maybe the time period. I actually really like this idea now ;)
dlwiest
True. I may pick it up again. I'll just need to figure out how to make it robust as I'd want without it becoming too clunky.
miyou
Just found this: www.imdb.com/search/common Does pretty much exactly that
Nib
I'm guessing that it'd be great if you have a voice controlled website where you just say that type of stuff will show you all connections. What say, would you like that kind of thing or would you prefer to scroll through a huge amount if stuff like google ?
hashtag
The equivalent of a high quality graphing calculator (something akin to the NSpire CX Cas or at the last the old TI-89 Plus)
Nib
That's sounds like an awesome add on idea to my present calculator idea, but just a quick question, would you like it to be like Mathematica or totally GUI based ? I think that GUI's rock but as personally, as a student, I've not used such calculators much, I'm not sure if other people would like it better if it's Command line interface ?
hashtag
I'd like it to function relatively close to how the actual calculator works as I'm use to using it that way. CLI would be cool too but I'd imagine that limits the range of users who would know what to do with the calc who may have a use for it.
henryscala
I expect A app like showme on iPad, but is for windows.
Nib
Ok, that sounds like a challenge , I have checked it out and wanna know if you want only the interactive whiteboard thing or the whole setup with students and grading and stuff ?
henryscala
Hi. I want the abilities of interactive whiteboard, recording video and audio, an all-in-one software. Currently, there are separate soft-wares to achieve the goal, e.g SmoothDraw and Camstudio together.
anywherenotes
(If this already exists, please point me to it)

I have primary medical insurance and secondary medical insurance.

I'd like software where I can mark that someone from my family has a doctor's appointment. I get few bills, all of them could be different because of mistakes: Insurance EOB, Secondary Insurance, Doctor bill. Sometimes the bill gets "corrected", in which case all prior bills should also be stored. All email communication between me and any of those parties should be stored in system (I can copy/paste). There should be red flags when numbers are not same (for example $53.67 vs $56.37 - it happens). I should be able to upload picture of EOB/other bills into the system. The system should be able to deal with a single check paying several bills (for example a bill for $26, $24 and $50 should be marked paid when I send a check for $100, and if I mistakenly send a check for $90, there should be a red flag)

None of this has to be integrated into primary/secondary insurance systems, I can upload everything. System should warn me if I have 2 of 3 bills though, have reminders to get missing ones resolved.

This information should be visible from my phone, my wife's phone and also from a website.

ABrandt
Have you seen cakehealth.com? Haven't tried it myself but like on par with what you describe, even integrates with your insurance directly.
bjourne
Make an Android chess client compatible with FICS that doesn't suck. Sell it for $5 or something and you can probably get a lot of customers.
DanBC
A calculator for idiots. I have an item proced at £37.48 - how much was that item before 20% sales tax. A disturbing number of people don't know how to do this. Not only don't know, but will go into some kind of broken mode where they stop being able to even think about the problem.