TUAW at Big Nerd Ranch: now taking (app) requests!

How about something like Harry Potter Marauder's Map. This could work for a google map or maybe you could upload a campus or stadium map, or floor plan for a big building. (granted gps may not work well in a building)

Then you get to identify the people to track on the map. (Only works for those with the app.) Then you could calibrate the underlying map with the north on the compass and your location on the map. Then you get to magically see everybody playing along.

This would be great for families at the mall or baseball game. Everybody could go there way and you'd know right where to find them.

You get extra credit if you have a way to send a popup message to one or more people on the map. This should be done with in the app, so you don't have to close the app.

Lazy RSS reader:

There are a bunch of TV sets in my gym, but I can't stand TV news, even subtitled with the sound off. I want a hands-off RSS reader so I can skim headlines while on an exercise machine without using the touchscreen. Text should be big enough to read at arm's length, and should have adjustable text scrolling and updating speed options. There should also be a toggle to keep the screen from dimming out.

Special features of iPhone? It should support landscape or portrait orientation, and location services would be nice as well for local weather and news updates.

Google Reader and/or Twitter integration would be a big plus. Displaying the currently playing iPod music track would be nice too.

If you wanted to get REALLY fancy, add text-to-speech so I can hit Google Reader while driving. That would require both eyes-off and hands-off operation.

I daydream about coding this myself, but if you make it for me, so much the better!

I don't know if the sensitivity of the built in compass is sufficient to track anomalies in the strength of the earth's magnetic field. Holding the iPhone close to the ground while walking and watching a profile chart displayed on the screen might be interesting for the little „Archaeologist” in us...

I've always thought it would be nice to have something that could help track occurrences of a user-defined event type. The events would be tracked with both time and location stamps. Other data that could be tracked is speed, if the app had been left on long enough to calculate the current speed. Advanced features could also include adding fields for each event relating to photographic and textual notes. The app would have the ability to dump the collected data to a file for analysis on a desktop computer. Either through an email for purely textual records, or perhaps in some generic binary form for everything else (including textual as well). The easiest would of course be to dump the file in the general shared folder area that is supposedly included in iPhone OS 3.2 and above.

The primary focus of the app would be timely recording of events, thus the default screen would be a quick-loading short list of the 'active' event types and buttons for "add instance" on each. Other screens would be used for adding event types or further features. Perhaps a generic "add instance of new event" button would be useful for quickly starting a new tracking type on the fly where accurate time-stamping is important. Either way, I imagine these initial buttons to be *BIG*. No more than three should be able to fit in a column without scrolling (thus, at most six on a screen and even that seems like it would be too cluttered). A user should be able to quickly open the app and 'slam' a button without having to be too precise.

Examples of how this might be used:

A birdwatcher wants to track every robin or gull he sees. He would define two lists, one for robins and one for gulls. When he loads the app it would quickly present two buttons and he would hit the one for the bird type he just saw. The app notes when and where he is, and duly marks that in the appropriate "saw one of these" column.

A car enthusiast wants to track her car's performance over a few weeks while doing various engine tweaks. She configures an event type of "max speed this time" and opens the app before starting down a test track. Since the app was allowed to get a reasonable GPS fix before moving it will also be tracking current speed as she drives down the track. When she's pushed the car as far as it'll go, she quickly taps the button and the app duly makes note of when and where it was along with how fast it was going. She then slows down to check the car for any issues. She could do a number of trials that day, with the app tracking every time.

A public transit department wants to track ridership on their bus routes. They define "person got on" and "person got off" events and give the app to a worker to use while riding the bus. The worker just has to sit there watching the entry and exit doors and tapping away at the screen while passengers board or exit the bus. Since the app is tracking location as well as time data, the public transit company can get detailed results about what times are busier than others, as well as which stops can perhaps be eliminated to make the routes more efficient.

A naturalist is tracking some deer. She can define a generic "found deer marks" event and whenever she comes across trail marks, or antler scratches on a tree, or dung samples, she makes a note. Making use of the photographic and textual notes for each event, she is able to keep detailed records of each instance of the event as she is following the deer through the woods.

How about using the location tools to figure out where you are (based on stored locations ie home, work, cinema etc) and then based on where you actually are the iphones ringtone, volume etc changes accordingly also could be based on time as well ie im at home in morning (while baby sleeping) set ringtone to a lulaby or im at train station set ringtone loud and to my rock music or im at work just set quiet and in lunch hour maybe a little louder. im at home at night sleeping auto set to quiet.

+1 on the profile app. My idea was that you could shake and get a shortcut to something in particular like network settings. Maybe a user defined shortcut like the double tap home option?

A tabletop RPG app that would allow players to have interactive character sheets (with calculated fields) and access to reference material, and would allow the GM to display maps, images, and do random-number generation, track NPCs etc.?
(OK, that might be way too big a project, now that I think of it...)

Or a shopping list/meal planner that would let you download recipes and generate shopping lists from them (or search for recipes based on your shopping list!). Could also give calorie info on your shopping list, etc.

As a health care provider, I would like an app that would automatically bring up medical centers that are close to my immediate vicinity. (Also display providers and their specialties). It would use Core Location so that if I am from out of town and I need immediate but non urgent care, I could just find a "doc-in-the-box" or Urgent Care center within 1-5 miles of where I am located.

Just like people wanting to know where all of the fire exits are in a movie theatre, I think many would like to know their health care options when traveling to another location.

How about an app that can store info on all of our possessions, including its name, serial number, value in dollars, and a picture of the actual object? Maybe tie in Core Location so it stores the GPS location where the object was added.

what about some kind of app that will take video screen capture?

i'm not sure if this is possible, but..