Seeking Application Ideas
Ever since the now very quiet drunkenbatman hosted the Evening at Adler and Gus Mueller posted, "How to become an independent programmer in just 1068 days", its has been a goal of mine to one day live the indie Mac developer dream.
Over the years I've dabbled in Mac OS X development but have struggled to find the time in between a full time job and also having a life to be able to see something through from start to finish. I'm convinced the ideas are sound because frequently others eventually release similar products. My last endevour was for a better archiver than that provided by the Finder. It was to be dead simple, taking interface cues from things like AppZapper. I discovered a little while ago that the fine folks at Apimac had created Compress Files, which implemented my ideas and more.
Frustrated by this lack of time I decided to do something about it (after a small helping of procrastination). Last week I successfully negotiated a reduction to 4 days per week at my day job, with the fifth day allocated to Mac development. The first day of my new job is Mon Feb 11, 2008. However I find myself with a bit of a problem, I don't have any current projects to actually work on. Heeding the advice in Gus' post for Lesson #1 I'm seeking ideas from the Mac using community for a small application that I can use to get started. So if you got an idea for a small application that you don't mind sharing feel free to post a comment and let me know, it might be just what I'm looking for.
July 23rd, 2008 - 01:56
Still looking for ideas? I’ve got one that has never seemed to pan out on a Mac..though it might be a tad ambitious.
Good, easy to use, Cocoa based professional CAD software. An application that can leverage existing users knowledge of AutoCAD that might even be open source. I would submit that building it as a Cocoa app utilizing OS X’s OpenGL libraries would give you a large step forward in just getting off the ground. I would love to design the interface, suggest features, advise on AutoCAD and even draw up sample files for such a project; but I’m no programmer. The farthest I go is PHP…and basic PHP at that.
Most of the CAD software out there for a Mac is crap…utter and complete crap. The only two usable applications at the moment are VectorWorks and ArchiCad and they most definitely don’t leverage any AutoCAD knowledge keeping architects and engineers who would otherwise switch to a Mac forced to stay with a PC.
Just a thought.
July 28th, 2008 - 08:57
Hi Mike, thanks for the suggestion. I decided to go with an original idea I had of an audio file splitter as its something I want for me, which provides good motivation. Your suggestion sounds like it would be quite valuable but it something that I would imagine is more suited to a team of developers given the complexity and size a full blown CAD application would end up being. I hope someone else comes up with a solution for you soon.
November 19th, 2008 - 15:26
Just because another application exists that is similar to an idea you had doesn’t mean you can’t make a success of your version of that idea. You can attack the existing product on price, features, elegance, marketing, etc.
I would suggest you pick a simple idea you have already and go with that.
November 19th, 2008 - 15:40
That’s true and I’ve seen many apps that took an existing idea and did it well. I guess what I was getting at with the comment on Compress Files was that they did exactly what I had in mind. So the itch I needed scratched was scratched without me writing it.
I have taken to implementing a simple app that I’ve wanted for a long time, the audio file splitter mentioned in the third comment. That is progressing, albeit slowly with only one day a fortnight to work on it. I really should write a post about it on here to make my progress more visible, even if only to myself. I shall add it to the end of day tasks of my Cocoa day.
September 11th, 2009 - 01:03
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog.
Cheers! Sandra. R.