Influential Ideas

Microwave Timer

2012-09-26T10:21:00.001-07:00

Problem:

Microwave ovens that have seconds left on the timer, will not allow you to enter a new time, this can be very frustrating.

Solution:

One solution would be to allow the user to enter time, but that has several issues. For instance, you might accidentally enter a new time, and then no longer have a way of finding out how long the item had been cooking for, or how long it has left.

Instead, the microwaves should add a timer, after say 5 minutes, the timer will automatically clear the remaining time, and return to displaying the clock.

iPhone Bluetooth Music Remote Control

2011-08-30T09:48:00.000-07:00

Problem:

The iphone does not support the bluetooth protocols that are required to create a bluetooth remote control. It seems that this is something apple should be interested in building. One remote that would work with my Mac, my iPhone, iPod touch, iPod and iPad. This would be super great for anyone who wishes to control their device, without the problems of line of site.

Solution:

Here is another feature that I think we should have had a long time ago, adding the profile to the devices so that they can be remote controlled. That would be the most elegant solution but would require apple to release it in order for all the hardware manufacturers to build the remote controls. If apple added this, it would even be possible to add the control features to the native apps, and extended to 3rd party apps. For instance, it could remote keynote from the ios device, it could remote the iPod player and any other application such as the video player could hop on board and be controlled.

In the case that apple will not, or has not done it, why not build a custom app? Applications + hardware solution is less elegant, but still works. Building a wifi remote control would be the next best solution. An app on the iOS device would listen to the wifi remote control. This wifi remote could be used for anything, not limited just to iOS, but with a special iOS app, it could be used to control music. Other apps could be built to play videos.

The bigger idea of course, is that if we had a wifi remote, it could be used in any 3rd party application, that choose to use it. I think this would be a great idea for any company currently making peripherals.

IOS Android Emulator

2011-05-31T07:10:00.000-07:00

Problem

I was looking at the Android software development kit (ADK) yesterday, while I was trying to test my latest app out on android, and the emulator was running extremely slow on my fast computer, so I googled "slow android emulator", just to make sure it was not only me. As it runs out, it was not, many people are upset about the speed of the emulator.

Solution

I thought, hey wait a minute, maybe we could fix this, if it was running on similar hardware, like a mobile device. Then I thought, why not run the emulator on an iPad? This might be crazy, but I know I would like to have an emulator that could start up android apps, I don't actually want the full emulator with the browser and settings, I just want to show me a list of apps, and let me click one. The iPad would be more the fast enough to support this, and it has hardware features that are similar to that of the android tablets.

It's also worth noting that the emulator is not open source, so it would not be a simple thing to do, but I am wondering why not have Google do it? It would increase the size of it's install base, not something they are currently very concerned with, but it would also mean, that android runs everywhere, and that was a theme at Google IO this year.

I will keep my fingers crossed on this one.

iPhone Required Change

2011-05-19T10:34:00.000-07:00

Problem

It can not be just me, the iPhone should have had this functionality built in at least by IOS 3. The notifications (blue notifications on startup screen), should be saved in a stream, that users can go back through at any time, so that if you missed a notification, maybe it was covered by a missed call for instance, you could see what you have missed.

It' would be very helpful to most iPhone users who have more then one notification source, and I believe that is almost all iPhone users.

Idea

It would be good for the feature to run as an app. The user clicks the app, and it lists all of the prior notifications, and clicking a notification will lead you to the app that fired that notification, just as if you clicked on it on the home screen. It would also be nice to list the app that fired the notification in the first place, even showing the app icon as a reminder.

There are apps that sound like they can help, but they are actually very different animals.

Take for instance, Push 4.0. This app is actually an app that will support new push notifications to your phone, but does not help with the existing notifications.