My Dream App - Raven Zachary

SoonR

2006-10-04T04:58:17Z

Take a look at SoonR - I found out about this today. While it’s not exactly what I was planning for Telepath, it may be of interest to you.

It was fun while it lasted!

2006-09-30T16:11:53Z

Thanks to everyone for your support. I am disappointed that Telepath was eliminated, but it’s the will of the people. There are several ideas that I am excited about (and a few that I am perplexed by). I will continue to vote until the end, and will now be in a position to express my opinions openly about the remaining finalists.

Best of luck to the remaining twelve!

Thank you for your votes!

2006-09-24T16:05:40Z

Thank you for voting for Teleapth - on towards round two!

Telepath survives, at least for now. It was never at risk for elimination during round one, but in the first half of voting it was in the bottom twelve, which didn’t look good for round two. As it stands now, round two looks good, but who knows how voting patterns will change for the next phase.

I appreciate your continued support.

Vote for Telepath!

2006-09-21T14:49:27Z

Welcome to My Dream App and my idea, Telepath.

Please consider adding Telepath to your voting list, as you explore the various candidates. Here is the description…

We don’t always have the luxury of being in front of a computer - whether at lunch, running errands, or on travel. Telepath is an extension of the Mac using SMS as the protocol for information exchange to and from your mobile phone. Event triggers can be programmed on the Mac using Telepath to send alerts to your mobile phone via SMS, and can even trigger actions on your Mac based on your response to these messages directly from your mobile phone. Potential uses include email delivery, IM, Growl notifications, and security alerts. Telepath is a new type of “remote access” technology, with your phone as an extension of your Mac experience.

For more details on Telepath, please view my first blog entry, Telepath - your mobile mac experience.

Pricing, receiving, and sending

2006-09-21T06:43:07Z

With the first round voting starting tonight, I thought it was important to update the idea log. Thanks to everyone who offered up their feedback. I am also looking forward to reviewing the guest judge feedback. Presumably, it will be posted in the next few days.

I raised the issue of pursuing a Java client approach, as an alternative to SMS, but I believe this is the wrong path. Java will severely limit adoption. Mass-market appeal and ease of use points to SMS. It is the way to go, even if it limits the potential of the application.

I want to focus this post on three major issues - pricing, receiving, and sending.

Pricing:

Telepath is not a service, it is an application. The intent here is for Telepath to be sold based on a one-time license fee. Where pricing comes into play beyond the license fee relates to the users’ own costs of receiving and sending SMS messages to/from a mobile phone.

Each mobile carrier and rate plan has specific usage limits and costs for SMS. Because of this, Telepath will have a cost impact that is specific to the individual user. One of the ideas was for the application to keep track of how many SMS messages were sent, and possibly the capping of notifications based on a cost threshold.

In my case, my rate plan includes unlimited SMS messages. Telepath should have no additional cost impact to me beyond the license fee. Other users may have prohibitive SMS surcharges, making the use of Telepath impractical. Just because all potential users can’t enjoy the benefits of Telepath doesn’t mean that the application should be shelved. Some users may be willing to pay the SMS fees based on the application’s value.

Receiving SMS (Telepath -> Phone):

With a cursory look at Google, I find a number of resources for sending SMS messages. Here are just a few:

http://www.technoblog.org/freesms/
http://www.textmefree.com/
http://www.csoft.co.uk/sms/example_code/index.htm

Based on what I saw, I do not think that Telepath will need to incur fees for sending SMS messages, at least for North America and the UK. In addition, most (if not all) of the US carriers have email to SMS addresses for phones:

* T-Mobile: phonenumber@tmomail.net
* Virgin Mobile: phonenumber@vmobl.com
* Cingular: phonenumber@cingularme.com
* Sprint: phonenumber@messaging.sprintpcs.com
* Verizon: phonenumber@vtext.com
* Nextel: phonenumber@messaging.nextel.com

Another option would be for us to partner with someone such as TeleFlip (www.teleflip.com) to manage the outbound SMS message and the company selling Telepath would eat the costs associated with this partnership as part of doing business.

I am not concerned about sending SMS messages under most circumstances. There are a number of options, and this could be resolved during the application planning phase.

Sending SMS (Phone -> Telepath):

This is one area that I have had less time to consider, and may be a limiting factor. While a notification-only implementation of Telepath has value, I have been excited by the potential of controlling a Macintosh remotely. This is only possible if we can resolve the phone to Mac issue, likely through an SMS to email conduit.

A few people pointed me to SMS2Email (www.sms2email.com). There may be a partnering opportunity here. The other possibility may be to setup some sort of SMS Server where all Telepath users send to a single SMS number, and based on the sender address, these control messages are then distributed from the central server to the individual client machines. Clearly, there would be some security issues to work on under this scenario.

Why vote for Telepath?

As you vote during this next round, don’t assume that Telepath isn’t possible and therefore should be passed over. I do believe it is possible and we’ll work out the sending and receiving issues in a way that does not create recurring costs for the users (other than application carrier SMS fees).

Telepath - your mobile Mac experience

2006-09-15T00:33:06Z

Hello everyone, and welcome to my dream app - Telepath. Many thanks go out to the judges for selecting Telepath from thousands of submissions. The process of reviewing over 2,700 entries and narrowing it down to just 24 ideas must have been exhausting. At this stage, I assumed that Telepath wouldn’t make the cut and was supporting a few contestants already. I’ll keep supporting my favorite ideas, and will now get to support my own, as well. I am looking forward to the first round, although frankly speaking, I don’t have any clue about what to expect. It’s time to go back and read through the contest rules again. Most of all, I’m excited about the opportunity to collaborate with a passionate community of insightful people here on making Telepath the best dream app it can possibly be.

What is Telepath?

When you are in front of our computer, there is so much interactivity going on - email, instant messaging, news alerts, calendar notifications, various Dashboard widgets, and so much more. When you step away, the interactivity stops. Telepath helps to extend that interactivity by using your mobile phone, the device you carry around in our pocket, as the ‘mobile Mac appendage.’

While the delivery of information to the mobile phone may be the most obvious use for Telepath, there is a two-way component here that has tremendous potential. What if you could interact and control your Mac remotely based on your responses to these notifications, or even act as the initiator? Many of you with Internet-enabled, iSync-compatible phones may look at Telepath and not see much added value beyond what you already have. However, Telepath is about staying informed and engaging with your computer remotely.

Telepath is unlike any other dream app finalist in that it’s not actually used while you’re at your Mac! It acts as the conduit between your Mac and your mobile phone. While you’re at your computer, Telepath is only used for creating rules and filters for what the experience will be while you’re away. It’s basically a mobile server for the mobile client in your pocket.

A Call for Participation

We are only at the very beginning of this application’s life. It’s a simple concept, and one that needs your support. I’m sure that many of you will have ideas for Telepath that I couldn’t possibly dream up. Please share those ideas with me and let’s make Telepath the best dream app it can possibly be! This is a group effort, and we all benefit from its success. While it may be my idea right now, by the end of this process, it will be the collective idea of those of us who contributed to its realization. And, if we aren’t one of the lucky three finalists at the end of the contest, then let’s go build this app anyway…ok?

Some important decisions need to be made and some research needs to be done. Telepath needs your help.

* Is SMS the best way to implement this?
* If we build a more fully featured mobile Java app, does it become less consumer friendly?
* How does we arrange for the delivery of an SMS to a computer?
* How do we determine which notifications are relevant?
* How do we make the two-way aspect compelling?
* What are the cost impacts based on various rate plans and mobile carriers?
* How will Telepath know when to activate? Bluetooth proximity loss?
* How willl we make the syntax simple for messages initiated from the phone?
* Etcetera…etcetera…

How do we, as a community, create the best possible extension of the Macintosh experience for our mobile phones? Think that question over and post a reply to this blog entry. Oh, and take part in the Telepath forum!

Thank you. I look forward to your participation.