Developer needs ideas for a new app

[Gh0s7]

Hi guys!
I know that this topic may sound strange but I have something to ask to you.

Let's get to the point:
I desperately need some money to continue my studies at the university and, since I just graduated, I thought that I could use what I've learnt to earn something.
(This may confuse you but in Italy we graduate after 3 years and then we can choose to take a "second level degree" which is what I need to do now)

So here's the deal:
I need some ideas to make an app which you need and which is not in the Marketplace.
The user which gives me the idea, will have the app for free and, if he wants, he will get every major beta build to give me his feedback before the release.
The app will be then sold on the Marketplace and I'll use that money to pay my studies.

Of course I'm not asking you to give me the best idea ever so that I can get rich while you just get a free app in return.
I'm talking about some useful apps that nobody realized yet or something funny that may be worth making.

So write your ideas and help me finishing my studies :smile:

 

[iamtim]

I have a OneNote section filled with app ideas, but you can't have them because I'm working on developing them myself. Sorry.

 

[Gh0s7]

If those are your ideas, you deserve it
My post is directed to someone who can't develop them by himself, otherwise I'd just be a thief

 

[IamAdiSri]

Umm.....i'd to bring to your attention something I've noticed and maybe you can convert it into an app. :/
it might be a solution to the music duplication glitch.

 

[Ultimateone]

Create an app that can load custom tones for text etc

 

[Gh0s7]

I'm sorry but there's nothing I can do about your ideas.
Custom tones for texts are not allowed by MS and the duplication glitch depends on how the system handles the SD card.

Thank you for your help

 

[Nick_1020]

How about an app that can stream music from SkyDrive? I'm aware some of these already exist but most I have tried are very poor at doing that.

With space becoming a huge issue for WP8 users with 'other' storage and temporary files constantly stealing disk space leaving many users forced to feel that all they can do is reset and start over which is hugely inconvenient, it would be great to allow users to host all/some of their music and playlists on SkyDrive to play as and when they need to. If such an app could detect playlists that were already hosted on SkyDrive, that would be a great bonus as creating and editing playlists on the phone is fiddly and time consuming. Another feature to consider is the ability to scan forwards and backwards on the timeline of the track in order to skip forwards and backwards. The built in music player on WP8 is unable to do this which is frustrating. At present, users have to press and hold the previous/next button to navigate through the track which isn't too user friendly.

 

[IamAdiSri]

Umm.....i'd to bring to your attention something I've noticed and maybe you can convert it into an app. :/
it might be a solution to the music duplication glitch.

I've noticed that whenever i use an app like "MP3 downloader" by Ha Mai Tung, and transfer songs from the app to music+videos i never get copies, as opposed to when i transfer the same song from a pc. I was wondering if like some of those apps which import and password-lock your pictures, maybe an app could be created which imports your songs from the sd-card, deletes the originals, and then retransfers the songs back to the music+videos hub. It might even work with complete metadata on the audio files.
Is it possible?? :/

 

[vk1971]

Something similar to AppFolder would be invaluable.
Since it's Samsung "exclusive", creating one for whole WP community would be just great.
I don't know if it'll earn you a fortune though
Good luck with your study

 

[Martsicky]

Personally I would suggest you to create an public transport timetable app, or airport app (departures, arrivals, estimated flight time, delays)
Maybe there is no such app for top Italian Cities. It could be useful for tourists and local societies

Or if it's possible, an worldwide app that could give an option to download public transport timetables for chosen country/region/city. If not possible, then only for most-known tourist destinations. (?)
With lovely Modern UI, and reasonable price it could be a top-seller.

Edit: Idea #2 - app to watch sports live streams on WP8 phones, because it's impossible without flash player. There is already FlashVideo on store, it's good, but not perfect. your app could focus only on sport streams instead of movies and series.

 

[Jason Drum]

Or if it's possible, an worldwide app that could give an option to download public transport timetables for chosen country/region/city. If not possible, then only for most-known tourist destinations. (?)
With lovely Modern UI, and reasonable price it could be a top-seller.

I probably wouldn't need or purchase this because I'm not much of a traveler, but this sounds like a great idea.

 

[Piratelooksat40]

Here is an idea for an app that I think would be a big hit. It is an app that you can take a picture of a lottery ticket and it uses Character recognition to determine if the ticket is some kind of winner. For example If you buy a ticket that has 10 numbers on it, one of the numbers my not be a grand prize winner but it could have hit 2 or 3 numbers so it may win a couple of dollars. You would have to be able to look at the image, determine the date and look up the winning numbers and determine the payout.

 

[barbaram]

There may be an app for this, but I haven't found it: I would like an app where I can identify the photos on my phone. Like Alex Sept 19, or Helsinki 7/2012 something along those lines

 

[Gh0s7]

First of all thanks for your help, I really appreciate it!
I'll reply to everyone.

How about an app that can stream music from SkyDrive? I'm aware some of these already exist but most I have tried are very poor at doing that.

With space becoming a huge issue for WP8 users with 'other' storage and temporary files constantly stealing disk space leaving many users forced to feel that all they can do is reset and start over which is hugely inconvenient, it would be great to allow users to host all/some of their music and playlists on SkyDrive to play as and when they need to. If such an app could detect playlists that were already hosted on SkyDrive, that would be a great bonus as creating and editing playlists on the phone is fiddly and time consuming. Another feature to consider is the ability to scan forwards and backwards on the timeline of the track in order to skip forwards and backwards. The built in music player on WP8 is unable to do this which is frustrating. At present, users have to press and hold the previous/next button to navigate through the track which isn't too user friendly.

Your idea is cool, but I think that there's already the app that you're looking for:
SKY MUSIC (Free) | Store di app e giochi per Windows Phone (Italia)

I've noticed that whenever i use an app like "MP3 downloader" by Ha Mai Tung, and transfer songs from the app to music+videos i never get copies, as opposed to when i transfer the same song from a pc. I was wondering if like some of those apps which import and password-lock your pictures, maybe an app could be created which imports your songs from the sd-card, deletes the originals, and then retransfers the songs back to the music+videos hub. It might even work with complete metadata on the audio files.
Is it possible?? :/

Are you talking about something that reads all the songs from the media library, copies them to the Isolated Storage and then flushes them back to the media library?
This can be done, it shouldn't be hard, but what about the app's working time? Having a big music collection will make this app damn slow, and the dups issue will force you to run it everytime that you change something!
Anyway, I'll try to do the app ASAP to see if it works

EDIT: Seems like we've found another windows phone limitation. There's no way to copy a song from the MediaLibrary to the IsolatedStorage!
This means that I can't do the app

Something similar to AppFolder would be invaluable.
Since it's Samsung "exclusive", creating one for whole WP community would be just great.
I don't know if it'll earn you a fortune though
Good luck with your study

Thank you for your wishes!
Unfortunately there's no way to access the list of the installed apps and so I can't do the app that you need.
BTW, there's an easy way to install the apps from other OEMs, so that you can install AppFolder even on your Nokia! (Assuming that you have a Nokia )

Personally I would suggest you to create an public transport timetable app, or airport app (departures, arrivals, estimated flight time, delays)
Maybe there is no such app for top Italian Cities. It could be useful for tourists and local societies

Or if it's possible, an worldwide app that could give an option to download public transport timetables for chosen country/region/city. If not possible, then only for most-known tourist destinations. (?)
With lovely Modern UI, and reasonable price it could be a top-seller.

Edit: Idea #2 - app to watch sports live streams on WP8 phones, because it's impossible without flash player. There is already FlashVideo on store, it's good, but not perfect. your app could focus only on sport streams instead of movies and series.

Isn't the first idea something like HERE Transit or did I just got it wrong?
Talking about the second one, I've not found any good football streaming source that can be watched without flash (except some paid sites).
This means that I should run a server which converts the Flash stream to something that the phone can actually play.
But this will introduce some kind of lag and it will cost a lot, and my goal is to earn money, not to spend it

Here is an idea for an app that I think would be a big hit. It is an app that you can take a picture of a lottery ticket and it uses Character recognition to determine if the ticket is some kind of winner. For example If you buy a ticket that has 10 numbers on it, one of the numbers my not be a grand prize winner but it could have hit 2 or 3 numbers so it may win a couple of dollars. You would have to be able to look at the image, determine the date and look up the winning numbers and determine the payout.

I should look into it because this depends on the sites of the companies that are selling the tickets.
I should gather a list of the major lotteries available in Europe and USA (just as a beginning) and see if this can work out!

There may be an app for this, but I haven't found it: I would like an app where I can identify the photos on my phone. Like Alex Sept 19, or Helsinki 7/2012 something along those lines

If you're talking about an app which can show the GeoTagging data and the EXIF of your picture, you should try this one:
Picture Info | Windows Phone Apps+Games Store (United States)

Again, thanks to everywone who's trying to help me

 

[nwildcat]

Well being in Italy, may not be of interest to you to do this one, but Fantasy Football (NFL) is huge in the US. There does not appear as of yet to be a fully featured app that allows you to manage your Yahoo Fantasy or CBS Fantasy teams. There is no CBS one for sure, there's not one for that at all. The Yahoo one, there are ones that allow you to manage, but if there's a way to look at and add a player from the free agents list, I haven't seen it, thus, not full featured. Speaking as someone who does Fantasy Football every year, the ability to add a player from the free agent list, as opposed to just moving players off the bench, is something I'd pay for in an app as long as the app was a good one because it's the difference of being able to be out of the house and make changes and running home to do so.

 

[Gh0s7]

Well being in Italy, may not be of interest to you to do this one, but Fantasy Football (NFL) is huge in the US. There does not appear as of yet to be a fully featured app that allows you to manage your Yahoo Fantasy or CBS Fantasy teams. There is no CBS one for sure, there's not one for that at all. The Yahoo one, there are ones that allow you to manage, but if there's a way to look at and add a player from the free agents list, I haven't seen it, thus, not full featured. Speaking as someone who does Fantasy Football every year, the ability to add a player from the free agent list, as opposed to just moving players off the bench, is something I'd pay for in an app as long as the app was a good one because it's the difference of being able to be out of the house and make changes and running home to do so.

I looked at the API section and making this app will probably require a lot of time because there's no WP API, and this means that some kind of wrapper is needed.
I'll investigate their HTTP api to see if this is something that's not so hard!

 

[txkimmers]

I want an app or some kind of plug in to my email accounts that lets me send a specific email to my Tasks or Calendar as a new item. So if I get an email that basically means I need to call a meeting, I can send the email with all the text to my Calendar, set the date and time, attendees, etc and save to my calendar, with all the info included in the notes/description field. Ditto if I send the email to my Tasks folder...the email body gets sent to my new Task in the notes/description field and I set the due dates/status etc.

Just as good but not as essential, the same functionality with text messages.

 

[raul_junior]

I would like a beatport.com app, not a single one exists and I want one on WP please

 

[IamAdiSri]

what if we put the songs in the images folder??? will the app be able to import them then???

 

[Nick_1020]

First of all thanks for your help, I really appreciate it!
I'll reply to everyone.

Your idea is cool, but I think that there's already the app that you're looking for:
SKY MUSIC (Free) | Store di app e giochi per Windows Phone (Italia)

Thanks for the reply.

I have actually tried that app and it's not that great tbh.

Anyway, here's another suggestion but I'm not sure if it is possible to be implemented due to the nature of the OS.

Since I've had my WP, I (and many other users) have had regular issues with live tiles not updating and having to manually open the apps in order for the tile to be updated. It's most probably related to the number of background tasks enabled in the settings which is easy enough to check but in some occasions, an app will be set to allow notifications but it won't be on the list so troubleshooting which apps need to have their settings changed can take a lot of time.

It would be great if there was an app that could list every single app on the phone that has a setting to allow live tiles and background notifications and whether it is enabled for those apps. When the live tiles fail, it would be handy to work out if any apps installed recently need to have any settings changed or whether and other apps aren't need to have that feature enabled.

I hope that makes sense.