Ask Reader: What’s your dream app for the iPhone 3G?

jonathanP says on August 4th, 2008 at 9:14 am

You ALMOST got to the killer iphone app. Slap all your ideas together and you have a tourist app that combines google maps of an area with geotagged videos from locals or experts on the things you’re looking at.

With good category tags, the same app can give you a walking tour of brewpubs or public sculpture. A driving tour of wine country, or a guide to the best off map ski runs in the back country.

brandon says on August 4th, 2008 at 9:21 am

brightkite

Faisca says on August 4th, 2008 at 9:25 am

I’ve been thinking about this ever since I bought an iPhone 3G (and it’s random so I don’t really know why..). I would love a location aware cookbook/recipe/shopping list.

It would have an index with tons of recipes that you could browse through. It could also automatically pair your chosen dish with a dessert, wine/drink, etc.

Click on a recipe and you are presented with the option of adding the ingredients to your shopping list.

Then on the shopping list it could give you information on where the best deals are for the items on your list.

Who wants to get started? =P

Josh says on August 4th, 2008 at 9:29 am

How about a SSH client?

timgray says on August 4th, 2008 at 9:32 am

Time sheet program that emails that day’s time sheet back to a specified email address.

a DECENT mileage tracker that also tracks fuel and expenses that ALSO emails it back to a specified address.

both will allow employees in the field to send updated to the controller as well as firing off mileage updates and fuel expenses to finance.

Garrison Reid says on August 4th, 2008 at 9:53 am

This isn’t 3G specific and probably not even possible, but I’d like to be able to export or sync voicemails messages back to iTunes.
Though I use Jott for taking notes and Evernote on the phone for voice recordings, often it’s what other people leave me that I’d like to keep. And only being able to access voicemails _on the phone_ is like only being able to eat food while it’s _still in your fridge_.

Leon Ho says on August 4th, 2008 at 10:03 am

@jonathanP: Ah right, a tourist app. Very interesting idea.

@Faisca: Shopping list with best deals and recommendations. I like it!

@timgray: Timesheet, mileage tracker or any expense tracker are real time saver for people. It is much efficient to enter stuff on-the-spot than doing it at home.

@Garrison: Yes, exporting voicemails will be very useful. Your idea reminds me another thing though – I want a sync’able Evernote, which I can read my notes offline.

digger says on August 4th, 2008 at 10:16 am

I want the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” application.

When operated, the words “Don’t Panic” should be inscribed in large friendly letters on the screen and when sliding your finger upon it, the program will start, allowing you to enter any phrase or keyword.

The program will use Wikipedia as the standard repository of all knowledge and wisdom, for though it has many omissions and contains much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate, it is the closest thing we have.

I’m willing to pay $10 for it.

Anyone?

dittrich says on August 4th, 2008 at 10:30 am

- Shopping List a la Handyshopper for Palm. I use Zenbe Lists right now & it’s pretty good (the sync with the online version makes cranking out new, long lists very easy.) but the one feature none of the current shopping programs has is the ability to assign an item to multiple stores (for example, milk can be on my Grocery list AND my Target list. Marking it purchased in either store list should mark it so in both!). I’m not sure how much I need location awareness for this, though.
- An offline version of Google Notebook or something offline that will sync to Google Notebook. Google Notebook is great but limited on the iPhone (no editing of notes). The built-in Notes app is handy but doesn’t let you categorize things, which is useful when you have a LOT of notes.
- The Hitchhiker’s Guide app would be nice too. Location awareness might work with this too for finding out about the immediate area.

Alexander says on August 4th, 2008 at 11:22 am

I would like to download podcasts directly to the phone without using my computer.

sebey says on August 4th, 2008 at 11:33 am

an outliner like omnioutliner i am planning to use my iphone for school but I see there is one called outliner but it does not look fast in terms of typing it down

Dwayne Melancon says on August 4th, 2008 at 11:41 am

A profile manager. It would give me presets that I could apply easily. For example:
Home: Wifi on, Bluetooth off
Work: Wifi off, Bluetooth off
Car: Wifi on, Bluetooth off

It would be even better if it could change profiles based on GPS location.

This app would also include some politeness features, like turning on a “silent” audio profile when I go into church (or at least a vibrating reminder to turn off my ringer).

And, it would give me the ability to schedule “quiet times” such as 11pm to 6am when my phone wouldn’t make noise.

As a bonus, it would give me the means to switch my phone to vibrate when my calendar says I’m in a meeting.

Dallin says on August 4th, 2008 at 12:00 pm

I HAVE to see a VOIP app. iCall looks to be getting close.

Second on the list would be turn-by-turn GPS

William W. Blue says on August 4th, 2008 at 2:38 pm

OLIVE TREE

I don’t want my access to my bibles limited to wed access. I have a Treo 68- and a 2G iPhone. The only reason I am hanging on to my Treo is because of the number of bibles I have downloaded onto it from Olive Tree. Come on Apple, let developers use some hard disk space!

Michael says on August 4th, 2008 at 3:16 pm

My killer app for the iPhone would be a text editor that is capable of displaying white text on a black background (much easier on the eyes) and the ability to transfer text files from my computer to my iPhone and vice versa.

Dan Callahan says on August 4th, 2008 at 4:02 pm

Your first one is already covered quite well by Yelp, which includes all of the things you asked for.

http://phobos.apple.com/WebObj.....0&mt=8

Brisbane Marketing Consultant says on August 4th, 2008 at 10:09 pm

I’d like an iSpy application where the iPhone takes pictures every 30 seconds and uploads it to Flicker. iFlicker comes close but it isn’t automated.

jeff says on August 5th, 2008 at 6:57 am

I want an app that reminds me to do things as I approach a place. If I walk near the shoe repair it alerts me to pick up my repair or offers me a location based grocery list near the grocery store. This would mean that gps was running in the background and used lower levels of power.

Jens Poder says on August 5th, 2008 at 6:05 pm

textexpander. I would love to be able to write predefined shortcuts and see my iphone expand it to the full text. It should work like textexpander for mac.

- jhp (should have been expanded to Jens Hjerrild Poder)

Mike M says on August 7th, 2008 at 11:37 am

Copy and paste.

A mail application that actually supports true push email (IMAP Idle) like my 3 year old treo does, with an interface that isn’t so darn clunky when used with more than one email account. (Unified color-coded inbox?)

Andrew B says on August 8th, 2008 at 3:19 pm

I’m with the folks that want a recipe/shopping list app. I don’t need many bells and whistles, though. What I do need is the ability to pull in recipes from somewhere else (like food network), because I have few, and I’m too lazy to manually input a bunch I find from the internet. I need to be able to store these recipes for offline use. I need to be able to choose recipes and have a shopping list built for me from the recipes I choose. Some sort of recipe sorting mechanism would be nice, as would be the ability to add custom items (like non-food items) to shopping lists. Lastly, the ability to edit recipes is crucial, as I’ve normally found myself modifying ones I’ve used, especially if the recipe makes eleventy-billion servings. I’m single…I don’t need huge quantities of food, so I don’t want my shopping list to tell me to buy huge quantities, either.

Siva says on August 8th, 2008 at 3:34 pm

@dwayne

I was thinking of the same thing – location based profile changes. I would add turning 3G on/off when we connect to wifi.

The calendar idea is neat.

Michael says on August 9th, 2008 at 4:42 am

I want some simple things that I KNOW they ommited for no reason at all..

Video Camera on my iPhone (there are hacks that let the 2G version take video, so this IS possible)..

Native support for flash. The iPhone is a regular computer, so why does the Safari on it not display flash?

Native support for wmv.. I know it’s a Microsoft format, but it’s quality is so much higher than flash for streaming stuff =/

Someone else mentioned copy and paste.. very doable programming wise, and it would be very useful!

Real time podcast downloading! (I know someone mentioned this).

I think AT&T wants to charge me $30 for internet on each iPhone I have (my family has 3, so $90 per month), but wants to limit how much I use the internet by making all the high bandwith applications incompatible!

-Michael

john says on August 18th, 2008 at 9:01 am

how about if the iPhone could mount your iDisk and access all the media on it (music, video, docs, etc)

Amal says on August 28th, 2008 at 8:44 pm

I want to see a meal planning app, similar to this paper version http://unclutterer.com/2008/02.....meal-plan/. You’d be able to set up recipes through a web interface, then choose from your database to plan your meals for the week. as a bonus it could make your shopping list, maybe even post the calendar to Google Calendar or some iCal format.

DC says on September 6th, 2008 at 4:56 pm

Improved Maps – zoom out based on high speed movement (highway vs city driving), pre-loading/caching maps based on directions. I don’t mind the missing turn-by-turn, I don’t think they are allowed to based on their agreement with AT&T, but the other two things I mentioned would drastically improve Maps.

One tsp. says on July 11th, 2009 at 8:41 am

One tsp. is a decent recipe manager web app with the ability to turn recipes into shopping lists. It’s not a recipe catalog, instead it’s a manager for YOUR recipes, which you can collect from anywhere.

onetsp.com / onetsp.mobi