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Geek Culture / Quick Win Apps

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CJB
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Location: Essex, UK
Posted: 2nd Sep 2016 11:39
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So, with my current project nearing publication, I'm seriously thinking about going full-time with the apps and games, but in order to get a "baseline" income, I'm thinking about churning out a bunch of "quick-win" apps and games. These will include things like:

* Sound-boards / musical instruments (I already have a nice multi-touch code base for these, and a Hang-Drum app ready to go).
* Multiple Re-skins of my Phone-Tap game (I know it's just a "tap tap" game, but they are curiously addictive and pushed into the right niche can bring in a steady revenue).
* Maybe a Torch or Night-light app
* Funny responsive images/effects app to keep toddlers happy/quiet
* Picture overlays (select photo from gallery, add some funny overlay from a selection, share results with the new share-intents features)
* QR Code maker, with sharing capability
* QR Reader with sharing / browser launcher for detected URLs
* Some simple "hop on the platforms" or Breakout clone type games

I'd welcome ideas

Is anyone else doing their own games/apps full-time?
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Van B
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Joined: 8th Oct 2002
Location: Sunnyvale
Posted: 2nd Sep 2016 12:23
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Invent a better alarm clock - seriously I use my iphone as an alarm, and the whole swipe to switch off thing trips me up all the time - if I could set a deadline, like start waking me up at 6:30, and allow snooze upto 7:00 - then no more snoozing, a gradually louder and louder alarm... even if the alarm is already off - to make sure I didn't just swipe then fall asleep again. An alarm clock for heavy sleepers who rely on the snooze button too much

Might be good to have dynamic sounds as well, like rather than the repeating looped audio file - use a few sounds and randomizing and layering them. And add a baby crying alarm sound, for women - they are hard-wired to wake up to crying babies, so pregnant women might even like that, to get parents used to it.
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CJB
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Posted: 2nd Sep 2016 12:57
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Quote: "Invent a better alarm clock"
I think you just did! I love it! That's a seriously good idea... I'd need to dip into tier 2 to manage it via the aptly named "AlarmManager" (unless Paul can add a couple of commands into the next release to cover this - they'd be very similar to local noticifications, except instead of creating a notification, they'd launch the app instead - Would probably take Paul five minutes to implement something like that!), so probably wouldn't on my first list of "quick wins", but thanks for the suggestion!

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Phaelax
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Location: Metropia
Posted: 3rd Sep 2016 03:14
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Yes, an alarm clock. Because the one built into the iPhone is broken. No seriously, it is. Since iOS 8 it doesn't always go off. There's reports of it all over the internet and it's made me late a few times. I wake up late, look at the phone to see it saying the alarm is going off but it plays no sounds! (and no my phone isn't on silent)

But there are some pretty fancy IOS alarms out there already, some pretty darn scientific designed to match your circadian rhythm and wake you gradually. Supposedly the thing even monitors you while sleeping to detect REM sleep.

It's hard to come up with an original app that hasn't been done a dozen times already in some variation.

"I like offending people, because I think people who get offended should be offended." - Linus Torvalds
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Dark Java Dude 64
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Posted: 3rd Sep 2016 08:30 Edited at: 3rd Sep 2016 08:30
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A better alarm clock is a fantastic idea! Ever since I got my first smartphone 3.5 years ago, I've relied on two different apps to wake me up each day. Both have worked, but each have had their own set of problems. The one I'm currently using (Timely) surfaced a lovely issue the other day: even if my phone is muted, like fully muted (all four volumes [seriously Android, why can't the darn thing have just one volume!?!?]), the alarm will still go off at full volume. I found this out in the middle of a college lecture. I wasn't aware of the alarm, either, because the app likes to set itself to 12:00PM quite frequently.
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CJB
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Posted: 3rd Sep 2016 08:30
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Quote: "It's hard to come up with an original app that hasn't been done a dozen times already in some variation."
So true No harm in trying to get a slice of that pie though right?
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Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 3rd Sep 2016 08:37 Edited at: 3rd Sep 2016 08:38
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Quote: " I wake up late, look at the phone to see it saying the alarm is going off but it plays no sounds! (and no my phone isn't on silent)
"


This shouldn't make a difference anyway. I know on my Android I can control the volume of my alarm, apps and ringtone independently and generally when my phone is on silent, it's just the ringtone side of things. So definitely sounds broken XD

I guess if you want to develop an app, I find I generally get ideas when I come across a problem and don't necessarily have something immediate to resolve it. For example, I play a game called ARK, in that came you build a lot of stuff and thus require a lot of materials for it, but it got annoying sitting they calculating how much wood I'd need to build says, 20 platforms. So I made what I call the "ARK Calculator", which is a very basic app that I can add ARK recipes to then tell it how many of that item I want to make and it tells me. However, I bet if I sat and put time on it and turned it into a proper project, I could have a decent companion for the game. I sometimes see stuff for games like this on the App Store. Another one is, I'm a roleplayer, I like to have music to fit the theme of the roleplays I do, I made a music app for that purpose.
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Randomness 128
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Posted: 3rd Sep 2016 16:52
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Quote: "It's hard to come up with an original app that hasn't been done a dozen times already in some variation."


Quote: "Both have worked, but each have had their own set of problems."


If you want to be original, just make something that isn't incredibly broken.
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BatVink
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Posted: 5th Sep 2016 12:27
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Quote: "Yes, an alarm clock. Because the one built into the iPhone is broken. No seriously, it is. Since iOS 8 it doesn't always go off. There's reports of it all over the internet and it's made me late a few times. I wake up late, look at the phone to see it saying the alarm is going off but it plays no sounds! (and no my phone isn't on silent)"


I already have a solution for this. I have an Android phone My work phone is an iPhone, but I always carried my trusted Android with me.
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CJB
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Posted: 5th Sep 2016 13:23
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Looks like the next release is going to open the possibilities of those "quick win" apps. Face-swap type apps may soon be possible with AppGameKit!
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