One of my fishing with nerds students graduated and is working. They reached out to me wanting to build an app in their spare time. A decent amount of my job is software design, but I’ve never done an app so I’m mildly interested. So, going to do an app, but no idea on what - kind of a stupid starting point but here we are.
I threw a couple ideas past them, but the longer I think about them, the stupider those ideas are. So, thought I’d throw it out here - ideas for an app?
Make a game imo. Apps are boring.
A Wal-Mart “locator” app where you put in what you want, confirm from a selection (so you don’t have to know the exact item’s name in the database), then retrieve it’s location from Wal-Mart’s database and integrate with a maps functionality to guide you to that location.
Idea I had well before the Netflix Series Fubar where Ahh-nold’s character’s son builds just this thing out.
Could they design a better Baskin Robbins app? Current one sucks hard. I want a 31% off my order on the 31st, but I MUST use the app to order. Holy shit, can I just walk in and get my scoops and take 31% off at the register??? NOOOOO, I have to actually order online!
Also, note the most successful apps are the ones that track usage and locations of the phone. They are then sold to evil corporations for megabucks.
Work that through your Jiminy Cricket.
You know, you can go to Walmart.com and order whatever they sell, and they will deliver it to the store of your choice, for free. And pretty quickly, especially if it is already in-store. Target, too. And a few others.
How about an app that does NOT ask for a tip before service is rendered?
Honestly, just about every FF restaurant’s app is shit. How about creating an app that engages FF restaurant apps, but you simply type in what you want, and the app submits it to the FF Restaurant app?
“I want to order a double-cheeseburger, Fries, and a Chocolate Frosty the Wendy’s at 1234 Market Street.”
App has your CC info.
Every time the app is used, it adds $0.25 to the order and keeps it for itself (you).
App remembers what you like at every FF restaurant. Or you can create a “favorites” file: “The usual at the usual Wendy’s.”
Stuff like that already exists. I can go to Canadian tire, pull up a product on their website, hit a locate button on the product page and a light will flash in the shelf.
Here’s part of a start up I didn’t pursue after talking to a few potential clients.
Sharable map diaries.
A simple example: Say you want to give someone a walking tour of the neighborhood where you grew up. You as the diarist pull up the app and street view map. You place a tag for each location then write an entry such as, “This is the house I grew up in, here’s a picture of what it looked like when I was a kid.” Once the entries are written route directions are added. The diary is proprietary to the writer but can be shared.
Like a cycling app I guess, but with added text.
What about an app that calls AI to help you decide what app to build? 
Or an app that will guide you in building an app?
My initial idea was for a conservatory. It allows a conservatory to create posts about all their plants or art work then create specific custom walking tours such as a tour of all the roses or all the art displays.
or a GOA app
For the US:
Healthcare cost app that uses all that data health insurance companies are now required to post online.
You put in your insurance company, provider, pick which plan you have, and get to google-search / filter through all the CPT codes and descriptions by cost.
Or, you put in your insurance company, plan, pick a procedure, and search/filter through nearby providers.
Warning, I don’t know if this will be a quagmire.
The data’s all out there and apparently the government is waiting for some enterprising group to make an app out of it.
Charge a small monthly subscription fee for individuals so they can research costs, and a corporate plan for companies who want more complicated reports. I think there are already corporate databases out there (so you’d be competing with existing businesses on that) but not sure if there are any good apps for consumers using this data.
Interesting! Though I’m not in the US, so maybe the fine details would be too much. I could always bug Serena I guess.
That’d also be a website in addition to an app i think, which is fine. It actually doesn’t sound too bad, not if it’s just accessing and crossreferencing data.
can you give me an example of a company’s data that’s posted?
I don’t think this would be something you’d charge for. Better to put it online for free and then figure out some other monetization, i.e. consumer=product type of thing. If you’ve got 10’s or 100’s of thousands of consumers contact info that you can ping or put up as a notification in an app, you can throw out the odd notification mentioning something, and a bunch of people will buy.
When I was in actuarial, the life company sent a letter to all their life insurance clients offering them accidental death life insurance. Le Barf, but they got 15% of their clients to buy. Marketing was high fiving, I’m like, you sell that crap?
I had an idea that I’ve often would like to see–especially for longer road trips.
And app that integrates with a navigation app that will also provide a “weather forecast” (by way of alerting/displaying current weather) for the area about 30-45 minutes down the route you’re currently on.
Or enter your route and based on the time you are leaving it will give you forecast for each place as you will reach there.
Four links:
https://www.cigna.com/legal/compliance/machine-readable-files
https://www.anthem.com/machine-readable-file/search/
Insurers do sometimes (often) try to have their own cost estimator but they try to make it more complicated than it should be. And the search function is terrible. And they don’t let you look at CPT codes and descriptions, instead using these weird vague descriptions.