Have ideas, Need programmer.

March 5, 2008 8:26 PM

If I have some really (I think) good ideas for OS X that could be included in future releases or as third party utilities, who should I talk to?

Ok, so I am not a programer (I don't have the constitution for it.) But about once a week I have a great idea for an option or a preference or a shortcut that I want to be built into my OS (10.5.2 currently). I want someone to build them.

My idea today? In leopard, you can take advantage of your iphoto library right from a file open dialogue. When uploading photos to my wordpress blog, I thought about how nice it would be if you could resize photos as you open them into other applications (similarly to how you can resize photos attached to an email in mail.app). I'd totally pay $5 to have that option in just safari.

I want someone to make these things real, and I imagine there is some marketability in them but I have no delusions of getting rich. So who should I talk to? is there a good forum or blog I could follow? Are there any os x developers who solicit ideas?

posted by SECONDHANDSMOTE to computers & internet (7 comments total)

Some things are easy and some things are difficult. What you just described there is quite difficult because it involves globally altering the open dialog.

The best thing to do is find a developer that's small enough to listen and open up a dialog with them. It's just a question of finding people who make software you like and emailing them. Most shareware developers are just a bunch of semi-nerdy guys who drink beer, and when they drink beer they talk about exactly this kind of stuff (trust me, I drink beer with them).

The best place to meet them would be the Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) which is held every year, and would probably be a blast if you're into this kind of stuff. As a bonus you get to experience the SJRDF* first hand.

*Steve Jobs Reality Distortion Field

For simpler things, it is really not hard to install the Mac OS X developer tools and build a Cocoa application. Objective C is ridiculously easy to learn.
posted by unSane at 8:43 PM on March 5, 2008

Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.
posted by hAndrew at 10:43 PM on March 5, 2008

To cut to the chase, the only way you can do this (other than $$,$$$) is by putting in a lot of time and effort. You're not a programmer, that's a big hindrance, but if you're prepared to put in a lot of time and effort, you chances go from "nothing" to "slim". I'd suggest however, that these minor features are often simply not worth the vast timesink and work involved in trying to make them happen from the outside. (They're often enough of a fight from the inside!).

I don't know where the OSX developers hang out, sorry. My purpose in answering is to get you thinking about how much work and sacrifice is worth it to you to make that feature real. I have a suspicion there might be orders of magnitude difference between what you're thinking and what it often takes.

But, like any other geek, nothing makes me happier than spending two hours fiddling with something in order to optimise it so that it saves me a measly two seconds. You might be the same. But you only want to be wasting time like that if you do enjoy it. Which you might :-)

On a less cautionary note, you might be surprised at how many weird little apps are already out there. Search long and hard and you may find that someone has already implemented your idea - or something vaguely like it. A good search will, on average, be far and away the least work for the most reward :-)
posted by -harlequin- at 1:00 AM on March 6, 2008

With a (free) ADC membership, you can use Apple's bug reporter to suggest enhancements.
posted by mpls2 at 5:19 AM on March 6, 2008

The problem is that the sort of programmers who like developing these little pet features as third-party hacks are exactly the sort of programmers who really prefer to work on their own pet features.
posted by Netzapper at 7:36 AM on March 6, 2008

Just to add to what has been said, I write software for windows, and I feel like I can do most things reasonably well, but when I look at the idea you have.... well, to implement that with Internet Explorer on Windows would be a nightmare (mainly to deal with all the edge-cases). Doing it on OSX may or may not be harder, but you would definately need to be prepared to invest some serious cash to make that work, as the time needed to develop and fully test it would be significant.

As -harlequin- mentioned, your best bet might be to go to Apple directly. But don't expect them to listen to you, even if it is a great idea.
posted by blue_beetle at 8:01 AM on March 6, 2008

You could find a programmer on eLance.com, Guru.com, or RentACoder.com. (GetAFreelancer.com in Europe.) If you're looking to do an open source app, you might give Bounty Source or Micro Pledge a try.
posted by braveterry at 1:52 PM on March 6, 2008