What desktop app, phone app, or website do you wish existed?
October 17, 2024 8:35 AM Subscribe
What desktop app, phone app, or website do you wish existed?
...and ideally would pay for.
...and ideally would pay for.
Best answer: I’d pay for an app that connected a smartwatch to my Aranet4 CO2 monitor and made a subtle indication to me when values crossed some threshold. Ideally the notification would be a buzz or vibration. I am pretty sure this does not yet exist. (The device itself can notify me, but I don’t notice when it’s in my purse, so it’s useless.) I would not pay a continuing cost but I would pay a one time fee. I do not own a smartwatch at present, so am not locked into a platform — this pipe dream is the main reason I’d want one.
posted by eirias at 8:44 AM on October 17
posted by eirias at 8:44 AM on October 17
Best answer: A good Adding Machine app. You punch in numbers and are left with an easily scrollable list, like this:
5
+5
+30
-10
+45
+3
etc.
Believe it or not, this does not exist. There are some shitty ones but they lack basic functionality.
I simply want it to EXACTLY mimic an old skool adding machine like this one.
Like on those ones, hitting the Plus sign without punching in a number first should add another of the previous number. And you should be able to save the resulting "tape" with a time stamp and give it a name.
posted by dobbs at 9:09 AM on October 17 [2 favorites]
5
+5
+30
-10
+45
+3
etc.
Believe it or not, this does not exist. There are some shitty ones but they lack basic functionality.
I simply want it to EXACTLY mimic an old skool adding machine like this one.
Like on those ones, hitting the Plus sign without punching in a number first should add another of the previous number. And you should be able to save the resulting "tape" with a time stamp and give it a name.
posted by dobbs at 9:09 AM on October 17 [2 favorites]
Best answer: I feel like I’ve said this before: a book database that saves my wishlist of books to read, and has “available at my library on paper” “available as an ebook” “library audiobook”, “kobo plus” “kindle unlimited”. So I know where the best place to get it is.
posted by Valancy Rachel at 9:35 AM on October 17 [2 favorites]
posted by Valancy Rachel at 9:35 AM on October 17 [2 favorites]
eirias: I’d pay for an app that connected a smartwatch to my Aranet4 CO2 monitor and made a subtle indication to me when values crossed some threshold.
If you set up Home Assistant, you can monitor the CO2 count and toggle an alert on your Watch, or throw a sign onscreen, or toggle your lights or.... https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/aranet/ Totally free if you have a system to run it on, or they sell small computers to run it.
Just sayin'...
posted by wenestvedt at 9:43 AM on October 17
If you set up Home Assistant, you can monitor the CO2 count and toggle an alert on your Watch, or throw a sign onscreen, or toggle your lights or.... https://www.home-assistant.io/integrations/aranet/ Totally free if you have a system to run it on, or they sell small computers to run it.
Just sayin'...
posted by wenestvedt at 9:43 AM on October 17
If you set up Home Assistant
If eirias was at home, I presume they wouldn’t be carrying the sensor in a purse.
posted by zamboni at 9:51 AM on October 17 [1 favorite]
If eirias was at home, I presume they wouldn’t be carrying the sensor in a purse.
posted by zamboni at 9:51 AM on October 17 [1 favorite]
Fair point!
Then again, monitoring the CO2 levels inside a purse doesn't seem useful, unless you plan to pull it down over your head.😀
posted by wenestvedt at 10:19 AM on October 17
Then again, monitoring the CO2 levels inside a purse doesn't seem useful, unless you plan to pull it down over your head.😀
posted by wenestvedt at 10:19 AM on October 17
Best answer: I would love an app that you connected to some data source (weather, stocks, traffic, rainfall, indoor temp, etc.) and it would just give you a red/green display tracking upward or downward movement in the data. No numbers, no interpretation, no helping, no commentary, just a glowing green screen or dot or icon if the data shows an upwards trend or a glowing red screen or dot or icon if the data is trending downward. Like one of those short-lived Ambient Orb things, but for the phone and tracking any kind of data feed.
posted by niicholas at 10:27 AM on October 17 [1 favorite]
posted by niicholas at 10:27 AM on October 17 [1 favorite]
App that makes my phone into a tricorder. From Star Trek. Not makes it LIKE a tricorder, I want to be able to scan for life signs and quantum flux at a distance.
posted by Rudy_Wiser at 10:51 AM on October 17
posted by Rudy_Wiser at 10:51 AM on October 17
Best answer: Why is traffic in maps displayed in colors rather than time or distance? Like I’m supposed to estimate the distance and time of a colored line myself, while also traveling/ driving?
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:00 AM on October 17
posted by The_Vegetables at 11:00 AM on October 17
Best answer: say the name of a book, and my phone camera can look at my bookshelves and say where the book is
posted by ManInSuit at 11:40 AM on October 17 [3 favorites]
posted by ManInSuit at 11:40 AM on October 17 [3 favorites]
Best answer: I'd love a better app for home cleaning/maintenance. I want to be able to enter the rooms I have and it just populate what I need to do and how often. And also remind me to do things like change the hvac filters, clean the washer filter, etc. And automatically stagger things so I don't have to do them all the day I download the app or remember when I last did them.
posted by shesbookish at 12:35 PM on October 17 [1 favorite]
posted by shesbookish at 12:35 PM on October 17 [1 favorite]
dobbs: You’ve looked at PCalc?
I hadn't, but just looked at PCalc lite and it's a calculator, not an adding machine. There's only one line displaying the entry/total. Opposite of what I'm looking for.
posted by dobbs at 1:52 PM on October 17
I hadn't, but just looked at PCalc lite and it's a calculator, not an adding machine. There's only one line displaying the entry/total. Opposite of what I'm looking for.
posted by dobbs at 1:52 PM on October 17
Best answer: I have wanted an app that tracks changes in g-force you experience as you ride amusement park rides. You could do some really cool graphs, heat maps, and animations to display the data. You could let people maintain life lists and maybe get commercial sponsorships from amusement park companies. Social components, too.
posted by Winnie the Proust at 3:23 PM on October 17
posted by Winnie the Proust at 3:23 PM on October 17
I've got one that I'd gladly pay for, and that I bet lots of other people running out of Google storage would, too.
I really, really want someone to write a program that addresses one ridiculous, memory-gobbling gmail behavior. Namely, right now, say you email me and attach a 2mb file. I reply, you reply, etc., in a back-and forth email conversation. Unless someone explicitly deletes the attachment from the replies' quoted text, the 2mb is saved over and over, for every one of those replies. I.e., 10 replies = 20mb of memory used up. Since I see zero reason to do that from the user perspective, I can only assume that Google does so just to make us run out of free storage so we'll buy one of their storage plans.
So I'd love a "strip duplicates" button, so that one and only one copy of each attachment would be saved in each gmail thread, no matter how many replies the thread has. This would instantly free up so much of my google memory that I could stay on the free tier for years to come. There'd be zero downside since each attachment would still be there in every thread, just not over and over. Since google wants to charge me $20/year when I run out of space, I could definitely see this button being worth a decent one-time fee to a lot of people.
posted by daisyace at 4:05 PM on October 17
I really, really want someone to write a program that addresses one ridiculous, memory-gobbling gmail behavior. Namely, right now, say you email me and attach a 2mb file. I reply, you reply, etc., in a back-and forth email conversation. Unless someone explicitly deletes the attachment from the replies' quoted text, the 2mb is saved over and over, for every one of those replies. I.e., 10 replies = 20mb of memory used up. Since I see zero reason to do that from the user perspective, I can only assume that Google does so just to make us run out of free storage so we'll buy one of their storage plans.
So I'd love a "strip duplicates" button, so that one and only one copy of each attachment would be saved in each gmail thread, no matter how many replies the thread has. This would instantly free up so much of my google memory that I could stay on the free tier for years to come. There'd be zero downside since each attachment would still be there in every thread, just not over and over. Since google wants to charge me $20/year when I run out of space, I could definitely see this button being worth a decent one-time fee to a lot of people.
posted by daisyace at 4:05 PM on October 17
So the other day, I was describing my conspiracy theory about how the Vril rule the world from behind the scenes to my friend Pete. And Pete's like, "I don't understand." So I said, "Come over to my place and I'll show you my conspiracy wall." And Pete's like, "No way, you're going to kill me or something." I showed him a picture of the wall on my phone, but everything was too small. There are just so many photos, and 3x5 cards, and sticky notes, and maps, and sketches and all that red yarn—so much red yarn connecting things! And Pete was like, "Dude…that's crazy. You're using a whole wall in your house when you could just be using an app on the iPad." And I realized, he's right! A "conspiracy wall" app is sorely needed: an endless canvas onto which you can place images and text, maps and sticky notes. Then draw the connections with virtual red yarn! And preferably the app would have different colors of yarn too, because I think more than one alien race is involved. Anyway, that's my suggestion. PS: I had to kill Pete. He knew too much.
posted by jabah at 5:12 PM on October 17
posted by jabah at 5:12 PM on October 17
Best answer: I would like to take a few pictures of an unwanted item in my home, better yet just take a quick video, and have it gone. Like Freecycle or the Buy Nothing groups on Facebook but absolutely no friction. Take video, press a button, get a notification a few minutes to a few hours later when I should put the item on the porch, done. Let an AI select good pictures, do an images search to determine what the item is, I don't care. Possibly it could use an eBay style auction to even make me some money. Security for item pickup is improved by not revealing the actual destination address until the pickup person is in the vicinity. Flakes get banned, they would need to get a new phone number to regain access.
posted by wnissen at 5:14 PM on October 17
posted by wnissen at 5:14 PM on October 17
PS: I had to kill Pete. He knew too much.
paging cleanup crew, cleanup crew to thread 382602
posted by flabdablet at 7:34 PM on October 17
paging cleanup crew, cleanup crew to thread 382602
posted by flabdablet at 7:34 PM on October 17
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posted by seemoorglass at 8:44 AM on October 17