Project Description
App ideas #101-200
Published: May 04, 2020
Idea #101: Camera rig at hair salons that customers can use to take photos of their head from multiple angles after haircuts. The photos can be referenced by stylists during future visits.
Idea #102: Kinda like the cabin porn coffee table book except instead of photos of cabins in beautiful and secluded places it shows photos of benches in beautiful and secluded places. We’ll call it “A Good Sit.”
Idea #103: A website similar to Glassdoor but instead of salary information people anonymously share the cost of medical procedures they received at hospitals and other medical institutions
Idea #104: Receive alerts when your child uses bad language while playing video games online. Maybe this is an app that records video streams and bookmarks areas for parents to review to make sure their kids aren’t being assholes.
Idea #105: Take the entire history of a text message conversation between two or more people and randomly pull out messages to form a collage that can be printed on a poster. Color code the texts by person. Re-roll the collage until you get something you like.
Idea #106: Online don’t break the chain calendars that can be shared with other people. Form a mastermind group. Everyone commits to a habit or activity. Keep tabs on who’s on a big streak and who missed a few days and might need some extra encouragement today.
Idea #107: Watch HGTV, see something you like, log into an app, find the episode you were watching, see products similar to the ones featured on the show. This could be a community sourced database of look-alike furniture.
Idea #108: A device that can freeze food just the right amount so that it thaws in a preset and predictable amount of time. Ex: I want chicken that will thaw in the fridge in exactly 8 hours, so freeze the chicken just enough to make that happen.
Idea #109: An app that can listen to you while you’re speaking and flag any negative language it hears. Negative words, negative tone, disparaging comments about yourself or others. Help users reframe things in a more positive light.
Idea #110: Medicine bottles with lights that change depending on whether or not you’ve taken your medicine for the day already
Idea #111: A pull request/code review kinda workflow geared toward bloggers and book writers. Share drafts or specific parts of documents with specific people for feedback, see the diff, view the history, make better words.
Idea #112: Vent your frustrations about a specific person to a bot that’s learned how to respond like that person by analyzing the emails and text messages they’ve sent you. Kinda like writing an angry letter you never intend to send. Could be therapeutic.
Idea #113: Difficulty ratings and estimated durations for hikes that aren’t uniformly averaged across the entire population. Instead, ratings are grouped by self reported fitness levels before being averaged so that people can prioritize data that comes from similarly fit people.
Idea #114: A website where Pokemon players can post the trades they’re looking to make. Would be cool if this website could provide temporary/disposable friend codes to connect players and facilitate the trades.
Idea #115: Glasses that amplify the CO2 haze in the air to make people more aware of the pollution around them. These would kinda be like EnChroma glasses for color blind people except these glasses would magically show pollution somehow.
Idea #116: Traffic lights that start blinking a few seconds before they change color to warn people before it’s time to start braking. I get nervous driving toward an intersection when I think the light is about to change. I’m probably not alone.
Idea #117: An AR app I can point up at the sky to see all of the airplanes currently in the sky above me as well as their flight paths. Not sure what the utility of an app like this would be, but it seems fun.
Idea #118: An app that connects to all the services I pay for (Spotify, Netflix, etc.) and sends me a monthly report with breakdowns about how often I use each one so that I can evaluate which ones are worth keeping and which ones I’m wasting my money on
Idea #119: A calendar that lets people know when it’s okay to start preparing for specific holidays. October 1st? Good to go for Halloween. November 15th? Still too early for Christmas unfortunately.
Idea #120: An AI powered alarm clock and sleep monitor that can learn from my sleep habits over time and notify me if my intended wakeup time is realistic or not
Idea #121: Contact lenses that can protect your eyes from sunlight just like sunglasses do. Transition lenses, but in contact form.
Idea #122: Apartment listings should include an audio recording of the sounds you would hear if you lived in that apartment. Street noise, creaky floors, hissing pipes, neighbors. Potential tenants deserve to see the waveform.
Idea #123: AR app that can capture the light field for an apartment or house. Capture the lighting conditions for an entire day and let potential tenants experience how much or how little light certain rooms get to help them make an informed buying decision.
Idea #124: I want a device that can fact check ads on my phone, computer, or TV in real time and warn me if the information being communicated is untrue or misleading. Politicians shouldn’t be able to get away with running untrue ads.
Idea #125: A special viewing mode for horror movies where a white dot (or something) will flash in the corner of the screen before something scary or shocking happens so sensitive viewers can hide or look away and still watch the movie without getting traumatized
Idea #126: A Screen Time style thing but for electricity and appliances. At any moment you can see how much electricity anything in your house has consumed in the last day, week, month, etc. Could be a nice way to identify things that are drawing more power than they’re worth.
Idea #127: Some way to quickly, easily, efficiently, and safely donate uneaten food at the end of a meal to homeless shelters or people who need it the most. Free access to universal food packaging. Maybe an automated drone network to pickup and deliver the food.
Idea #128: A website that randomly shows user’s a startup landing page for 10 seconds and then asks them to describe what the product does. Could be a useful tool for developers who want to test the clarity of their landing pages.
Idea #129: A company that creates and attaches wooden cutouts of company logos onto the tops of those company’s billboards. So instead of a flat rectangle like every other billboard, people will see a Mickey Mouse silhouette or whatever to make the advertisement stand out.
Idea #130: Similar to how you can skip the intro sequence of a Netflix show, I want to be able to do that with podcasts that start with ads. Skip me straight to the content. Maybe users can bookmark where ads start/stop and that info is shared so other users can skip the ads.
Idea #131: Car steering wheel that vibrates when you exceed the current speed limit
Idea #132: A service that automatically transcribes speeches and interviews from politicians so all their words are searchable and people can easily map quotes to timestamps in videos
Idea #133: An E-ZPass device that anyone can connect to using an app on their phones to pay the tolls. If you borrow a friend’s car that has E-ZPass in it, connect your phone, and then your friend will never get charged for the tolls you drive through.
Idea #134: A light by my front door that flashes if I’m about to leave my apartment and I’m not wearing appropriate clothing for the current weather outside
Idea #135: An AR app that you point at the ground to highlight rocks that might be good for rock skipping
Idea #136: A toilet that can analyze the contents inside of it and automatically adjust the amount of water it uses to flush. Don’t waste lots of water on pee. Big dump vs. little dump. Etc.
Idea #137: Cars that track driver safety using all the sensors and cameras that are already built in. They could save data like how often a driver speeds or swerves or slams on the brakes or merges without using a turn signal. Driver safety ratings should be public and searchable.
Idea #138: An email newsletter that keeps oldies in the loop about current young person trends. What the fuck is Supreme? Do you need a Finsta? Subscribe and find out! Don’t grow up and get left behind!
Idea #139: Loyalty program where venues can detect when tickets have been purchased for an event but aren’t being used, and they can give away those unused tickets at the last minute to loyal fans
Idea #140: A manual, use-at-home soap dispenser that prevents people from pumping out more soap than is necessary to wash their hands. The mechanism should raise and reset slowly to disincentivize people from going for a second pump.
Idea #141: A web archive that contains high quality digital scans of old video game manuals because they’re nostalgic and fun to look at
Idea #142: Audiobook/podcast app that can detect when users fall asleep and automatically pause playback. I like to listen to audiobooks at night before bed, but it’s frustrating when I fall asleep and the audiobook keeps playing because then I have to find my place again in the morning.
Idea #143: RSS app that can import the entire history of any blog and turn the articles into a todo list to help users keep track of read vs. unread posts as they work through the backlog
Idea #144: A water bladder with two tubes and mouthpieces so you can easily share one bladder with multiple people while on a hike
Idea #145: AI that can generate abstract images based on descriptions of dreams. It’ll analyze the words, intonation, pitch, pauses, speed, etc. to generate the images. Users can wake up and talk to their phones while the dreams are still fresh in their minds.
Idea #146: A grocery store self checkout system that keeps track of how often customers struggle to use the machine and need employee assistance. If you screw up too many times then you lose the privilege to use self checkout because you’ll slow things down too much.
Idea #147: Google maps style routing for inside buildings that can take elevator statuses and schedules into account. I want to know the absolute last minute I can leave my desk at work and still catch the bus home.
Idea #148: A Slack bot that shares all of the newly created public Slack channels within a workspace. Users can get notifications at work when new channels get created in case they’re interested in the topics.
Idea #149: Create a Spotify playlist from other playlists. Ex: Combine best of Queen and best of Michael Jackson and randomly pick songs that exist in either playlist. Or, randomly pick 10 songs from 3 different workout playlists and shuffle all of those songs together.
Idea #150: Apple Pay for rewards programs so I can go to the movie theater and just bump my phone to get credit instead of having to carry a dedicated membership card around
Idea #151: A highway toll system that adapts its prices based on the current traffic conditions. If X cars pass through in a given 10 minute period then the price increases. The price decreases if there aren’t enough cars on the road. This could help mitigate traffic because people won’t want to drive when the roads are busy because the prices will be higher.
Idea #152: Holographic projection system for professional sports. So a basketball game can happen live in one city and be projected on courts all over the world so people can still watch the game “live” in their local stadiums surrounded by cheering fans and overpriced concessions and stuff.
Idea #153: A guitar pedal with an 8-bit Nintendo sound card built in that can translate guitar notes into MIDI signals to make a guitar sound like an old video game console, which would make live performances of chiptune music look way cooler
Idea #154: Sleepy time eye cover with transparency that adapts to the time of day. When you put it on at 10pm it’s super dark and doesn’t let any light in, but at 6am it starts letting light in so the sunrise can properly wake you up.
Idea #155: A thing you stick to the inside of the toilet bowl that makes pretty colors or cool effects every time you flush the toilet. Could be used to get little kids excited about going potty in a real toilet for the first time.
Idea #156: Rent your oven space to a next door neighbor or someone who lives nearby and needs some extra cooking capacity for the night
Idea #157: An app that can read a script back to you one line (or one speaking section) at a time, and you can assign different robot voices to different characters. Could be used by actors to rehearse lines. Could also be useful for people giving presentations that need a call and response kinda thing.
Idea #158: Contacts app for phones that lets you create contacts with expiration rules. Ex: Add realtor contact info while apartment hunting so you know to answer their calls, but it automatically gets deleted it from your address book in 2 months when you’re done apartment hunting. Temporary contacts basically.
Idea #159: Multiple iPhone profiles per device that can have unique apps installed, settings, and restrictions. With this you could create a kid safe profile that doesn’t have the App Store, payments, or web browser enabled.
Idea #160: Mobile Reddit client that only shows you the top 10% of posts from all the subreddits you follow. Set limits to prevent endless scrolling.
Idea #161: Stuck elevator survival kits. Supplies kept in elevators for when they break down. Snacks, ear plugs, eye covers, air fresheners, battery to charge cell phones, etc. Be prepared for anything!
Idea #162: An app that tracks historical durations of church services, so people can find the shortest way to meet their weekly religious obligations. This data would need to be sourced from the church-going community.
Idea #163: Yelp for priests. Rate priests based on how much you enjoy their sermons and church services. Could be useful for people who don’t belong to a parish yet and want to try out all the best priests in the area.
Idea #164: An app to find nearby church services that are starting soon for people who are traveling and want to attend church in an unfamiliar area
Idea #165: A sexy horse game. You and your partner compete against another couple. Each couple takes turns performing a sexual act, and then the other couple needs to match it or else they get a letter.
Idea #166: A roulette wheel of sex positions. Spin the wheel to find out what positions or sexual activity you and your partner will be participating in that night. Users can build and customize their own wheels and share them with other users.
Idea #167: App that ranks podcasts and individual episodes based on the amount of time people have actually spent listening to them. Downloads don’t matter. Minutes matter. Vote with your time! This could also highlight the most re-listened to episodes.
Idea #168: A self-driving pizza machine on wheels that accepts pizza orders from a mobile app and then makes the pizzas en route to the drop-off destination
Idea #169: Google Glasses thing that cops can wear that automatically scans license plate numbers and highlights vehicles that belong to people who have committed driving offenses in the past. Let’s cops keep a closer eye on the people who are most likely to drive like assholes.
Idea #170: A digital version of a sand timer for playing board games like Magic Maze. It’s not just a digital timer because there will be a “flip over” mode that behaves differently than simply resetting a traditional digital timer.
Idea #171: A database that keeps track of similar apps, so if you find an app that you like that costs money, you can easily lookup if a free app exists that does something similar
Idea #172: A machine to automatically sort jigsaw puzzle pieces into groups based on color. This is for people who enjoy putting puzzles together but who want a little extra help at the beginning.
Idea #173: AR app for locating jigsaw puzzle pieces. Users point their phone at an in-progress puzzle and indicate the region they’re working on. Then they arrange all of the unused pieces on a flat surface so they’re not overlapping, point their phone at the scattered pieces, and the app will highlight any pieces it finds that might fit the previously indicated region.
Idea #174: A bed that makes itself as soon as you leave it, so if you get out of bed in the morning for any reason (like to turn off an alarm clock that’s across the room), there will be less incentive for you to crawl back into bed since it will already be made
Idea #175: A storytelling podcast that gets streamed in small segments every day but you can only listen to each segment one time and it only plays back when it’s time for you to wake up. So if you set your alarm for 7am, then 7am is the only time you can start listening to the next segment of the story. If you don’t wake up on time then you miss out.
Idea #176: Electronic devices that only work if you get enough sleep. When your brain becomes unproductive, your phone, computer, and game consoles become unresponsive and you have to get a good night’s rest before you can use them again.
Idea #177: Train your bladder so your body needs to use the restroom at precisely the time you want to wake up in the morning. A regular alarm clock doesn’t make you get out of bed in most cases. Having to pee really bad does force you out of bed.
Idea #178: A brain implant that can instantly put us into and take us out of REM sleep so that we can take high quality micro naps throughout the day that add up to the 8 hours of sleep we need each day. So like deep sleeping during red lights and commercial breaks and stuff instead of sleeping for 8 hours straight at night.
Idea #179: Mario Golf like shot trails but in real life for real golf. I want golf balls to light up and leave behind colored trails as they soar through the air to indicate where the ball is in the sky and how powerful the shot was.
Idea #180: Pay-per-view to watch sporting events in VR. It might cost $200 for a real seat in the stadium. You could watch it on TV for free. This would fall somewhere in the middle. Maybe $20, but you could pick any seat in the stadium to virtually sit in. You won’t really be there, but it’ll be more immersive than watching a TV.
Idea #181: Beginner friendly commentaries for live sporting events that happen alongside the regular commentaries. These are for people who are new to a sport and need some additional explanation before they’re able to really appreciate what’s happening on the field.
Idea #182: Bingo cards for live sporting events. So you go to a baseball game and one of the squares might be a bunt down the first base line. When people win they get free concessions or something. Seems like a cheap way to increase fan engagement.
Idea #183: Make drinks at live sporting events really cheap so fans drink more and have to pee more often. The more times they use the bathroom, the more times they walk past the concession stands, and the more opportunities you have to sell them overpriced food items.
Idea #184: First person cameras attached to professional sports players that fans at home can pay extra to access. They’ll be able to swap between the main broadcast feed and any player cameras that they’ve paid for.
Idea #185: A system for video game streamers where viewers can bid against each other to join the streamer during the next game if the game being played is an online multiplayer game
Idea #186: If people misbehave in a Twitch chat then they have to watch additional ads. They can stick around but they’re going to make the streamer more money as a consequence.
Idea #187: A new type of donation incentive during charity video game streams where viewers can “summon” game developers to the stream if they raise enough money
Idea #188: Onion skinning for speedruns. People watching a streamer can “ghost” the streamer’s PB on top of the current run to see how it compares. Toggle it on and off. Maybe bring up other people’s runs as well.
Idea #189: Painted outlines on the floor in men’s restrooms to indicate where your feet should go when you’re standing at a urinal. This will be a visual indicator to warn guys who are taking stances that are too wide and are making the guys next to them uncomfortable.
Idea #190: Urinals that light up when you enter the bathroom so you know which urinal you should use based on which urinals are already occupied. The algorithm will always place people as far apart as possible.
Idea #191: You pee and then wash your hands right there at the urinal before you flush so that when you flush, the water that you just used to wash your hands is the water that gets used during the flush. Conserve water by making it do double duty. Why use clean water to flush urine?
Idea #192: Tiny little water wheel things built into the bottoms of urinals that spin when guys pee on them and they generate small amounts of electricity with each bathroom break. It’s a small effect that could add up to meaningful power generation over time.
Idea #193: Special pencils meant to be used during standardized tests that stop working when time runs out. No one will be able to sneak in a few extra answers after time is called.
Idea #194: Take a picture of someone’s face to match them to their Venmo account so you can give someone money without knowing their name. Could be used to tip strangers that you see doing good things out in public, like helping someone cross the street or something.
Idea #195: A company that makes custom molded earbuds for people because everyone’s ears are different and it’s really frustrating when earbuds don’t fit right and they fall out. Also some people’s ears aren’t perfectly symmetrical so they need two earbuds that aren’t perfectly identical.
Idea #196: A database of every person in the country who has a park bench dedicated to them so that when I’m sitting on a bench and I see a little plaque I can find out who that person was and appreciate my moment on the bench a little bit more
Idea #197: An anti-fatigue mat that’s mechanical so it can measure the pressure on your feet and legs and hips and then subtlety adjust itself to make sure your body and joints distribute the load and nothing gets overworked or too sore
Idea #198: Social time tracker for keeping track of how much time you spend socializing with friends. You can rate the quality of each interaction based on how happy you were during and after it. The app then ranks all the people you spend time with and lets you know who adds and who drains.
Idea #199: A tuition assistance program that’s tied to how much trash a student picks up inside and around their school. Schools would be cleaner, but this program would probably get abused.
Idea #200: A feature within Uber and Lyft that lets women specify that they only want to ride with female drivers
800 to go!
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