Would you pay $1.00 for either of these? Or use if they were free?

[Buschmaster]

So I have a few apps written and they don't really look great at all yet, and in fact, they're not as functional as I'd like them to be yet, but here's what they will do.

#1: iTextOften
This would be for people who text all the time or people who want to cut their SMS amounts way down. It sends people a text after you provide their number (I'm going to integrate the address book into it soon) and their wireless provider and you can select to have them reply either to your iPhone as an SMS or as an e-mail. (With push email, it would be just as easy to use emails, right?)

#2: My Golf Course
You can either pick a golf course (which I can hopefully find a way where you can download them from the web) or you keep track yourself. What this does is keeps track of the golf course by the name, so if you create the golf course yourself the first time it will save it on your iPhone. It will know the pars and I may even implement yardage so it's very close to an actual scorecard. Then you can check each course and get your average score on each hole and average number of putts and even your handicap. Or you can view your overall stats. This one is still more in the design and planning stage but I'll make it if people other than me would find it helpful and nice.
----

I have a couple other ideas but I want to see if they are feasible and see just exactly how I want to implement them before asking. But pretty much what I'm looking for is would you pay $1 for these on your iPhone or iPod Touch? And would you possibly use them if they were free? The only reason I'd charge would be to cover my $99 fee. The other way would be to rely on donations but I'd hate to do that...

If you have any more questions or suggestions that would be helpful, too. Thanks!

Edit: Oh yeah, those are working titles, I know they're awful.

 

[iPegboy]

I think the golf one would be cool. If you could pull it off (where I could get look at a database of courses and pick one out and have all the score info right there), I would pay a dollar for it.

If it was a program where I just entered all the info myself, I might still pay a dollar for it, but likely just use it for free.

It's a good idea, I think.

 

[Buschmaster]

I think the golf one would be cool. If you could pull it off (where I could get look at a database of courses and pick one out and have all the score info right there), I would pay a dollar for it.

If it was a program where I just entered all the info myself, I might still pay a dollar for it, but likely just use it for free.

It's a good idea, I think.

I could probably figure out a way to do the way you said the first time.

The second way you would first get a screen saying enter the name of the course and then you'd enter the number of holes. (front 9, back 9, 18)

After that you just enter your score and the par on each hole. I could even make it have a little ticker so each time you hit a stroke you keep a tally (but strictly optional as I wouldn't want to be forced to use that.) So entering your own information wouldn't be so bad because while you're buddy tees off you enter the scores from the last whole and you enter the par quickly for the next whole. It would only take a few seconds I would think.

Plus, once all that info is created the iPhone would remember it so you could play that course again without having to enter it again.

I'd really like to make the first way work, but I'm not sure if it's entirely feasible with the iPhone SDK yet.

 

[peeaanuut]

the golf one sounds good, but the downside to every electronic scorecard is no way to export. Either to an image or to a csv or something along those lines. A csv would be best for me. it could even be set as an e-mail from the phone. this way I could keep track of it on my PC as well as on my phone.

 

[Buschmaster]

the golf one sounds good, but the downside to every electronic scorecard is no way to export. Either to an image or to a csv or something along those lines. A csv would be best for me. it could even be set as an e-mail from the phone. this way I could keep track of it on my PC as well as on my phone.

Hm, that'd be a pretty nice feature. I could make it export through email quite easily. The difficult thing would be linking scores input into the computer back to the iPhone. It probably wouldn't be a feature. But getting your scorecards to your email wouldn't be a problem.

 

[robanga]

They both sound reasonable. The golf one mirrors other applications that have been coming online for Windows Mobile and I believe Symbian as well.

I would suggest you charge more than $1 for your hard work though, $ 10-20 seems reasonable for mobile applications.

 

[Neobond]

I would love a golf app! I downloaded the SDK and was going to start tinkering , I only have C++ experience so it would take awhile, but school is keeping me from really getting a good start on it.

My ideal golf app would have:

-Picture overview of each hole.
-Yardage from all pins.
-Exportation of score card.
-Multiple golfer tracking
-Distance to hole via locate me feature (so I don't have to rely on a cart if im walking)
-Online database of all worldwide courses with above information, just go to a new course pay my dues and download map/card.
-maybe a easy way to add stroke, like hit the ball, then just give the phone a shake and it automatically adds a stroke and changes to next player.

Being how I haven't swung a golf club since august, I would need a few rounds to figure out what else I would like.

 

[heyp]

So I have a few apps written and they don't really look great at all yet, and in fact, they're not as functional as I'd like them to be yet, but here's what they will do.

#1: iTextOften
This would be for people who text all the time or people who want to cut their SMS amounts way down. It sends people a text after you provide their number (I'm going to integrate the address book into it soon) and their wireless provider and you can select to have them reply either to your iPhone as an SMS or as an e-mail. (With push email, it would be just as easy to use emails, right?)

#2: My Golf Course
You can either pick a golf course (which I can hopefully find a way where you can download them from the web) or you keep track yourself. What this does is keeps track of the golf course by the name, so if you create the golf course yourself the first time it will save it on your iPhone. It will know the pars and I may even implement yardage so it's very close to an actual scorecard. Then you can check each course and get your average score on each hole and average number of putts and even your handicap. Or you can view your overall stats. This one is still more in the design and planning stage but I'll make it if people other than me would find it helpful and nice.
----

I have a couple other ideas but I want to see if they are feasible and see just exactly how I want to implement them before asking. But pretty much what I'm looking for is would you pay $1 for these on your iPhone or iPod Touch? And would you possibly use them if they were free? The only reason I'd charge would be to cover my $99 fee. The other way would be to rely on donations but I'd hate to do that...

If you have any more questions or suggestions that would be helpful, too. Thanks!

Edit: Oh yeah, those are working titles, I know they're awful.

the golf one sounds pretty cool... if it had all the info and i just had to enter my score for each hole and then it would calculate a handicap

 

[Buschmaster]

They both sound reasonable. The golf one mirrors other applications that have been coming online for Windows Mobile and I believe Symbian as well.

I would suggest you charge more than $1 for your hard work though, $ 10-20 seems reasonable for mobile applications.

These would both be more basic apps, if I expanded them to be more advanced I may consider charging $3 or $5, but keep in mind I'm not really out there to make tons of money on this stuff. Just trying to be helpful and if it puts $20 in my pocket, well, I'd be quite happy just with that.

I would love a golf app! I downloaded the SDK and was going to start tinkering , I only have C++ experience so it would take awhile, but school is keeping me from really getting a good start on it.

My ideal golf app would have:

-Picture overview of each hole.
-Yardage from all pins.
-Exportation of score card.
-Multiple golfer tracking
-Distance to hole via locate me feature (so I don't have to rely on a cart if im walking)
-Online database of all worldwide courses with above information, just go to a new course pay my dues and download map/card.
-maybe a easy way to add stroke, like hit the ball, then just give the phone a shake and it automatically adds a stroke and changes to next player.

Being how I haven't swung a golf club since august, I would need a few rounds to figure out what else I would like.

I would sure love all of that as well, but THAT would be the $10-$20 app robanga mentioned. The distance to hole wouldn't be accurate as locate me is only accurate within a couple city blocks I believe.

It will definitely keep track of multiple golfers, and have yardage to pins from any given tee for the courses I lay out. After hearing the idea I believe I will implement an export feature as well. I hadn't thought of this:

-maybe a easy way to add stroke, like hit the ball, then just give the phone a shake and it automatically adds a stroke and changes to next player.

Maybe even pretending to swing the iPhone as a club to add a stroke would be a good feature as an option.

Hopefully there is a way to give people apps or give it to them at discounted prices via iTunes since I'm getting great ideas and hopefully I have some testers here on the board!

 

[Buschmaster]

the golf one sounds pretty cool... if it had all the info and i just had to enter my score for each hole and then it would calculate a handicap

I could make several versions of the app, or even make the one app have several ways of tracking, but that would be a bulky app for someone who wants just what you want so the first is probably more realistic.

 

[Buschmaster]

I have two versions of the app mapped out and will begin coding and design soon.

I have some new REALLY cool ideas now (At least I think so) and those will be implemented into the pro version $2-$5 (Still need to keep thinking what I should charge), and then a fairly small version, not for people who need a stripped down version but for people who don't need all of that space taken up for settings they're going to check no for. That will probably be $1-$2. It'll still be pretty functional, just won't have all the crazy stuff in it. But it will still export and track scores.

Does that seem fair? Luckily, the software update won't be out until June and I'm done with school May 1st which is when I can REALLY start going at this thing. Hopefully I'll have it all but ready at launch of the software update.

That should cover a good amount of the golf season.

 

[kuebby]

I would definitely consider buying the texting one if I didn't have the unlimited texting plan from AT&T. With 4 people on a plan $30 for unlimited texting to any carrier is a pretty good deal (putting aside that the price for texts is ridiculous as is).

 

[iPegboy]

Buschmaster: seems completely reasonable to me. I'm actually really excited to see what you are able to produce. The more I thought about it last night, the more I thought 'I would totally use that golf app'.

 

[bustermac]

Buschmaster

You might have thought about it already, but for the Golf feature, a live leaderboard would be cool. More suitable for corporate golf days or when you have more than one group playing.

Eg

Group one - multiple player scoring. 4 players all updating their scores on iphone no 1


Group two - multiple player scoring. 4 players all updating their scores on iphone no 2

Then you have a live leaderboard, scores from two groups fed back via edge and displayed on web page or within app. People can then see who is winning / losing from other groups.

Think you would be able to charge for that feature, certainly on the corporate golf day side!

 

[SFStateStudent]

I like the idea of a running leaderboard...

but only if it was for the tournament I was playing in, or sponsoring. That would definitely be cool. Any possibilities?

 

[Nipz]

The text one could be a little weird cause people would email u straight away etc but still ideas are ideas

The golf one would be sweet if you got a multiplayer that worked really well you could get people to pay to have their advertise on the boards around the course and make some money that way

Ben

 

[Buschmaster]

The text one could be a little weird cause people would email u straight away etc but still ideas are ideas

The golf one would be sweet if you got a multiplayer that worked really well you could get people to pay to have their advertise on the boards around the course and make some money that way

Ben

What do you mean emailing you straight away?

I could do ads, but I'd really rather not. I don't like ads

 

[hotsauce]

Wirelessly posted (Apple Communication Device: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

You'll have $30 from me if you can make your golf program as functional as intelligolf. I used that program everytime when I had a treo. Also, if there was a way to install course databases, you can just host a site for users to share course info.

 

[Pring]

#1: iTextOften
This would be for people who text all the time or people who want to cut their SMS amounts way down. It sends people a text after you provide their number (I'm going to integrate the address book into it soon) and their wireless provider and you can select to have them reply either to your iPhone as an SMS or as an e-mail. (With push email, it would be just as easy to use emails, right?)

I'm intrigued as to how you implemented this, given that there's no SMS functionality in the SDK. Did you keep a mapping of Provider Names -> APNs and map their provider to that then mail <number>@<APN>?

And no, not planning an app to step on your toes but I looked into SMS functionality in my app and thought it was going to be rather tough to implement. Afaik Apple are locking it down so they don't get Facebook style app spam.

 

[Buschmaster]

Wirelessly posted (Apple Communication Device: Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU like Mac OS X; en) AppleWebKit/420.1 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.0 Mobile/4A102 Safari/419.3)

You'll have $30 from me if you can make your golf program as functional as intelligolf. I used that program everytime when I had a treo. Also, if there was a way to install course databases, you can just host a site for users to share course info.

I'll make it as functional as possible, and I can assure you it won't cost $30 A user shared course database is definitely going to be included. I'm trying to find the best (free) way to do it.

 

[Buschmaster]

I'm intrigued as to how you implemented this, given that there's no SMS functionality in the SDK. Did you keep a mapping of Provider Names -> APNs and map their provider to that then mail <number>@<APN>?

And no, not planning an app to step on your toes but I looked into SMS functionality in my app and thought it was going to be rather tough to implement. Afaik Apple are locking it down so they don't get Facebook style app spam.

Don't worry, it will work.

 

[daytripper]

intelligolf?

Hey, I'm with hotsauce on this one! I loved intelligolf and am really disappointed there's no iphone app. Have you found anything else that works as well hotsauce? I am currently using teeshotlive - which is good - but not quite there yet. I hear there's a new version coming out soon.