My App Plan, The Experiment
The Goal - Our goal for Appril is to build the best possible apps in a month part time, to see how much is possible with such limited time and resources.
The App - I’ve decided not to make an app. I had a big list of about 20 possible app ideas. I ran through them and found they fell into 3 groups:
- Already solved - Why build something when I like the current implementations? In some cases they were in progress and unlaunched but I was confident the people working on the problem would solve it better than me.
- Too big - They couldnt be achieved in a month part-time. I dont want appril to affect my daytime work or social life so the app has to be tiny. I tried looking at small sub-pieces of the big problems but they ended up falling under group three..
- Too boring - I thought they were good ideas or important problems but solving them wouldn’t be fun. What’s the point of doing it if it isn’t enjoyable? Appril is intended as a fun playful challenge not a dull grind to the finish.
The Experiment - So here’s what I’m doing. I’m going to experiment with fun technologies I haven’t used at all or as much as I’d like. Arduino, Processing, CouchDB, Google AppEngine, RFID, QR codes, etc. Since it’s an experiment and not an app it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t work, is useless, gets no users or set’s my workbench on fire. I’m broadly working under the goal of hooking up as much of my home into the ‘Internet of Things’ as possible.
So here goes, Welcome to Appril, my month of useless fun experimentation.
