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My Dream App to hold developer competition for Season 2
My Dream App, the wildly successful American Idol of the Mac software world, is coming back for a Season 2 - and they need a few good developers. But this time around, they're adding a new layer to the competition by allowing users to vote on the actual developers who will get the chance to code the winning apps. A press release and announcement on the My Dream App site states that the crew will be at the upcoming WWDC 07 in June doing video interviews with interested developers, but an email address is also provided if devs want to get a jump on things.Whether you are eagerly watching development of the apps from Season 1 (and yes, they're still making progress; this stuff doesn't happen overnight), this new season should be pretty fun. I'm definitely interested to see which developers are interested in hopping on board, and which ones the public chooses to build the app winners.
Cookbook progress
Some of you may recall that I served as one of the judges over at My Dream App. The one app that I was most enthused about was Cookbook. It really took the idea of recipe app to the next level, at least the concept did. Cookbook was one of the winners, and it seems that there is now a functioning version of the app (no, you can't download it yet). Check out this progress post to get a taste (ha! Get it?) of the development process.
TUAW Podcast #15: The Delicious Cast
Fire up your favorite audio players ladies and gentlemen, for TUAW Podcast #15 is live and ready for consumption. This time around it was Laurie Duncan, Scott McNulty and I, and I'm delighted to say we have dramatically improved our recording setup to give you a much, much better and cleaner listening experience. Leaving iChat + GarageBand in the dust, we opted for Skype and the fantastic Audio Hijack Pro from Rogue Amoeba, and we sound worlds better, if I may say so myself (though to their credit, Apple seems to be the only one who has mastered two-click audio chat recording, complete with separate channels in GarageBand for each participant). Also, Scott and I were both using Blue Snowballs for our mics, and Laurie's is in the mail.Moving right along, we dub this The Delicious Cast because it was more of a chat about this brewing topic of The Delicious Generation, a term borne out of a post Paul Kafasis at Rogue Amoeba wrote concerning recent aspects of the Mac community like macZOT, Disco, My Dream App and MacHeist, as well as their relationship to Mac OS X's seemingly wayward UI and the recent discussion amongst developers at C4. Paul and many others have been philosophizing over what all these things mean for the community and the future of Mac OS X's usability, so the three of us decided to weigh in, podcast style. I just noticed, by the way, that Paul issued a follow-up to his original post, in case you're down for some more reading on the topic.This time around, the podcast weighs in at just over 23MB and 25 minutes. As always, you can grab it via direct link here, our iTunes Store podcast directory or with our dedicated podcast RSS feed. Enjoy, and be sure to drop us some feedback in the comments!
TUAW Exclusive: MacHeist details
From the people who brought you My Dream App comes the next big thing in Mac software. You might have seen other sites talking about MacHeist, but unlike everyone else in our little corner of the internet, we actually know what MacHeist is all about. Here's what we know: The eventual product of the site will be a deeply discounted software bundle only made available to users. I've had a look at the contents of the bundle as they stand so far, and they are, as those crazy kids say "killer dude" Dozens of Mac developers have signed up to participate in MacHeist Throughout the event, users can participate in mysterious "heists" to gain an even deeper discount on the bundle as well as special freebies. The event will be invitation only, at least for the first couple of weeks, with users selected out of those who signed up on the MacHeist or My Dream App sites. This encrypted message has appeared on the MacHeist RSS feed: 3><(||_|$1\/1+`/ \X/@|\|+ +|-|3 1|\|$1[)3 $(00|* @|\|[) @ |-|3@[) $+@|2+? 1|\|q|_|1|23 +|-||20|_|6|-| +|-|3 @|*|*|20|*|21@+3 (|-|@|\||\|3|$. Even with what little info we do have, it sounds like MacHeist will be just as much fun as My Dream App, if not more so, and full of great deals to boot!
My Dream App Winners Announced!
The votes are in folks, and the winners are Atmosphere, Portal, and Cookbook, with Portal beating out Hijack by only 5 votes. It looked like Hijack had Portal beaten, that is before the filtering of fraudulent votes. Fraudulent votes were defined as more than 50 votes for the same application originating from the same IP address. With a result this close, there are bound to be some sore feelings between winners and losers, but let's just try and remember it's not the end of the world, and life will go on. So did your preferred app make the cut? Let us know in the comments.
My Dream App final round voting
Eight o'clock (EDT) tomorrow night marks the end of voting for the final round of Phill Ryu's My Dream App competition. What started just over a month ago with 24 eager contestants and their software-concepts has been whittled down by four rounds of voting to the six best ideas as decided by thousands of people like ourselves. The masterminds of the three ideas with the most votes will receive a new MacBook and a contract to have their software made into a full-fledged OS X application, the revenue from which they get a share of. Keeping with tradition (and even going a bit above and beyond what we've seen in the past), everyone who votes in this last round will receive a free license for Overflow 2.0, PhotoPresenter 2.6, and $5 off one of the new Insanely Great Tees from Monkey Business Labs.Competition between the contenders has been brutal this round, with almost all of the ideas making it into the top three at one time or another over the past day, with Atmosphere (one of the app's I voted for, yay!) currently in the lead. The one contestant that has stayed consistent throughout the voting has been Blossom, of which Steve Wozniak has to say; "This would only be remotely entertaining if the plant was marijuana or opium and when you did certain things like actually work, you killed your crop. Maybe you could make virtual cash and compete online for the best cash crop. In order to grow the weed and heroin you have to browse certain web sites that would require you be smoking weed to start with; like the Microsoft.com Vista developer site."So get out there and vote! It only takes a few minutes, you get yourself some great free software, and in the process help decide the winner of a great competition that will eventually benefit you through new and interesting applications to play with.Update: "What, you mean today isn't Wednesday?" Thanks for pointing out my errors guys, I must be losing it.Update, the second: Ok, here's the deal on the whole "who's on first" business. I do have insider information when it comes to MDA, but not in the case of this vote. Without even really thinking about it, I made a (silly now that I think of it) assumption that the first, second, third etc histogram bars corresponded to the first, second,third etc applications listed below. I would never intentionally do anything to skew the results. Sorry about the confusion
My Dream App Semifinals voting ends tonight
Voting for the Semifinals round of the My Dream App contest ends tonight at Midnight (EDT), and with it, seemingly any chance of Desktop Wars (my original choice) making it to the final round. Digg founder Kevin Rose, Peter Cohen and Jason Snell from Macworld, David Pogue of the New York Times, and netcaster Leo Laporte are just some of this rounds Big-Name™ judges. Everyone who votes in this round will get a free copy of playful recording software Voice Candy.So get out there and Vote! Show your patriotism.... or something like that.
Why can I extend my desktop but not my menu bar?
Strictly coincidence, but TUAW reader MacaholiQ8 wrote in yesterday asking if we knew of any application that would enable him to expand/extend his menubar. Seems his 12" Powerbook just doesn't offer enough screen real estate to accommodate all his precious menulings (or menu extras, if you're a stickler). Well I know how you feel, MacaholiQ8, because I have been asking this same question of pretty much anyone who'd listen for a while now. In fact, it was my very own entry into the My Dream App contest - which obviously didn't make the cut. I'm baffled as to why. I think my dream app is more practical and worthy than that virtual plant (no offense, Dan - good luck! seriously!). It just doesn't make sense to me. We can add things to the menu bar, remove things from the menu bar, rearrange things in the menu bar, even hide the menu bar altogether. But no one has figured out how to extend the menu bar - or if they have they are keeping the secret close to their vest.I have 48-inches (24x2) of glorious screen real estate to fill on my desk and I can't find a way to get my menu bar to span across both displays. Similarly, when I'm on my 12" Powerbook I end up not being able to use half my menu bar items since they get hidden or pushed away off the right side by Application-specific menus encroaching from the left. That's just plain wrong.Is it just me? Does no one else (aside from MacaholiQ8) have any desire to extend or expand their menu bar by way of multi-monitor spanning or drop-down menu access for spillover, ala Safari's Bookmarks Bar? Is there already a way to do this that I have just been too blind to see or will I have to offer a hefty bounty to some hotshot developer to hook me up?
My Dream App Round 3 voting ends tonight
With only twelve concepts still in the running to be turned into someone's dream Mac OS X application, the My Dream App competition ends its third round of public voting tonight at midnight. As a reward for your input, everyone who votes will recieve a free copy of Musicast which allows anyone to stream music from their iTunes library over the web. And just incase you can't decide which of the ideas you like best, a panel of guest judges including Adam Betts and David Lanham share their opinions on each app up for votes.
My Dream App voting round 2
The second round of voting is under way over at My Dream App. Vote and let your voice be heard! Plus, when you vote you get a free copy of Mori, Hog Bay Software's document organizer.This round's judges are the cream of the crop of Mac bloggers including John Siracusa of Ars Technica, John Gruber of Daring Fireball, Merlin Mann of 43 Folders. Oh, and somehow yours truly got invited to be a judge. Go check out the apps and vote for your favorite. My favorite idea so far? Blossom, I've never seen an app like it and I sure hope it gets some votes.
My Dream App opens voting, offers free Pzizz licenses
My Dream App, the revolutionary new 'American Idol' of software from Phill Ryu which we've been covering, has officially opened the first elimination round voting to the public. A total of 24 apps are on the chopping block, and it's up to y'all to decide which are voted off the island, and which get to run a health juice shop together, er, something. You can vote for up to 18 contestants, and the big-name judges like Wil Shipley (Delicious Library), Nicholas Jitkoff (Quicksilver), David Watanabe (Acquisition, NewsFire), Allan Odgaard (TextMate), Cabel Sasser (Panic), Brent Simmons (NetNewsWire), Ken Case (OmniGroup) and Gus Mueller (VoodooPad) have added their comments and opinions to each of the apps (you can see all comments by clicking on each of the contestants on the left). Voting closes at 11:59 EDT Friday, September 22nd though, so you'd better run (as opposed to the typical 'walk' or 'mosey') to add your two cents on which apps make the cut.As an added bonus, voters will be offered a free license to Pzizz, the strangely named (but critically acclaimed) app that helps users achieve a heightened state of relaxation through specialized sounds. While we don't recommend using this to fall asleep at work, it is $40 worth of software for free, so what do you have to lose? Go vote on My Dream App and help be a part of innovative software development history.[via MacMegasite]
First 3 My Dream App finalists announced
Out of the 2,761 submitted ideas the final 24 contestants have been picked in My Dream App. Of course we won't find out all the finalists at once, no Phill Ryu is too much of a showman for that. Instead he tempts us with the first three: Herald - an RSS reader (lord knows we need another one of those) that uses the newspaper as a visual metaphor. The twist is that user would be able to share and publish their subscriptions in a variety of ways. Stick-It - think Stickies on steroids. You'll be able to stick notes on applications, windows, anything. Desktop Wars - a real time strategy game that transforms your desktop into a war zone complete with voice, mouse, and motion interaction. Keep in mind that these are just ideas at the moment, but they might become a reality. Also recall that yours truly is serving on the panel of blogger judges.
The TUAW Interview: 3 Developers behind My Dream App
A few days ago I sat down (virtually) with the 3 developers who will be coding the winning ideas from My Dream App (they are also judges). Austin Sarner (AppZapper), Jason Harris (Shapeshifter, ThemePark, and Chicken of the VNC to name a few), and Martin Ott (SubEthaEdit) have a big task ahead of them. At the moment over 1700 ideas have been submitted to My Dream App and not only will these guys be programming the final 3, they also help choose them.After the jump is a longish chat that I had with Austin, Jason, and Martin. We go over their programming chops, why they decided to join up with MDA, and why they are so excited about the concept.
My Dream App launches
Phill Ryu's My Dream App has officially launched today. What is My Dream App? Think American Idol for Mac software, think America's Got Talent with software developers and no Hasselhoff.The idea is that non-programmers have ideas for apps they would love to see, but they lack the skills to make them a reality. Enter My Dream App, people submit their app ideas to the contest. The entries are whittled down to 24 and then the visitors of the website vote until there are only 3 left. The remaining 3 will become be developed by a team of a designer and a developer and then become real life products for sale (the person who submitted the idea gets royalties).Submissions are open until Friday, September 1st (extended from the original Aug. 25th).Oh, and in the spirit of full disclosure, I am serving on the panel of judges for My Dream App (along with Steve Wozniak, Leo Laporte, and Kevin Rose, just to name a few) though I have no vested interest in the contest.
