iDevelop for Apple Platforms

Robyn and I made a few important purchases this last weekend. We have been saving for a while to get Robyn a sweet new camera. In addition, we've been talking for a few months about getting an iMac. (As seen below)

The camera is something Robyn has wanted to get so that she can practice her photography. She was once a guru with a fancy film camera and she wanted to regain some of those skills.

The iMac surprisingly enough, was mainly for me. I have really wanted to develop the skill of programming for the iPhone. I think there's potentially a lot of money to be made there, but I also think that it would be great on a resume to say that I have that skill. Any Mac would do for programming the iPhone, but we decided to get a fancy iMac because it has all the fancy software as well. Robyn will be doing lots of photo editing and movie editing. I might even get into the movie editing. iMovie looks pretty dang cool, so you might just see some movies on my blog in the future.

It's been rough for me. I have had some bad experiences with Macs in the past, and those experiences gave me some deep seated prejudices. One particular time about ten years ago, I worked at a software company called Nextpage. I needed to burn a CD to send to a client. This was before every machine had it's own CD burner. We had a lab that had a bunch of computers, and there was only one in there that had a CD burner. I sat down at that machine, all I needed to do was to put in a CD and access the CD burning software. That shouldn't be a difficult task. I spent about 30 minutes searching in every possible menu to try and find how to open the CD drive. Finally, feeling like an idiot, I asked a random stranger that happened to be in the lab, if he knew how to open it. "Yes, you just drag it into the trash can." This made me very cranky. How could I have possibly thought of that ever? Everyone talked about how intuitive Macs were supposed to be. For the record, that is not intuitive.

I've been trying to overcome my prejudice. It's difficult though because I feel so dumb when sitting at a Mac. I'm a software engineer, I should know how to use computers. But just yesterday I yelled to Robyn, "How do I open up a second browser?" Like I said, it's been difficult. But you will be proud to know, I am currently blogging from our sweet new iMac. We're getting along fairly well and I'm learning to use it.

I better learn to use it, because I'm going to be writing software for it. I have to learn Objective C, which is the language of the iPhone. It's a little intimidating, and it makes me miss Microsoft compilers and environments. But, I'm committed to move forward. I even spent $75.00 of my fun money(Robyn and I each get an allowance of money we can spend on whatever we want each month) on books about iPhone programming. Robyn promised me that if we make a million dollars from the skills I gain, then she will allow me to use 75 dollars of it as fun money. So it's all good.

So here's where you come in. I need good ideas for iPhone apps that people would really want to buy. If I decide to write the app you think of, I will give it to you for free. So dream up some cool stuff and let me know what it is and how much you think people would pay for it.  (apps seem to run from free to about $9.99)