Thanks to today’s sponsors: iClip, the multiple clipboard solution for OS X, Awaken, the iTunes compatible alarm clock, TextMate, the Apple Design Award winning Text Editor, and macZOT!, for daily deals on Mac software.
This finalist group contains some of my personal favorites. Each of them are simple ideas, but are very fresh and well thought-out. Congrats to Dan, Cameron and Raven.
Blossom, by Dan Lundmark: Blossom gives users a plant on their desktop. Instead of sunlight and water however, this one grows on productivity. The possibilities are pretty endless. Too much World of Warcraft? Expect your plant to start withering, and eventually die. Had a productive day in Photoshop or Excel? Your flower may start blooming colorful floweres. I can see unique plants for every user, and imagine the experience of a seedling growing into a beautiful plant representing parts of your life to be pretty magical. You can read the full idea here and check out Dan’s first blog post here.
Development Judge Austin Sarner: “Blossom is an interesting take on a productivity app. Instead of helping you make a todo list or focus on a project, it keeps you updated on what you’ve been up to. If you start slacking off and goofing around in iChat and Safari, myLife will reflect it with a withering plant. Likewise, if you start working for an hour in Excel or Pages, you’ll be pleasantly rewarded with a growing plant. Over all, it seems like a slick way to calculate and display something that most people have a hard time grasping.”
Atmosphere, by Cameron Westland: Atmosphere is your virtual window to the outdoors, grabbing weather data and recreating it on your desktop in 3D. Turning on your Mac during a chilly autumn morning? You’ll be greeted by some falling leaves and light fog. Light rain, thunderstorms, clear starry nights, snow showers, a cloudy summer day, Atmosphere will be able to represent it all. You can read the full idea here and check out Cameron’s first blog post here.
My personal thoughts: I’ve been cooped up in the house for the past couple of weeks working on My Dream App, and I’m really starting to crave Atmosphere. Not only is it functional as an entirely visual indicator of weather (and could be modified to include forecasts in some fashion), but gentle rainfall, slowly drifting snowflakes, or even just a starry night with clouds slowly drifting across the screen could provide a nice break from work. Almost as good as the real thing!
Telepath, by Raven Zachary: Telepath is an elegant solution for those with non-data cellphones and the need for the latest emails, news, and more as they come. Telepath uses your Mac to selectively push important emails, chat messages, news, and more via SMS to your phone, and could even potentially receive instructions from your phone to trigger actions (like replying to an email, or putting your Mac to sleep). A lot of huge potential here. You can read the full idea here, and check out Raven’s first blog post here.
Development Manager John Casasanta: “This entry has everything: a great idea, a contestant that has the hit-man/assassin look down, and the name to match. What more could we ask for?”
The final three finalists will be announced tomorrow afternoon. Stay tuned!
