>Some ideas for iPhone apps
by Giles Turnbull
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SUPERMARKET SPOTLIGHT – like Spotlight on your Mac, but for supermarkets in meatspace. You tell it that you’re in Tesco in Trowbridge, then start typing in the product you’re after. It tells you: “Aisle 12, section 2, top shelf, on the right if you’ve got your back to the cash tills.” Either that, or it simply does the augmented reality thing and takes you there, beeping louder as you get closer, like a geiger counter.
GARDENER’S DELIGHT – gardening is part science, part art, and part memory test. Every garden is different, so a gardener needs to keep records of various things – what happens when during the year, and what needs to happen next. This app would behave like a free-form database, into which you can put all the information about your garden. You control reminders about events, and you can add notes and photos too. It might also include a reference book element too, full of advice about particular plants.
KEYNOTE FLOW – only useful during Apple keynotes and special events, this Apple-made app gives you the highlights from the keynote in the form of slides and an audio soundtrack, live and as it happens. It will take some of the pressure away from Twitter.
RADIO TIMES – I don’t care about telly programmes, but I do want to know when stuff is on the radio. Yes, even in these days of iPlayer and Listen Again, sometimes I still listen to live radio. I want a thing that will tell me when stuff is on the UK radio stations of my choice; it must be searchable and allow me to bookmark or tag the shows that I want to listen to, and view that list independently of the listings. And be able to send tagged shows to my calendar and/or todo list.
