iClock
I was thinking (not something I do very often) what simple device could Apple do really well that could make my life any easier.
And I came up with iClock (don't laugh) an alarm clock and event notifier which uses Bluetooth technology to talk to my mac.
I know it sounds simple and possibly a bit lame, but here are my suggestions.
It would be a bloody nice looking alarm clock for one thing, Sony seem to make a lot of Dream Machines (their Alarm clock range) and sell them at quite high prices so I believe there is a market.
It would be able to open applications, tell iTunes to play at a certain time. It would sync with iCal and remind you of appoinments if you wanted it to. It could give you a summary of things on the schedule for today. It could have a caller display function to work with your Bluetooth phone. It could tell you who you have emails from this morning.
I don't know enough about the limitations of Blue tooth, but you could possibly download songs from iTunes to the iClock, storing them in solid state memory (making it cheap) to use as an alarm. Or perhaps you could stream music, or internet radio?
I'm thinking it could be under $100 if they use a backlit black and white LCD display and give it 32Mb of solid state memory.
I know it's possible to have the mac itself launch playlists with scripts etc, but I never really got on with any of these, I don't really trust them to work flawlessly, and I want to switch of my alarm by the bedside and have a snooze function.
O.k who thinks I'm a nut?
[ 10-09-2002: Message edited by: fridgemagnet ]</p>
And I came up with iClock (don't laugh) an alarm clock and event notifier which uses Bluetooth technology to talk to my mac.
I know it sounds simple and possibly a bit lame, but here are my suggestions.
It would be a bloody nice looking alarm clock for one thing, Sony seem to make a lot of Dream Machines (their Alarm clock range) and sell them at quite high prices so I believe there is a market.
It would be able to open applications, tell iTunes to play at a certain time. It would sync with iCal and remind you of appoinments if you wanted it to. It could give you a summary of things on the schedule for today. It could have a caller display function to work with your Bluetooth phone. It could tell you who you have emails from this morning.
I don't know enough about the limitations of Blue tooth, but you could possibly download songs from iTunes to the iClock, storing them in solid state memory (making it cheap) to use as an alarm. Or perhaps you could stream music, or internet radio?
I'm thinking it could be under $100 if they use a backlit black and white LCD display and give it 32Mb of solid state memory.
I know it's possible to have the mac itself launch playlists with scripts etc, but I never really got on with any of these, I don't really trust them to work flawlessly, and I want to switch of my alarm by the bedside and have a snooze function.
O.k who thinks I'm a nut?
[ 10-09-2002: Message edited by: fridgemagnet ]</p>
Comments
<strong>You are so far from being a nut you do not have any idea how un-nutty you are.</strong><hr></blockquote>
Is that a good or a bad thing?
<strong>umm its intersting but I dont think apple will EVER make such a product. Waste of time for them... No money to be made....</strong><hr></blockquote>
People said that about an MP3 player. Sony must make a huge amount of money from alarm clocks, they have a very large range of Dream Machines and they seem to be constantly under development.
I know it sounds far fetched because an alarm clock seems like such an ordinary thing, I mean if you said to me 'iSaucepan' I'd say you were mad.
But imagine you're lying in bed, your iClock goes off, it's playing your favorite piece of music but you hit the snooze (a dimly glowing Apple logo button). It goes off again 10 minutes later, you prise your tired eyes open and look at the soft glow of it's LCD display, ugh! 6:00am. You notice, however, that it's saying you have 2 emails from (insert someone you want to get a mail from here), your stocks are down again, bummer, but the headline thats scrolling by in the iClock display tells you that Apple have released a G5.
Now to me that is compelling because its so simple, the technology is there already, because your digital lifestyle includes sleeping.
The first thing you look at every day is your alarm clock, why not have an Apple logo there!?
<a href="http://www.apple.com/contact/feedback.html"; target="_blank">http://www.apple.com/contact/feedback.html</a>;
They are in the high-end (save those thoughts for a different thread) but the iMac is not a computer. It's a digital lifestyle appliance.
The only place I'd disagree with Mr. Magnet is that is that iClock may well be a clock in the same way that iPod is an alarm clock ... don't forget that here's a device that can play music and can give you an alarm ... in other words, it's ALREADY 100% conceptually what he's asking for and has 75% of the functionality he's asking for.
This is where Apple is going ... Apple's future is iClock, not "computers."
<strong>I've said it before (and people have often replied "You're a twat"), but less and less is Apple a "computer manufacturer."
They are in the high-end (save those thoughts for a different thread) but the iMac is not a computer. It's a digital lifestyle appliance.
The only place I'd disagree with Mr. Magnet is that is that iClock may well be a clock in the same way that iPod is an alarm clock ... don't forget that here's a device that can play music and can give you an alarm ... in other words, it's ALREADY 100% conceptually what he's asking for and has 75% of the functionality he's asking for.
This is where Apple is going ... Apple's future is iClock, not "computers."</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yes its true, recently I discovered that my iPod would send me an alarm based on info from iCal. Neat trick. And in the extra functions appearing on the iPod you can see peoples yearning for it to be something more.
However the thing it is best at is playing music not as a means of displaying information. I could never use my iPod as an alarm clock because I need my alarm clock to be dedicated to getting me up at the right time before it does anything else.
The computer is an amazing device for collecting and storing information but its not always the best way of disseminating that information. The idea behind a 'digital lifestyle' is that we don't have to be chained to the computer to do all the neat stuff a computer lets us do.
My mac can feed information such as the weather, the news, the time, stocks and shares and emails to my iClock and in return iClock can send information about my sleeping habits to the mac, you can have a preference where if you fail to answer the alarm iClock will tell the mac to email someone on your behalf or automatically update and publish your iCal calendar.
A powerful set of possibilities I'd say, and all from something as simple as an alarm clock.
Its a market begging to be innovated.
Why have a built in CD player when you already have all that music on your mac?
Think 'An alarm for me!', some of the units have a dual alarm function, so you and your partner can get up at different times. Now supposing iClock could look at a dynamic playlist of each of your favorite songs in iTunes! No more 'beep beep beep beep beep!' (as Ellen Feiss would say).
Some of them tell you the temperature, well what's the point of that? my mac is the best source for that kind of information.
I'm also thinking iClock may suck as a name.
How about iDream, iSlumber, iSleep or iSnooze?
No serious though. I like the iclock idea with blue tooth. Would be neat to stream radio/mp3's to wake me up!
THIS IS THE COOLEST DAMN IDEA I'VE HEARD IN A LONG TIME.
-d
<strong>confirmed!
<img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" /> <img src="graemlins/lol.gif" border="0" alt="[Laughing]" />
I got really excited when I thought of it, but I would imagine if its viable that Apple would have thought of it too (don't they have a whole room of people just sitting around thinking stuff up?)
It was partly inspired by the situation I find myself in every morning. My girlfriend lives in Indiana, I live in London. I set my alarm for 5am (ugh!) every morning to talk to her via AIM. Some mornings though I find myself just ignoring the alarm clock and oversleeping.
I've tried to automate my mac to wake me up, and I can make it work but its not elegant or convenient.
So. why can't my alarm clock tell my girlfriend I've overslept, it could tell the mac to email her, heck it could even tell the mac to log on to iChat and put up an away message. She could then try and wake me herself or phone me or whatever.
Another situation is that she will have gone to bed because she's tired and she emails me to say so, but thats not that useful as I have to crawl out of bed at 5am to know that so if it displayed my email titles I would know just to roll over and go back to sleep.
In fact you could set the mac to update the alarm clock when it finds the string 'gone to bed' in an email message, it could then reset the alarm to 7am and I would be unaware of the change till I woke at 7, nice and refreshed
Timekeeping devices are probably the oldest form of information technology and I think they are about due for an overhaul Apple style.
<strong>...but the iMac is not a computer. It's a digital lifestyle appliance.</strong><hr></blockquote>
That's a pretty expensive appliance. I would venture to say that it is a computer that acts like the digital hub appliance. I think of an appliance more as an iPod or PS2/GameCube/xBox.
That's a pretty asinine and narrow minded statement. What do you think the iPod is anyway. It has a hard drive and an operating system. Maybe you're jealous because you didn't think of it.
<strong>Actually about a month ago I woke up and had this same idea. It was the strangest thing...my idea was not for Apple to do it but for me. So the next day I met with my capstone group for school and it just so happened we were picking projects. I suggested this and we are working on it as a software engineering project. We probably won't actually build a prototype because of time restraints but should have most of it laid out there.</strong><hr></blockquote>
So you think its a case of 'great minds think alike?'
Or 'fools seldom differ'?
So you think its a case of 'great minds think alike?'
Or 'fools seldom differ'?
<hr></blockquote>
I'd have to say 'great minds think alike.' I came up with my idea in a very similar way. I woke up and realized that my class had been cancelled and was pissed thinking my alarm clock should be able to talk to my computer and figure this stuff out. Stupid school. Always making me come up with incredibly expensive ideas.