For aspiring app developers on the forum, who want to develop an apps to improve privacy, obviously it’s not worth making another encrypted messaging app, or email service (Signal and Protonmail already exist). So, what kinds of apps do you want to see in the privacy community? Is there a particular service that you wish had a privacy respecting alternative? These are supposed to be ideas for people who want to develop apps.
Need something like samung wallet but only for storing cards, identity, boarding passes etc.
Not for direct payments ofcourse which i think is quite difficult for a FOSS
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Things I would like:
- A viable open-source alternative to Photoshop that can achieve similar professional level results. (I know about GIMP but it still doesn’t have many non-destructive editing tools)
- More open-source video games or some sort of front end for accessing Steam or GOG games.
- A bandcamp foss client that is fully featured on mobile and desktop.
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We really need app for making Signal stickers for android/ios or atleast making it easier especially for animated ones.
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I’d really love if there was an app that could send me reminders about stuff in my kitchen cabinets and fridge which are about to expire. I have found something similar in the past but it didn’t really do what I wanted.
What I want is just an app that will allow me to simply scan the barcode of a package after I buy it. And then if it is a product I never scanned before prompt me to give a name and an expiration date. While if it is something I have scanned before only prompt me for the expiration date. Also, it needs to have the ability of keeping track of individual packages of the same product with different expiration dates and send me notifications for each package separately as they are about to expire.
If someone makes an open source Android app that just does what I described I will be forever grateful.
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Hey, this kind of matches my plan for an extra web app about inventory management(locally) but less boring and gamified(where possible). That’s a feedback point that’s gonna count when the time will come 
Describe your app in further detail. Do barcodes already have expiration date information in them? Who would put the barcodes on your groceries. I like your idea for an expiration date tracker.
I like your idea too! Tell me about how Samsung Wallet, or apps like Google Pay, work? How do they store your credit cards and how do they transmit this information where needed? Is this information stored in the cloud?
What I would like is you store images and card details in an encrypted form offline and display it in a nice UI just like gpay/samsung pay/apple pay.
Bitwarden can store cards and ID’s, but UI isn’t that great.
When trying to find such an app, I cam accross this https://catima.app/ seems nice for loyality cards.
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What’s wrong with using a service like Cryptee or Proton Drive, those end to end encrypted ones? I’m asking in order to understand your idea better.
Its mostly a UI/UX thing.
I believe barcodes printed on products you buy at a super market are typically just the product id and don’t contain any expiration date data.
Here is an example use case, let’s say each time I buy a bottle of milk I always buy the exact same one that is identified by a barcode with a value of 1234567890. The first time I buy the particular bottle of milk and scan it the app will see that there is no product already in the database with a barcode value 1234567890. So, it will prompt me to input a product name, an expiration date and optionally take a photo of the product.
Then if I go to the super market next week and buy the exact same bottle of milk then the barcode should be the same. So, when I scan it with the app it will only prompt me to enter the expiration date as it already had the rest of the product data since I’ve already inputted it the first time.
What if the barcode on the product changes the next time you buy it?
This doesn’t happen very often, but it happens the app will simply think it’s a new product and prompt you to enter the product name again. So, not really a huge deal.
And you have to manually input the expiration date?
Basically yes, but inputting just the expiration date can be done pretty fast if implemented correctly. An alternative would be implementing OCR to read the expiration date from the package after scanning the QR code. I don’t know how reliable that could be though.
True, expiration dates are already hard enough to read and find on many groceries. Your idea’s a good senior capstone project.
I would love a nice looking weather app for Android.
This exercise actually made me consider what I would replace on my phone with FOSS, and most of it already was! The ones that weren’t are needed based on the service itself or are too close to being system level apps that aren’t worth replacing.
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Pandora (music) front end — maybe PWA, or a native app that can deliver content via front end like NewPipe does youtube.
I can use Desktop mode on my phone, but is very glitchy and wont play through songs. Mobile browsing is blocked.
I am actually do develop FOSS applications in my spare time. I have an app I am working on and two other ideas I hope to make in the future.
⚠️⚠️ Self Promotion Alert! Self Promotion Alert! ⚠️⚠️
I have actually been developing a privacy focused, local first personal finance tracker I call Reckoner. You can load a test version of the web app using this test URL. I created this since I wanted a serverless version of what Firefly III has to offer with more customization.
I actually wrote a blog article about how ideas are abundant, but implementing them is really hard. I also highlighted some of my application ideas I would like to see made into reality, but I will write it if no one else does. Top among them is an open source workout tracker which would be able to track crossfit style workouts (weight and time) and a todo app which could sync devices without the need for CalDav.
The top app idea I wish someone else would produce is a true FOSS music streaming service and app. I have also tried Spotify alternatives like SpoTube, but found that it uses YT music to stream songs and occasionally gets the wrong or no song for the music I listen to. A true FOSS music streaming service is a dream of mine. However, that is less of an issue for getting application developers than it is navigating the music industry 
.
My advice to aspiring FOSS developers is to find one project you are super passionate about and then find a small cohort of friends who are willing to talk to you about what you’re doing. I have my App Brain Trust which are 3 other friends who keep me accountable and provide feedback on my ideas. My best decisions on my app development came about as a result of the feedback I got from them. I would actually advise starting smaller than what I did for my first app, but don’t be afraid to dream big if that’s what motivates you.
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I don’t understand why more people don’t talk about To-do or Tasks apps. There are simply no private alternatives to the likes of Todoist; Any.Do; Google Keep that are end-to-end encrypted and sync across devices.
There is a sore need in privacy community for such an app. Basically something like Tasks.org but can be accessed from the web and synced across multiple OS with E2EE so that the server can’t access the data. I know about Apple Reminders and EteSync and potential Tasks.org synchronisation options, even Nextcloud.
However, none of them are frankly good enough or private enough or full-proof enough. Someone needs to develop such a product that’s simple to use, has a decent UI, can be accessed via the web, is beginner friendly and uses encryption and there will be plenty of people who would pay for it. We have email, messengers, calendars, photo storage, cloud storage and so on that are stored encrypted but not a single functional and viable E2EE To-do service alternative…
EDIT:
P.S. Same argument would go for a fitness and workout tracking app. Something like ‘Fitnotes’ that utilises the above functions. However, To-do app would have more value as workouts can be as easily tracked via different means.
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