Matt Buchanan on things that should be better, or just exist

These are some of Matt Buchanan’s ideas for some things in apps that should be improved ASAP:

  • Foursquare iPad app — my primary use for Foursquare isn’t to see where people are anymore, it’s to see where places to go are. This is something I’d like to do on my iPad. It’s something I’ve tried to do on my iPad, but it always make me sad, like a really insipid macchiato.
  • Path iPad app — Path is supposed to feel cozy, and when I am feeling cozy, I prefer my iPad over my phone. Phone = speed and concision and smallness and genereal feelings of AGHGHHGHH. iPad = how’s it going, I’m feeling really great because it’s Sunday and sunny or at least the kind of grey outside that makes me feel very comfortable. Why yes, I would heart hearting your very cute photograph.
  • Twitter direct messages — I tried DMing somebody I hadn’t DMed in a while last night and it took me like five minutes to dig up their profile and find the correct button to direct message them, which is the only way I will direct message people because I am so very paranoid about accidentally tweeting pictures of my third nipple to the whole world. It could’ve been one of the many Fabled SMS Killers, but now it’s just another broken messaging service and I feel like I’ve stepped over more of those than piles of dog poop on NYC sidewalks. 
  • Facebook messaging — It should be the Great AIM Slayer, but it isn’t. Nearly complete ubiquity and penetration (I truthfully know very few people who don’t have a Facebook profile), but it’s still not a very good IM service. I want to say it could be the IM service, but Facebook is so bad at making things sometimes, it is actually impressive in its complete incompetence. I mean, it couldn’t even crush Foursquare in its infancy with Places, when it so very clearly could have, since it was only 400 bajillion times larger. (I am glad it didn’t, though.)
  • Pay With Square — I think out of half a dozen or so times using it, it has worked completely correctly just once. It is kind of the ideal payment service, a cyborg payment method, human and machine, but I’m about to give up on it because swiping my card is easier, and I still have to carry a million paper loyalty cards anyway.
  • iMessage — Ahahahahahaha.

I agree 100% with him. Do you?

Ideas on web apps

Over the past few years I have been dreaming up some ideas about were web apps should go. I am sharing them here in hopes someone will read them and make them true.

  • Notification system. I have to pin a tab on Google Chrome for Google Reader, and I have to use ugly and unuseful extensions for Facebook and Twitter and my mail just to keep check for unread messages and updates. Can’t there be a unified notification sytem. A favicon that displays unread counts? Little bubbles displaying number of unread posts? Anything?
  • Universal web store. Currently, only Mozilla’s initiative is trying to accomplish this, but it’s not getting any traction.
  • Application interface. Websites need to embrace the new world, were sites are ore than just flashy web portals. We need websites that work as a functioning application. Gawker’s set of sites is a bright example that not only “web apps” like Evernote and Gmail need this.
  • Offline cache. I’m not talking about access to mail offline, or your docs. I’m talking about leveraging the interface online so the apps can work anytime, anywhere.
  • No more third-party plugins. Having to install a multitude of plugins in becoming a hassle. Flash, Silverlight, Java… all are buggy and usually crash a lot.

These are some of the ideas that I can think of at the top of my head. I’ll add more as I think of them. Care to submit some of your own?