Kindle Review – Kindle 3 Review, iPad Review

Wanted to create a list of good app ideas to help developers considering the Kindle App Store and let Kindle owners vote for ideas they like.

Please do add your own app ideas and spread the word.

Have spent most of today reading various people’s thoughts on the forthcoming Kindle App Store. Here are various good app ideas people have suggested – websites are only credited the first time. Classifying them according to potential revenue opportunity as Developers need to eat – just like writers and the rest of us.

Apps that could earn $100K+ a year

All these lists are based on the following assumptions -

1. There are millions of Kindle owners (1-3 million).
2. There will be millions of Kindle owners added in 2010 (2-5 million). 
3. A very good app (this section) could capture 10% to 20% of Kindle owners. 
4. A good app (next section) could capture 2% to 4% of Kindle Owners.
5. Apps will retail between $1 and $10. Users will prefer to pay between $1 and $5.
6. That it’ll be the best app for each idea listed that makes the money. The #5 Folders App is going to make next to nothing.

Please note that all communication apps are left out of this $100K+ a year section since the data charges make these inherently unprofitable.

Also, some of these app ideas might not meet Amazon’s conditions for entry into the store.

User App Ideas – $100K+ a year Apps.

These are from comments on the blog –  

1. Folders (thanks to lots of people) – This could be a $500K a year app. At the minimum a $200K a year app.  
2. PDF Viewer (thanks to Pamela) - An easy $100K+ a year app. Amazon disallows generic readers so PDF converters would have the best shot.
3. Email Clients and Email Synchronization (Pamela, Gayle) – Huge, huge potential although due to data costs it would have to be a subscription service.
4. eBook Corrections App (George) – An app that lets you correct mistakes in an eBook including meta data.
5. Font++ App (George) – Change Fonts, change line and paragraph spacing, use bold fonts, allow more font sizes. This could be a $250K+ a year app.
6. Improved Web Browser (George) - This would never break-even because people would surf too much and kill the developer with data costs. 
7. Custom Screensavers (Dan) – This might not seem like a $100K+ profits app but it might explode.
8. Notepad App (Elizabeth) – An app that everyone needs and at $1 a lot of people would snap it up.
9. Bookshelf App – Someone is going to do this for free to try to get publicity or sabotage the Kindle Store. However, it would otherwise have been a great, great app to make money from.

These are apps guaranteed to do extremely well. The biggest danger is people coding free apps – though the inability to run ads lessens this danger.

Reading related Kindle App Ideas – Over $100K a year Apps

Please note that generic readers are not allowed -  

1. Auto-Scrolling App – Would you pay $1 for an app that lets you read hands free?
2. Timed Reading App – Lets you know how long you read a book for.
3. Tagging.
4. Book Search with Memory (past searches).  
5. Book Deals Finder.
6. Book Recommendation Engine. 
7. Text Adventure Books (Game Books)
8. CookBook App/ Recipe App.
9. Music Sheets App – Auto-Scrolling, Zooms of all types, and so forth.
10. Book Lists App – Create various lists and collections of Books (different from Folders).
11. Page Translation App. Converts your location into the physical book page number.

Non-Reading Kindle App Ideas – $100K+ a year Apps

1. Security App – Passwords for selected books, Lock Kindle mode, Lock Buying Mode, Password at Kindle Start and/or when you come out of Sleep Mode, Lost+Found Screen as Default Screensaver, and more.
2. Privacy App – Option to change certain book titles to generic ones. Options to hide certain documents.
3. Photos App – Organize Photos, set up slideshows and more.
4. To-Do List App. Separate from a Notepad app – this would me more specialized.
5. Calendar App.
6. Custom Screensavers App.
7. NotePad.
8. Shopping List + Grocery List App.
9. Fitness Tracker/ Exercise Journal.
10. Car Mileage and Maintenance App.
11. Copy-Paste App.
12. Goal Tracker.

Entertainment Apps that could make $100K+ a year.

1. Crosswords 
2. Chess via Hacker News.  
3. A Combination of games – Sudoku, Solitaire, Backgammon, Hearts, Spades, etc. 

Apps that could earn $25K+ a year

User App Ideas – $25K+ a year apps

1. Mp3 Player. One that has much better options and controls than the current mp3 player app. 
2. Kindle Tips App (Kathleen) – Shortcuts, quick tips, and more.

Reading Related Apps that could make $25K+ a year

1. Cover Flow browsing of titles.
2. Reading Habits App that tells you what you actually read and which books you shouldn’t have bought. 
3. Auto-Sorter App - App that creates numerous views into your books (perhaps based on a books database).
4. Speed Reading App – Trains you how to read faster and then lets you read faster.
5. Comic Reader App.
6. Quotes App.
7. Thesaurus.
8. Local BookStore App – Finds the 10 closest book-stores. This is an ideal fit for the less than 100Kb a month restriction on Free and Pay Once apps.
9. Joke Compilations.
10. Book Signings and Events App.

Non-Reading Related Apps that could make $25K+ a year

1. Apps catered to professions (with or without subscriptions) – Pilots, Doctors, Lawyers, Librarians, etc.  
2. Day Planner.
3. Automatic Wireless Off App.
4. App Organizer.
5. Calculator.
6. Daily Health Tips.
7. Diet Tracker.
8. Cocktails Guide.
9. Medicine Reminder/Tracker.
10. Contacts App + Address Book.
11. Test preparation software – Vocabulary flashcards.
12. Foreign Language Lessons.
13. Post-It Notes.
14. Sleep Cycle - Uses accelerometer on Kindle DX to wake you up when you’re in light sleep. 
15. Speech to Text App.
16. Alarm Clock.
17. Weather App – Might not be very profitable because of data charges.  
18. Stock Ticker – Profitability would again depend on data costs.  
19. Rotating Screensaver App.
20. Horoscope App.
21. Flight Deals App.
22. Shopping Deals App.
23. Budget App.
24. IQ Test and Personality Test Apps.
25. Predictive Text Writing App.
26. Baby Name Suggester.
27. Birthday and Important Dates Tracker.
28. Mind Maps App.  
29. Set Your Own shortcuts App.

Entertainment and Communication Apps that could make $25K+ a year

A lot of the communication apps would have to be subscription services due to the high data usage.  

1. Instant Message client that supports all the usual suspects – yahoo, msn messenger, etc.
2. Email Client.  
3. Radio.
4. Facebook App.
5. Twitter Client – via GearLog.
6. Pet Apps.
7. Virtual Pet Apps. 
8. Kindle to Kindle App. 
9. Sokobahn via MobileRead.
10. MUDs.
11. Virtual Piano/Music Instruments.

Borderline Kindle App Ideas

Apps that may or may not be worth the work (ideas mostly stolen from Apple App Store) -

1. Memory View/Organizer App – Let’s you see what amounts of memory different things take, etc.
2. Password Manager.
3. GTD App.
4. Battery Tracker App with percentages, minute tracking, wireless on/off battery life, etc.
5. White Noise App to drown out background noise.
6. Sports Scores – via PC World. The data costs make it difficult to earn a ton of money from this.
7. Google Docs.
8. Kindle optimized Web Sites. Not sure exactly what PC World have in mind here.

Will keep updating this list – Please do add your own ideas and do vote for apps and ideas you like.