And out of that, I've been working on a simple weather app: http://Dopplecast.com
It sends you a direct message via twitter every weekday morning at a time you specify.
My main goal is to learn how to build and deploy an app on rails. However I wanted to solve a real need I had too. I found that most people need information about the weather when they are getting dressed to go to work, so I wanted to give them a short sentence to glance at on their phone like this one I got at 8:15 this morning:
New York: Partly Cloudy 55 now | 61 low, 78 high. Isolated Thunderstorms today.
My initial goal was to get a text message so I can just look at my phone when I need to know, but that was too expensive to run as a service. Then I moved to @messages on twitter, but that was too noisy. Im now doing Direct messages. With an iPhone you get a push alert, and you can get twitter to text you direct messages. Double win.
If anyone uses it and wants to give feedback, I'm @alphacolin or @dopplecast on twitter.
The site is rough right now, but I solved the weather problem for me, and it's not an app. If it works for you too, let me know!