Good morning. I am getting into the IT world and have started taking a class this semester on Android app development. We will be using Android studio and have to come up with an idea(s) for an app that will utilize the phone's camera, GPS, etc.

I'm having trouble coming up with ideas in general but there is ONE that I can't get out of my mind as its something I am personally interested in. The idea is as follows:

There are thousands upon thousands of Temples and Shrines in Japan. Domestic and international travelers visit them every day and no two are the same, each is unique just as churches are. Almost all these places participate in a system where travelers and pilgrims can purchase a notebook and pay a small fee at a temple or shrine they visit to receive a special stamp called a Goshuin. These stamps are very nice and elaborate and done by hand and record which temple you visited and when you visited it. Its similar to the U.S. Park Service's "Passport" of the National Parks.

I envision an app where temples and shrines can be listed in a database and a user can make an account (preferably locally stored) and search for temples and shrines, find their location, see their information, and add it to a list of visited places, maybe add it to a "want to visit" list or "favorites" list, upload a photo of their Goshuin for safekeeping and attach it to that particular place. More ambitiously users could even upload their goshuin and share it with other users, share photos, reviews,, etc. but this would I imagine require server space to store the data. Maybe the app could even alert you to when you are nearby a place that you have favorites or added to your wishlist.

I imagine the simplest way to make this happen would be to utilize Google's Places API an integrate Google Maps within the app so that users can get directions, etc. As for the database, I do not know if it is possible to use the API to retrieve a database of temples or shrines so that they can be sorted by area such as a city or prefecture . The biggest issue I hope to solve with the app is having an exhaustive list of temples and shrines that users can sort through without having to go on google maps and search through specific areas individually and click on each little flag to see each location.

Posting on a second post because the forum has recently become stupid and gives a "no permission to post here" error for apparently no reason depending on what you write (removing certain words from the post gets rid of the error)

Does this seems realistic for someone just starting out in application development? Does it seem practical enough for people to use, or is it too similar to google maps? I am very aware to the fact that google maps might be more convenient or enough for people to where this app is not worth it. And I imagine creation of accounts, unless stored locally (and taking up user storage space), would require me to employ a cloud server, handle and encrypt and store logins, etc; things which I have no idea about. Maybe the idea is too ambitious and maybe better suited for a website than a mobile app. Also as a pilot project and for class purposes maybe I could start with a single geographic area such as only place in Tokyo or Kyoto so that a smaller database can be used even if I have to edit or make it manually. Just throwing it out there to see what kind of feedback I get.

Appreciate your time!

It can be done, the more you work at it (and iterate) the better it becomes. Idea doesn't matter as much as product/quality, but most of all customer adaption.


My thoughts are your market (potential customers) seems very small, and the area is very big- so seems like it could be hard to build community around it.


Have less features (to begin with), make it simple and convenient, and just do those few most important features in a good way.




Over here we have something thats translated into "Post Hunt" . Its an app for hiking where people can collect the posts, which are located on top of hiking destinations. They collect by following the posts on the map to find them IRL, then scanning the QR code on them and get points. You can also see the top 100 people with the most points in your area. Areas are divided into municipalities. Its a huge success and very popular. Each season the counter is reset and everyone is back to zero, so it becomes kind of a competition among the most interested ones, and gets lots of media coverage and stories each time.

Definitely possible

First ever proper app I made was a fitness logging app that you could track your workout/reps/sets/weights. You could also view nearby gyms, it would show them within a certain radius and provide pins that you could click on to get more info about it.

It's straight forward stuff if you can program. And yes you would require database and server backend to handle peer sharing stuff

Thanks brah. I'll keep looking into it but maybe I should come up with some backup ideas. The bolded seems to be the most important. Maybe the audience is too niche for this and it'd be more of a hobby than something that could be profitable as a venture. Part of the project is that the app must have some sort of profit motive, whether that be through purchases, in app purchases or advertisements. I had planned on ads but without a high amount of users that might not lead to good profit and ding the project.

That's awesome brah. This is part of the issue I'm struggling with for ideas however, it seems like everything has already been made. In your example there's probably dozens of fitness tracking apps out there similar to yours and why would anyone even use anything other than MyFitnessPal? It just seems hard to innovate or make something unique, but maybe that isn't required for a successful app or project.

Just write down all your ideas. Eventually you get new ideas, new features to existing ideas, changes to the previous ones, or you just see which ones makes the best sense to go on with. Either way just write it down


Your general idea was good, but your example was overly specific. You can use the features you talked about but "zoom out" on the idea so its more relatable and usable for more people. Your best bet might be to create something local, near where you live. That way you can try, test, and talk to customers who actually use it, and you'll immediately learn a ton which you can immediately implement into your product or general idea. After you've gained some actual usage and traction you can build and scale

thx bb