Great ideas! I've been using Allrecipes.com menu planner subscription and it's okay. Not always the easiest to navigate, but generally usuable.
What I find really frustrating about this particular planner is that I can't see a whole month's worth of planning. Before pc/tablet I would take a monthly paper calendar and write all my suppers/leftovers/takeout/go to friends' for dinner on it, then make my grocery list every week or two according to the plan.
Can you make that part of the app? :)
...kira.
DeAnna - 12 years ago
The perfect meal planning/grocery app is just begging to be born...
My Ideas:
~Barcode Scanner for purchased items with picture (would be great if user data could be shared to collect info. for growing a database of items that can be incorporated in the app with a future update).
~ Ability to track sales cycles for individual items and compare with multiple stores (add item and assign attributes such as stores where each store has a regular price and a best price with a sale cycle tracker enabled once a best price is entered.
~Auto plan *option*, complete meals including sides and beverage suggestion with the ability to select a different meal/side/beverage if the suggestion doesn't appeal to you by accepting suggestion or try again.
~Search *option* multiple web databases and app recipes simultaneously.
~Local store sales with menu suggestions upon request for items selected.
~Automatically generate shopping list that's customizable for adding/deleting items, that gives a cost estimate using price info entered for budgeters (let's you select regular price or sale price for each item on list. marks items from store sales as a sale price. let's you add coupon info manually or with scanner and deducts savings on the line below).
It would be awesome if sale cycle tracking could be shared by users (choose share, select sections to share, ie. sales, item info., etc... in the app settings) automatically to gather info on local stores by zip code, then eventually you'll have a nice database to incorporate another feature into the app with a future update. Helping everyone save money!!!
~Ability to enter items and quantity on hand in pantry, fridge, cupboards and spice rack that will subtract items automatically that are used in meal plan recipes and increase quantity when checked off grocery list.
~ Ability to add/import your own recipes- add info for source, add picture, dated revision section, category, nutrional data, etc...
~ Ability to rate recipes/meal plans for easy finding and more frequent rotation of meal in automatic weekly plan.
~ Ability to add breakfast, lunch, dinner & snacks for up to 7 days a weeks.
~ Weekly meal plan can be printed, shared, emailed or viewed on an easy to read calendar for a week, bi-weekly or monthly plan. Complete recipe information can be added under list view with the same options.
~Ability to use iCloud auto sync with multiple device support for web/computer app, iPhone and iPad.
It's all about choices and the option to be highly customizable. Combining the best of the stand alone apps into one highly useful and effective app.
You could offer a:
-free basic ad supported app
-a basic app for low price with in-app purchases that add more functionality and allows the user to decide which additional features are desired.
- a deluxe app that includes all current features
Just my thoughts on a complete app, I hope it helps. Thanks for opening this up for suggestions.
DeAnna
Holly Cass - 12 years ago
I'm so excited about this app, too! This will be a great resource and many of us will gladly pay a small amount for a really good app.
I would love to see an app that would have the shopping list "dump" into a grocery shopping app. I use GroceryIQ, which I love! (you might reach out to their developers, by the way!)
Lindsie - 12 years ago
A few thoughts...
The ability to I port and save your own recipes as well as those from other websites.
Ability to adjust serving sizes and convert recipe
Check local grocery store ads
The option to plan breakfast, lunch and dinner. Not just one meal per day.
This may be silly, but something nice to look at. I have an app currently, hat works fine but it doesn't look very nice and isn't as fun to use, it's also a bit complicated to use.
The ability to email a recipe to a friend.
Bonnie - 12 years ago
I like most of the ideas by others, but the one I think is the best is in the original post that the app will suggest recipes. I always have a hard time thinking of the last couple of dinner menus. I also want to be able to just enter the title and not have to put in the whole recipe if I don't want to. I would like a grocery list that could be printed and a way to reference the cookbook or website that the recipe is from.
Thanks!
Danielle - 12 years ago
--database of recipes
--list of ingredients in pantry, fridge, freezer, spice rack, etc(searchable by spice rack, fridge)
--ability to discern what expires soon, so to use that with meals quickly
--shopping list
--plan meals via budgets/season(cooking with strawberries in december is more expensive than in june)
Thank you so much! I've been wanting something similiar to the Out of Milk app (Android) and nothing seems to come close for the Ipad
Tanya - 12 years ago
Random thoughts:
It should have memory - remember previous plans. It would also be great to have a note section, as to what worked and what did not (cooked too much, is good/bad the second day, kids liked it) and possibly also a rating system.
I personally don't care too much about having built-in recipes, but possibly a way to reference to the recipe (cookbook x, page y or website, or even personal notes)
Ability to synchronize between iPad and iPhone is a must for me - I don't carry the iPad to the grocery store :-) I currently keep my shopping list on my Google calendar. Emailing the shopping list would be good as well.
If it has built in recipes, it would be nice to have a suggestions category - e.g., what can I make with turkey leftovers?
It should support 6 meals a day. Also a highlighting capability to map leftover reuse would be nice...
Thank you!
Beth Walker - 13 years ago
I'm so excited about this app!
My needs:
1. Ability to plan what I'm going to eat for the week (breakfast, lunch and dinner)
2. Database of personal recipes, organized by category
3. Produce a shopping list, totaling any items that appear in multiple recipes
4. Ability to add items to shopping list that do not appear in any recipes
4. Recipe database, menu and shopping list must be accessible from a computer
5. Must be SIMPLE!
Dina - 13 years ago
Here are the features I would love....
1. Categories for building each meal: proteins, side dishes, salads, vegetables, fruits, breads, desserts, etc... You'd be able to select proteins, and then choose from a customizable list (grilled steak).
2. Auto grocery list (select categories when adding dishes/ingred from above categories).
3. Email menu and/or grocery list.
Thanks!
Bia - 13 years ago
I agree with many of features mentioned by Lisa and Louise.
Cloud sync would be handy allowing for recipes, menu and shopping list would be sync'd across multiple mobile platforms, as well as being accessible from any computer.
I like the idea of online database recipes, however I have my favourite sites that I regularly use so would probably not use any 'generic' db that does not have a large userbase. I also would cook those meals that I know by memory more often that some random suggestion. Perhaps the basis of the app, is for the user to input the menu, but with a 'suggest meal' button to provide a random suggestion based on ingredients?
Ability to input URLs, or someway link back to other recipe websites would be useful. That way if I find a recipe online I would like to try I could input the recipe as a menu item within your app, then click the URL to go to the site that houses the recipe to follow it from there when I go to cook it.
Stats and reporting would be handy. How often did I eat meat, how many servings of vegies were eaten, how many snacks do I chow on...?
Future versions could focus heavily on calories and nutritional information to assist with diet, however like Louise, these aren't important for me right now.
My needs are basic:
1. Ability to plan what I'm going to eat for the week (breakfast, lunch and dinner and perhaps snacks too)
2. Easily integrates with my favourite websites and personal recipes database
3. Produce a shopping list
4. Must be accessible from a computer
5. Must be SIMPLE!
Good luck, and I hope that this app comes out soon!!
Louise - 13 years ago
I agree with Lisa - the perfect meal planning app does not yet exist, but I like your plan! My favourite apps are the ones that are simple, easy to use and navigate and do a few things really well. I find many to be overly cluttered with useless functions. They try to do too much and end up doing nothing well at all.
If I was designing the perfect meal planning app this is what I would include and exclude:
Exclude grocery list function, meal cost, calorie counting, database of recipes I'll never use.
Include a summary of upcoming meals by day of the week and date. Single page to view all dinners. No need for photos.
Ability to include breakfast and lunch and snacks.
Include a list of favourite recipe titles. No need to include all the recipe details (ingredients/method etc) - as I cook out of my head anyway. There are plenty of these types of apps around and I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole :)!
Regarding ads - have option to pay for the app with no ads. So do a Lite version and an ad-free version.
Include in Settings: turn on breakfast/lunch/snack occasions, change timeframe you are planning for.
Make it compatible for iPhone as well as iPad.
Currently my meal planning is a laminated list of the weekdays on my fridge. I post-it the dinners by each day of the week. Then I copy the dinners into a list on my notes function on my iphone. Bit tedious, but so far I have not found anything worth downloading that is what I am after.
Good luck and would love to hear when your app is available.
Just got a new iPad for Christmas and scrounging around for apps, looking for the Perfect Menu Planner app, and it turns out that it doesn't exist. Perhaps you'll create one? Looks like you're off to a terrific start.
Above: I've never seen an auto-plan that worked for me. I need to pick and choose my own recipes. Social media? Really? Who cares what we're eating this week? (except my neighbor might drop by on a good night) My friends and I often share recipes, however. Meal cost? Maybe. Would work nicely with the grocery store flyer feature that my neighbor would like.
Anyway, my next-door-neighbor and I were swapping stories, and this is what we came up with:
*Menu planning (place recipes onto calendar) - I'm using Paprika for this now, looks like you're onto this
*Recipes - don't really care for pre-loaded recipes, because there are a dozen great websites that have everything I need and I have a lot of personal recipes that I would want to add. I do like how Paprika can automatically grab recipes from certain more popular web-cookbooks (i.e. Epicurious & Food Network, my personal go-to websites) although it would be great to have a search that would look into all the ones that I select (i.e. crawl through all of them for a brisket slow cooker recipe with at least 3 stars) and I asked them to add Eating Well to their list. Also nice to be able to put a single recipe in multiple categories, such as "beef" and "slow cooker" and "Mexican"
*Shopping list (similar to what the free WW app does) - would like to select a number of planned days of meals (i.e. today thru Sat) and it would generate the shopping list, I could delete items I have on hand and add extra items (i.e. paper towels, bananas, etc, since I generally only plan dinner)
*Grocery Store list - apparently there are apps that will rearrange your shopping list to align with the aisles in your grocery store, but I'd be fine as long as they are arranged in categories, like my coupons.
*Grocery Sale Flyer - this is where it gets complicated. Is it possible to get menu suggestions based on the weekly ad from our local grocery store? i.e. Brisket is on sale, suggest BBQ brisket and corn for a vegetable. I shop at both SweetBay and Publix, so it would have to work for either store.
*Nutrition - none of the menu planners that I see have nutritional info on the recipes, except WW has points, but you have to be a member to log your points. SparkPeople has a nutritional calculator that I use, but it would be nice to integrate it.
Enough stuff to think about?
Hope this helps. I don't mind if you want to bounce ideas off me and I'll discuss with my neighbor.
R/Lisa Avila
Great ideas! I've been using Allrecipes.com menu planner subscription and it's okay. Not always the easiest to navigate, but generally usuable.
What I find really frustrating about this particular planner is that I can't see a whole month's worth of planning. Before pc/tablet I would take a monthly paper calendar and write all my suppers/leftovers/takeout/go to friends' for dinner on it, then make my grocery list every week or two according to the plan.
Can you make that part of the app? :)
...kira.
The perfect meal planning/grocery app is just begging to be born...
My Ideas:
~Barcode Scanner for purchased items with picture (would be great if user data could be shared to collect info. for growing a database of items that can be incorporated in the app with a future update).
~ Ability to track sales cycles for individual items and compare with multiple stores (add item and assign attributes such as stores where each store has a regular price and a best price with a sale cycle tracker enabled once a best price is entered.
~Auto plan *option*, complete meals including sides and beverage suggestion with the ability to select a different meal/side/beverage if the suggestion doesn't appeal to you by accepting suggestion or try again.
~Search *option* multiple web databases and app recipes simultaneously.
~Local store sales with menu suggestions upon request for items selected.
~Automatically generate shopping list that's customizable for adding/deleting items, that gives a cost estimate using price info entered for budgeters (let's you select regular price or sale price for each item on list. marks items from store sales as a sale price. let's you add coupon info manually or with scanner and deducts savings on the line below).
It would be awesome if sale cycle tracking could be shared by users (choose share, select sections to share, ie. sales, item info., etc... in the app settings) automatically to gather info on local stores by zip code, then eventually you'll have a nice database to incorporate another feature into the app with a future update. Helping everyone save money!!!
~Ability to enter items and quantity on hand in pantry, fridge, cupboards and spice rack that will subtract items automatically that are used in meal plan recipes and increase quantity when checked off grocery list.
~ Ability to add/import your own recipes- add info for source, add picture, dated revision section, category, nutrional data, etc...
~ Ability to rate recipes/meal plans for easy finding and more frequent rotation of meal in automatic weekly plan.
~ Ability to add breakfast, lunch, dinner & snacks for up to 7 days a weeks.
~ Weekly meal plan can be printed, shared, emailed or viewed on an easy to read calendar for a week, bi-weekly or monthly plan. Complete recipe information can be added under list view with the same options.
~Ability to use iCloud auto sync with multiple device support for web/computer app, iPhone and iPad.
It's all about choices and the option to be highly customizable. Combining the best of the stand alone apps into one highly useful and effective app.
You could offer a:
-free basic ad supported app
-a basic app for low price with in-app purchases that add more functionality and allows the user to decide which additional features are desired.
- a deluxe app that includes all current features
Just my thoughts on a complete app, I hope it helps. Thanks for opening this up for suggestions.
DeAnna
I'm so excited about this app, too! This will be a great resource and many of us will gladly pay a small amount for a really good app.
I would love to see an app that would have the shopping list "dump" into a grocery shopping app. I use GroceryIQ, which I love! (you might reach out to their developers, by the way!)
A few thoughts...
The ability to I port and save your own recipes as well as those from other websites.
Ability to adjust serving sizes and convert recipe
Check local grocery store ads
The option to plan breakfast, lunch and dinner. Not just one meal per day.
This may be silly, but something nice to look at. I have an app currently, hat works fine but it doesn't look very nice and isn't as fun to use, it's also a bit complicated to use.
The ability to email a recipe to a friend.
I like most of the ideas by others, but the one I think is the best is in the original post that the app will suggest recipes. I always have a hard time thinking of the last couple of dinner menus. I also want to be able to just enter the title and not have to put in the whole recipe if I don't want to. I would like a grocery list that could be printed and a way to reference the cookbook or website that the recipe is from.
Thanks!
--database of recipes
--list of ingredients in pantry, fridge, freezer, spice rack, etc(searchable by spice rack, fridge)
--ability to discern what expires soon, so to use that with meals quickly
--shopping list
--plan meals via budgets/season(cooking with strawberries in december is more expensive than in june)
Thank you so much! I've been wanting something similiar to the Out of Milk app (Android) and nothing seems to come close for the Ipad
Random thoughts:
It should have memory - remember previous plans. It would also be great to have a note section, as to what worked and what did not (cooked too much, is good/bad the second day, kids liked it) and possibly also a rating system.
I personally don't care too much about having built-in recipes, but possibly a way to reference to the recipe (cookbook x, page y or website, or even personal notes)
Ability to synchronize between iPad and iPhone is a must for me - I don't carry the iPad to the grocery store :-) I currently keep my shopping list on my Google calendar. Emailing the shopping list would be good as well.
If it has built in recipes, it would be nice to have a suggestions category - e.g., what can I make with turkey leftovers?
It should support 6 meals a day. Also a highlighting capability to map leftover reuse would be nice...
Thank you!
I'm so excited about this app!
My needs:
1. Ability to plan what I'm going to eat for the week (breakfast, lunch and dinner)
2. Database of personal recipes, organized by category
3. Produce a shopping list, totaling any items that appear in multiple recipes
4. Ability to add items to shopping list that do not appear in any recipes
4. Recipe database, menu and shopping list must be accessible from a computer
5. Must be SIMPLE!
Here are the features I would love....
1. Categories for building each meal: proteins, side dishes, salads, vegetables, fruits, breads, desserts, etc... You'd be able to select proteins, and then choose from a customizable list (grilled steak).
2. Auto grocery list (select categories when adding dishes/ingred from above categories).
3. Email menu and/or grocery list.
Thanks!
I agree with many of features mentioned by Lisa and Louise.
Cloud sync would be handy allowing for recipes, menu and shopping list would be sync'd across multiple mobile platforms, as well as being accessible from any computer.
I like the idea of online database recipes, however I have my favourite sites that I regularly use so would probably not use any 'generic' db that does not have a large userbase. I also would cook those meals that I know by memory more often that some random suggestion. Perhaps the basis of the app, is for the user to input the menu, but with a 'suggest meal' button to provide a random suggestion based on ingredients?
Ability to input URLs, or someway link back to other recipe websites would be useful. That way if I find a recipe online I would like to try I could input the recipe as a menu item within your app, then click the URL to go to the site that houses the recipe to follow it from there when I go to cook it.
Stats and reporting would be handy. How often did I eat meat, how many servings of vegies were eaten, how many snacks do I chow on...?
Future versions could focus heavily on calories and nutritional information to assist with diet, however like Louise, these aren't important for me right now.
My needs are basic:
1. Ability to plan what I'm going to eat for the week (breakfast, lunch and dinner and perhaps snacks too)
2. Easily integrates with my favourite websites and personal recipes database
3. Produce a shopping list
4. Must be accessible from a computer
5. Must be SIMPLE!
Good luck, and I hope that this app comes out soon!!
I agree with Lisa - the perfect meal planning app does not yet exist, but I like your plan! My favourite apps are the ones that are simple, easy to use and navigate and do a few things really well. I find many to be overly cluttered with useless functions. They try to do too much and end up doing nothing well at all.
If I was designing the perfect meal planning app this is what I would include and exclude:
Exclude grocery list function, meal cost, calorie counting, database of recipes I'll never use.
Include a summary of upcoming meals by day of the week and date. Single page to view all dinners. No need for photos.
Ability to include breakfast and lunch and snacks.
Include a list of favourite recipe titles. No need to include all the recipe details (ingredients/method etc) - as I cook out of my head anyway. There are plenty of these types of apps around and I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole :)!
Regarding ads - have option to pay for the app with no ads. So do a Lite version and an ad-free version.
Include in Settings: turn on breakfast/lunch/snack occasions, change timeframe you are planning for.
Make it compatible for iPhone as well as iPad.
Currently my meal planning is a laminated list of the weekdays on my fridge. I post-it the dinners by each day of the week. Then I copy the dinners into a list on my notes function on my iphone. Bit tedious, but so far I have not found anything worth downloading that is what I am after.
Good luck and would love to hear when your app is available.
Just got a new iPad for Christmas and scrounging around for apps, looking for the Perfect Menu Planner app, and it turns out that it doesn't exist. Perhaps you'll create one? Looks like you're off to a terrific start.
Above: I've never seen an auto-plan that worked for me. I need to pick and choose my own recipes. Social media? Really? Who cares what we're eating this week? (except my neighbor might drop by on a good night) My friends and I often share recipes, however. Meal cost? Maybe. Would work nicely with the grocery store flyer feature that my neighbor would like.
Anyway, my next-door-neighbor and I were swapping stories, and this is what we came up with:
*Menu planning (place recipes onto calendar) - I'm using Paprika for this now, looks like you're onto this
*Recipes - don't really care for pre-loaded recipes, because there are a dozen great websites that have everything I need and I have a lot of personal recipes that I would want to add. I do like how Paprika can automatically grab recipes from certain more popular web-cookbooks (i.e. Epicurious & Food Network, my personal go-to websites) although it would be great to have a search that would look into all the ones that I select (i.e. crawl through all of them for a brisket slow cooker recipe with at least 3 stars) and I asked them to add Eating Well to their list. Also nice to be able to put a single recipe in multiple categories, such as "beef" and "slow cooker" and "Mexican"
*Shopping list (similar to what the free WW app does) - would like to select a number of planned days of meals (i.e. today thru Sat) and it would generate the shopping list, I could delete items I have on hand and add extra items (i.e. paper towels, bananas, etc, since I generally only plan dinner)
*Grocery Store list - apparently there are apps that will rearrange your shopping list to align with the aisles in your grocery store, but I'd be fine as long as they are arranged in categories, like my coupons.
*Grocery Sale Flyer - this is where it gets complicated. Is it possible to get menu suggestions based on the weekly ad from our local grocery store? i.e. Brisket is on sale, suggest BBQ brisket and corn for a vegetable. I shop at both SweetBay and Publix, so it would have to work for either store.
*Nutrition - none of the menu planners that I see have nutritional info on the recipes, except WW has points, but you have to be a member to log your points. SparkPeople has a nutritional calculator that I use, but it would be nice to integrate it.
Enough stuff to think about?
Hope this helps. I don't mind if you want to bounce ideas off me and I'll discuss with my neighbor.
R/Lisa Avila