Android Developer Challenge winners announced

by Chris Ziegler posted Aug 29th 2008 at 12:03AM

Google has wrapped up judging on its very first Android Developer Challenge, and some twenty dev shops (or in some cases, individual developers) are finding themselves considerably richer as a result. Of the fifty apps to make it through to the final round, ten have been awarded $275,000 each and another ten have made off with a cool hundred grand -- good coin for some really good ideas. As you might expect of anything being backed by Google and the Android platform, a good number of the finalists made location-based services an integral theme; take grand prize winner Locale, for example, which automatically switches device settings based on your current location (if that's not a "why didn't we think of that?" kind of product, we don't know what is). The more we scan it, the more we realize that the list of winners reads like a who's-who catalog of apps we know we want installed on our Dreams out of the gate -- and more importantly, it looks like Google has a great way here to encourage best-of-breed Android development over the long run.

Filed under: Software, Android

Tags: adc, android, android developer challenge, AndroidDeveloperChallenge, google

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Neutral

Student Driver @ Aug 29th 2008 12:52AM

"(if that's not a "why didn't we think of that?" kind of product, we don't know what is)"

That's precisely the issue. Things like this and the brilliant "turn the phone over to mute it" and "shake the phone while locked to view a text, then shake again to lock it" are simply to brilliant and obvious at the same time to put together for most of us. At this point, "...we don't know what is..." more obvious and brilliant than these things, but hopefully this platform will continue to deliver the obvious and yet make the developers some money for Cheetos, or whatever these freaks eat. :-)

Highly Ranked

Peter @ Aug 29th 2008 2:40AM

I hope the winner of the Android challenge has ensured that he is in good terms with the patent holder for location-based switching of device settings of the profile. If the location-switching is based on the network infrastructure such as A-GPS then Ericsson holds the patent. If the switching is done based local radios such as WLAN, Bluetooth, or other near-field radio solutions, then Nokia holds the patent.

Neutral

dj496 @ Aug 29th 2008 4:21AM

I can't believe I'm saying it to a multi-billion dollar company, but...I love google.

Neutral

callisto3 @ Aug 29th 2008 10:05AM

Wow, those apps look amazing, and no "Crazy Lighter"! LOL I've always looved everything Google has done, so a Google-centric phone that let's me play and interact with things like Gchat and Picasa...well, it just might be the phone to make me toss aside the iPhone. The applications look really high-caliber and impressive and USEFUL. I can't wait for this phone to come out!

Neutral

Nirmal @ Aug 29th 2008 11:00AM

Is it just me or is the ADC Gallery empty? http://code.google.com/android/adc_gallery/

Neutral

NOEEM @ Aug 29th 2008 11:33AM

I had the same problem. It's being blocked by my company's firewall. I had to connect via my laptop tethered to my winMo phone.

Neutral

markoza @ Aug 29th 2008 11:09AM

So what's the big difference between the apps "GoCart" and "CompareEverywhere"? If they aren't free apps, which one sounds like the better app?

Neutral

Andrew @ Aug 29th 2008 5:57PM

Yeah, I'm not sure how they're different either. I'm also confused at how they're getting data on prices at nearby local stores. Because even with the awesome power of the internets at my fingertips, I have no idea how to get the price of a box of cheerios on the shelf of the grocery store down the street without going down there.

Maybe they'll get prices form other application users, a'la GasBuddy, which would be fine, but restrict that functionality to popular items at popular stores.

Neutral

R @ Aug 29th 2008 11:31AM

This application has been done before. I had a similar application for my Nokia 3650 running on Symbian OS. It would switch the profiles based on location (cell triangulation, of course) no GPS at that time.

Neutral

Randy @ Aug 29th 2008 4:00PM

As much as I want an iPhone. The price of the plans and the Android applications are making me seriously reconsider. The Omina & Experia have pretty much dropped off my radar.

It's killing me that it's not out yet.

Neutral

Jose Martinez @ Aug 29th 2008 4:10PM

Arrrrggghhh! I actually DID think of an application that would have been just like Locale... although I wonder what would've happened if 2 ore more apps were submitted that had the same functionality.

Well, I still do have at least one more idea that might be feasible although with not as much usage as Locale.

Neutral

Jose Martinez @ Aug 29th 2008 4:16PM

I actually just thought of a pretty useful plug-in for Locale, and since I couldn't (easily and quickly) find how to contact the Locale developers, I will put it here:

The plug-in would be like a database of places for "recommended" changes of settings. For instance, if you were to go to see an Opera, your phone would automatically know that it is recommended to put your phone on silent, or even to be turned off. The administration of these settings would have be centralized and somebody would have to administer it, but I think it would be pretty cool and a good extension of the program functionality. There could even be different levels of recommendations (like a top level could be trusted) that a user can then select which ones to apply automatically.

Neutral

Tom Trino @ Aug 29th 2008 9:11PM

Jose, do you mean 'Digital Manners', a patent filed by M$ (http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/06/12/0310200&from=rss).

I agree, CompareEverywhere & GoCart are too similar. Also, Marvin (www.marvinreloaded.com) looks like an awesome app that encompasses most of the ones in the top20, but unfortunately didn't make top20.

SplashPlay (www.splashplay.mobi) also looks like a very real solution to the problem of wanting to learn any instruments and would give Guitar Hero a run for their money. Looks like google withdrew BlueTooth support, so that may explain their final placing.

Perhaps the next $5Mill round will showcase even better apps once the SDK becomes stable.

p.s. i think CompareEverywhere runs scripts to crawl key sites for relevant data, so you're ma 'n pop shop selling a tin of beans, won't be accessible, not until RFID tags linked to a community server of sorts, becomes reality.

Neutral

xingii @ Sep 3rd 2008 5:32PM

webgate's advanced call manager, albeit nowhere nearly as attractive an interface, has Locale capabilities as one of the feature sets. the idea is no less useful, but since it has already been done it shouldn't really be a "why didn't we think of that" type moment

Neutral