Last May, Google announced the first set of winners in its two-part contest called Android Challenge. The challenge is meant to kick-start the creation of 3rd-party applications for its nascent mobile platform by enticing developers with a total of $10 million in awards.
Today, Google is releasing the names of its second set of winners, 10 of which receive $275,000 and 10 of which receive $100,000.
The full list of winners can be found here.
The winners were picked from a pool of 50 finalists and include TuneWiki, a mobile media player we’ve raved about in the past, and Locale, a “dynamic settings manager” developed at MIT.
Other winners of $275,000 in this second round include:
- cab4me: “cab4me enables you to easily call a cab to any location worldwide. You do not need to know the number of the local cab company. You do not need to enter or even know the address you want to be picked up at. You do not need to place a call. With cab4me you can order a cab to your current location with a single click.”
- Compare Everywhere: “Scan a barcode to instantly check if that “sale price” really is a good deal. Read reviews to find out if those hiking boots will last a lifetime, or fall apart next month. Keep track of shopping lists, wish lists, and more.”
- Ecorio: “Ecorio allows the user to accurately calculate their travel carbon footprint. Given awareness of their travel carbon footprint, the user can take action in three ways: Reduce, Inspire, and Offset.”
- GoCart: “GoCart informs the shopper. It bridges the gap that exists between shopping online and shopping at the store. GoCart is your shopping cart on-the-go.”
- Life360: “Life360 uses a multi-channel messaging system and neighborhood-centric social network to keep you up-to-date and in contact with your family and local community.”
- Locale: “Locale allows you to create Situations, which specify Conditions under which your Settings should change.”
- PicSay: “PicSay allows you to quickly add word balloons, titles, and props to the pictures you have taken with your mobile phone camera.”
- Softrace: “With Softrace people around the world meet online to compete against each other in different physical activities. Races can take place in real time, just like traditional races.”
- Wertago: “Wertago is the mobile application nightlifers have been waiting for—a single application that shows you up-to-the-second information about what venues are hot, helps you coordinate plans with all your friends, lets you share content and influence the social scene, and enables you to connect with socialites all across the city.”
Good
Interesting to note that in Round 1 only 46 winners were announced. This time all 50 were mentioned. So which 4 are “new”?
These ones:
http://phandroi...g-android-apps/
TuneWiki is a really awesome idea — I’m rooting for them!
Fetchaprice.com already has product like “Compare Everywhere” that does not require any special software because it uses email as its medium.
Are there any phone in the market that is running on Android. How do they test the applications on simulator softwares?
@Rahulc
In the SDK (development kit) there is an emulator that runs the applications for testing and etc.
HTC Dream(still to launch) is the first handheld which will use android as its Mobile OS..
Please! Please! I can not possibly buy and iphone. After going to an Apple store for the first time today. I’m appalled at who they have become, how they have become.
I don’t care how shiny or with what touchscreen-ability it has. Cheap, feature full.
yeah it’s nice
brjozovski
I had the opportunity to see some of the applications working on the android handset. I must tell you that for the first time, iPhone has a real competition. I am not saying that it is better then iPhone, but it is definately not less good.
I think that the reason some or most of the applications of the top 20 are not on the iPhone is because they can not work on the iPhone. Apple would not let them with their walled garden strategy. So, some of the applications that use the contacts folder, can do very nice things on the android,pulling contact and location together, but can not be used on the iPhone, because the contacts file can not be used. Or the new TuneWiki on the Android, which makes their jailbroken application pale compared to the android application. They can not use the music files, so they can not be on iPhone.
It will be very interesting to see if Apple opens up their SDK more, because I think, otherwise, programmers would prefer to work with Android’s more open SDK.
Google wouldn’t let us link to our websites from their gallery. So check out GoCart at http://www.biggu.com
@Rylan
That app has SO many applications in the retail market, good luck man
SplashPlay didn’t make it on the grounds of BlueTooth API being restricted on the 11th hour
Feedback most welcome: http://www.splashplay.mobi
if this is best of android
the future isnt bright
Winner will be who lets users (people like us- mobile USERS) to go freely without downloading any application such as Itune and ALLOW us to download from a website any application we want for our cellphone.
A good example is http://www.youpark.com which has 22000+ titles uploaded by 400+ mobile application developers (I am one of the beta testers there for mobile software).
Congrats!
Still very very very early but this not exactly a home run for Google — the concepts behind the apps is rather mundane — nothing super clever.
I absolutely love my G1 and I love the fact that it just like everything I ever wanted right in my hands. And it’s all the stuff I need to. I don’t need a pen or paper any more, I voice record. If I want to check up on anything I just hop on google and I know the answer in an instant. I never need to look for another phone book or look at a map. Then on top of that I can shop smarter and faster right on my phone. I can track my life and communicate with friends all in the same breath. And the fact that the it used Linyx is way cool the platform is great it means the variety is gonna get better and better and I love the fact that’s it’s all free. And I love these developers (kisses) keep up the good work. I am in love with my g1 we shall never part.
There is definitely the potential to create a super cool app on android. Can’t wait to see the entries.