Early this morning, 200 Android developers woke up to one hell of an e-mail: they’d made it into the final round of the second Android Developer Challenge, and were thus one giant step closer to as much as $250,000.
Android Developer Challenge 2 officially began way back in May, though the actual voting didn’t begin until some time in September. The votes were split amongst Android users and Googlers (with the latter getting a 55% say), with all voting taking place in a special, custom-made application. To be eligible, applications had to be completely fresh to the Android Market (read: no updates allowed) as of August 1st, couldn’t have been a part of the first Challenge, and had to play friendly with Android v1.5.
In the end of round 1, 20 applications across 10 categories would go onto a second round of voting – and that’s where we stand today. Google’s big ol’ list of finalists has just gone live, and round 2 has begun. The top 3 winners from each category will take home $100,000, $50,000, or $25,000 respectively, with 3 overall winners walking away with $150,000, $50,000, or $25,000 in tow.
You can see the full list of finalists here, and (though we can’t seem to find it right now) play with and vote for them by downloading the “Android Developer Challenge 2″ application from the Market. Oh, and just in case you’ve ever wanted to roleplay as an ADC2 finalist (and really, who wouldn’t?), we’ve obtained a copy of the aforementioned notification e-mail:
From: ADC 2 Support
Date:
Subject: ADC 2 Round 1 Results for ‘App Name’
To:Congratulations! Your application ‘App Name’ was selected by Android users as one of the top 20 in the ‘ ‘ category! We’re excited that you chose to participate in the ADC 2 and wish you luck in the final round as your application is evaluated by users and a panel of judges.
For full information on the challenge, please see our official site: http://code.google.com/android/adc/
Thanks,
ADC 2 Support
Update: We can’t get the voting application to work on our Droid (presumably because it’s running Android 2.0 and these apps are only tested against 1.5, so unforeseen 2.0 issues might skew votes), but we’re told that scanning this QR code with the Android Barcode Scanner app should take you right to the download:
“We can’t get the voting application to work on our Droid…”
just another proof of how evolved Android really is. Not even their own apps work on devices they promote…
Sadly, I have chosen Android as my development platform, and really did amazing things with it, but with every OS update, google screws something up and makes me cry :(
PS: after (trying to) install the second app using their ADC2 app, it crashed .. beyond recovery. And i’m using the 1.6 OS
Guys, it seems very hard to cross the digital divide in the Android Universe at the moment.
My first adventure was in this ADC 2 where I implemented the ‘East-African Mancala’ game, a puzzle with the major Mancala games played in East-Africa, all provided in one box, including Bao ( Kenya, Tanzania, Zanzibar, Malawi, …) , Igisoro (Rwanda & Burundi) and Omweso ( Uganda ) .
My story is a bout how the digital divide couldn’t allow me to advance to the second round of the competition due to different reasons:
1) I implemented a very difficult puzzle of the first millennium by Africanus Homo Sapiens(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mancala#History) and the western guy wasn’t interested in such difficult traditional games .
2) Android devices are asymmetrically available in the world, such that I didn’t imagine any 0.001% of users from Africa to vote for my app .
3) Even my self, I couldn’t have ran my own app on a real device, unless I traveled to Zurich for some internship, where I was able to run my own app using my mentor’s device; many thanks to him !
3) On my side, my app had some rotational bug that I couldn’t fix due to my exams at school (Android philosophy: destroy everything on key slide!) and also I didn’t have special UI customization (which many competitors did).
Because of such issues, this is the message I got from Andy Rubin team:
” – Thank you for developing your Android application ‘East-African Mancala’ and participating in ADC 2. Unfortunately, your application was not selected by Android users as one of the top 20 in its category.
According to the scores submitted by users, your application ‘East-African Mancala’ ranked in the bottom 25% of all applications submitted.
We appreciate your taking the time to develop and enter your application. We strongly encourage you to continue working on it and submit it to the public Android Market, where it can be downloaded and enjoyed by Android users all over the world.
Thank you again for your participation in ADC 2 – ”
My own conclusion:
a) I believe that the first Android device on the African continent will come probably from China(http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/nov/02/aid-trade-rwanda-china-west).
b) As a punishment to the Android phone users in the western world, who didn’t like my app during ADC 2 voting, definitely, they will never be able to get my app for free. They will have to buy it from the market starting from next month .
test drive android on your pc.
http://www.zjtechlive.com/try-android-2-0-on-your-windows/
http://www.zjtechlive.com/test-drive-google-android-os-on-microsoft-windows/
I just downloaded the app. It sends you an update when there’s an app to review. Checking them out right now. :)
One, Wouldn’t join this contest especially if that individual don’t know the basics about android 2.0
http://bit.ly/android-2-0-worlds-fastest-mobile-system
It seems on 2010 – it will not be Apple APPS, instead DROID APPS to dominate.. :D
Android devices are sparsely available throughout the world.
http://www.msoft-technologies.com
http://www.msoftwebtemplates.com
That is awesome, are SDK’s allowed for use? If so, next time the developers should use Titanium, an opensource SDK for developing cross platform fully native Android and iPhone apps using only HTML, CSS and JavaScript! Check it out:
http://www.appcelerator.com/products/titanium-mobile/