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Details on Android's $10 Million Bounty For Your Homebrew Apps
Posted by Brian Lam at 9:27 AM on November 14, 2007
You might have heard, Google's offering $10 million in total prizes for savvy programmers willing and able to make kickass apps for the Android platform. Why so much when other dev communities are getting into the groove for free? A Google rep told me, "We wanted to provide a big enough pool to reward and recognise as many developers who do interesting things as we could." How's that for appreciation? Here's a summary of the Android Developer Challenge.
•Programs, built by using Android's SDK, can be submitted January 2nd through March 3rd 2008.
•The top 50 programs earn $25K to continue development.
•Those in the top 50 are entered into a final round where ten $275k prizes and ten $100k prizes will be awarded.
•A second round of the contest starts in the second half of the year, when handsets running Android launch.
•"We believe that developers will be drawn to, and flourish in, the open and collaborative environment offered by the Android platform. The Android Developer Challenge is designed simply to catalyze that reaction."
Pay people decent money to do decent work. Who would have thought of that? [Android]
Comments (AU Comments · US Comments)
There are currently no AU comments for this post.
Keebler
Posted 5:24 PM 13/11/07
I wasn't overly impressed with what I've seen so far from Android (granted it's just an SDK), but I'm fairly sure by the end of this contest there'll be at least a couple things that at least nudge my socks off.
Oh, and that Android logo is pretty awesome too.
Keebler
Vagabum
Posted 6:47 PM 13/11/07
It's ON! ...Now what happens?
Vagabum
powerball
Posted 6:13 PM 13/11/07
Great idea. Pay the geeks who use your phone to develop apps they will want to use.
powerball
codykniffen
Posted 7:34 PM 13/11/07
@codykniffen: While I'm at it, I'll admit: I don't even know if that's possible. But good god, I hate those bluetooth headsets. = )
codykniffen
codykniffen
Posted 7:33 PM 13/11/07
If someone would write an app that would utilize Bluetooth (which is supported) to jam the surrounding Bluetooth headsets, we no longer have to listen / watch people talk real loud into thin air while walking around.
That's worth a few grand right there.
codykniffen
Brock
Posted 7:09 PM 13/11/07
@Vagabum:
Unless you're a developer, now we wait. But Android seems to have pretty cool potential to me, so I wait with contentment.
Basically Google took a long at the mobile computing space and realized we were in the age of the Apple ][, Commodore 64 and IBM PC, and said "Whoa, it would really suck if Microsoft came along and monopolized this just like they did PC's; lets get Linux off on the right foot this time and make sure it wins the market share it deserves (and we/Google can win the Search market share we desire, without having to go through a gatekeeper like Microsoft or Verizon)."
And all of the mobile hardware maker were like "Sweet idea. This way we can innovate at the hardware level, without being boring beige boxes, or be Microsoft's bitch like Dell is."
And Apple was like "Shit."
Brock
djdare
Posted 9:45 PM 13/11/07
@Brock: good rundown of the situation sir!
Also @codykniffen: thats a good thought... although I'm thinking you would need some unusual hardware, but it would be real sweet.
djdare
Aaron Stein
Posted 9:36 PM 13/11/07
how cool is that? there have been some pretty neat programs developed with a lot less incentive than that!
Aaron Stein
DJJS
Posted 2:38 AM 14/11/07
Wow this will make some neat stuff..
its a great way to motivate people and developer's ..
DJJS
DisposableInterloper
Posted 8:34 AM 14/11/07
Something tells me that Apple will soon feel compelled to release their API earlier than planned, with much fanfare.
DisposableInterloper