The Missing Android Apps

If you remember reading the results of Round 1, you’ll recall that Google never announced 4 of the 50 winners of the Android Developer Challenge Round 1. They wanted to remain anonymous, most likely to protect their competitive advantage and proprietary information. But today, ALL 50 WINNERS were announced. So… what were the four mystery Applications?

We took the list that Google compiled for the Android Developer Challenge Round 1 and alphabetized it. Then we took our own List of the Final Results and alphabetized those as well. The rest was simple matching… right? Not exactly… they simply didn’t line up.

A bunch of the applications had undergone name changes, but by comparing the developer names from the Round 1 Winners to the Developer Names on Google’s latest results we were able to find which names belonged where.

Here are the applications that changed names from Round 1 to Round 2, names showing in that respective order:

To all those developers, we’d love to hear about the name change and what prompted you to pull the switcheroo. But until then, now comes the exciting part… there were 4 applications left over that appeared in these final results but were never mentioned in the Round 1 results.

And here they are:

B4E

Mr. Che, Mr. Happy C.
Additional Contributors: Miss Cindy and SkyKing

While the user is using the Android phone, B4E lets the user obtain multimedia information based on the external environment and the user’s profile. B4E also allows the user to learn about recent disasters, so that the user can donate money to the NPO or NGO if they wish.

B4E uses Android’s multithreading mechanism to handle different events including both computation-bound (processing the multimedia data) and I/O-bound (accessing the Internet connection and local files) without compromising B4E’s responsiveness to users’ inputs.

B4E extracts a user’s identity and friends’ data from their SIM card and phonebook through Android’s API so that the user can input less data, go through fewer steps, and ultimately have a better experience with B4E.

PebbleBox


Yin Wang, Tao Jin
Additional Contributors: Guevara Noubir

PebbleBox allows the user to publish and discover local events, theater schedules, housing, restaurants, tourism guide, etc. It is also a social platform in neighborhoods. Users can read and write geo-blogs, share experiences, and make new friends. Furthermore, it supports transactions on mobile phones. Users can sell and buy products, purchase tickets, make reservations, etc.

Using Android Map API to overlay a variety of selectable items on the map to maximize the space usage gives users a straightforward view of the current location, and a sense of distances and directions.

PebbleBox uses the always-on data network connection provided by the Android platform to fetch user-interested content, make new posts, and complete transactions. It also uses a background service to improve the energy efficiency by finding the best network conditions for communication.

Softrace

Staffan Kjellberg, Thomas Kjellberg

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. In addition, races may be constructed from already completed races allowing users to select their opponents and race on demand. Location varies, some races run along predefined tracks while others allow you to run anywhere in the world, in any direction. It is like a computer game, except that you are not controlling the player, you are the player.

Android’s Location API is a necessary feature to sample the user’s location at a certain frequency. The data is used to figure out how far the user has moved since the race started, making it possible to calculate his or her position in the race.

The Maps API allows users to see where they are or where they are going during the race. The Maps API is also used when races are revisited in the Diary.

Wertago

Kelvin Cheung, Teresa Ko, Peter Ree, Robert Sarvis, Douglas Young

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. Nightlife will never be the same!

Wertago leverages Android’s powerful APIs to offer users rich content and functionality such as location-based search results.

Wertago uses Maps API to present gorgeous map views.

SO THERE YOU HAVE IT… MYSTERY SOLVED!

Kind of… but more mysteries still exist. Remember, nearly 2,000 teams submitted entries to ADC 1 and theres no reason your favorite apps couldn’t be hidden somewhere in THAT pile (Enkin anybody?). And, we already know that details of ADC 2 will surface later this year.

Of these mystery apps, Softrace seems to be the most unique. If I were them I’d be calling up Radio Stations as we speak encouraging them to adopt these Android Phones for listener contests and such. If you’ve ever seen the movie RAT RACE you’ll TOTALLY appreciate how kick butt this application can be.

For the above 4 mystery developer teams – mind sharing why you chose to keep your applications private? Not that it really matters since they’re public now… honestly, we’re just curious!

[Source of Application Descriptions: ADC Gallery]

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