Below is the email from Google detailing the score breakdown of SplashPlay’s submission for Android Phase 1. Even though we didn’t score well in the ‘Effective Use’ category, we still managed to get short-listed

Again, i feel the pain of the other 1,738 non-winners (loosers is not the right word) and hope the developers can dig deep and both support the short-listed candidates and also fellow non-winners as many seem to be very despondent with the whole judging process; bringing new technology to market isn’t the easiest task and trying to please so many people is bound to ruffle a few feathers.

Hi,

Thanks again for participating in the Android Developer Challenge. We have had a lot of constructive feedback from our developer partners who have contributed to the success of the challenge. In listening to the feedback, we heard that participants would like more visibility into the ranking of their entries. As you know, entries were judged on the following criteria: Effective Use, Polish, Indispensability, Originality. Due to the large number of high quality entries, many of the submissions received scores that are extremely close to each other. That’s why a single individual score would provide less information than the relative ranking of each submission when compared to the other submissions.

Below is the percentile ranking for your application in these four categories and the overall score. The first set of scores is for the percentile ranking for specific categories; for example, it shows how your application ranked among all the other apps in “Effective use”, “Polish”, “Indispensability”, and “Originality”. The final score shows your application’s overall ranking among all of the submissions.

SplashPlay

Effective use: In the 25th to 50th percentile of all submitted applications
Polish: In the top 25% of all submitted applications
Indispensability: In the top 25% of all submitted applications
Originality: In the top 25% of all submitted applications
Overall: In the top 25% of all submitted applications

Thank you,
Android Developer Challenge Team

Google have released a pdf slideshow, detailing all winning entries with short descriptions and screen-shots.

Link is here.

Animation showing how SplashPlay music device fits to the guitar.

Google Android Challenge - ADC have announced the first round winners. Forbes magazine has reviewed Splashplay’s music tuition submission.

To read more click Forbes review of top 50 Android winners.

OpenIntents was a labour of love that somehow, didn’t make it into the top 50. A lot of hard work went into designing and implementing an “open intents” framework and interface to make Android mobile applications work more closely together.

SplashPlay was part of this framework and other applications were also designed that would have played an integral part in sharing common data to make each application flow seamlessly, as part of the OpenIntents ‘umbrella’ platform.

Tags, feeds, accelerometer simulator, present picker, etc, were all credible applications unto their own right and we are happy that at least one submission succeeded.

Other developers who didn’t make the top 50 have spent hundreds if not thousands of hours developing their applications but in hindsight the judges may have seen many submissions as technical applications, when in reality there must have been a few that got away! HandyCalc for example, was another application that was a very credible idea if not purely because of the effort the developer must have put in. It seems the simplest ideas made it through such as GolfPlay, which i would love to use on my gPhone, being a golf fanatic.

The journey has only just begun and it is only a matter of time before the ‘walled-garden’ business model of telecoms giants becomes a thing of the past and one common platform for all becomes the next technological revolution. This would make it easier to implement augmented technology, an exciting way of integrating peripheral hardware with mobile devices.

SplashPlay is proud to announce that we are one of fifty to have won phase 1, Google Android Developer Challenge (ADC). We are excited to be part of the ADC and look forward to seeing the hardware come to fruition in the very near future. (screen shots here).

We would like to acquire as much feedback as possible on how you’d expect the software to work. Are there any functions you’d like to see? What kind of GUI appeals the most? Are you a grunge guitarist or a classical aficionado? All ideas will play an important part developing the best solution for mass appeal and open source software has never been so appealing to collaborate ideas from all walks of life.

Please be as critical as possible, whether it’s constructive or destructive, all comments are welcome and we look forward to bringing music tuition to the masses.

Thanks in advance,

SplashPlay - Mobile Music Maker