I'm one of the 1733 that didn't make the cut. That didn't surprise me since I knew this contest would be a long-shot. I figured there would be two basic types of applications written: 1) apps where mobile devices were absolutely central to the idea and 2) apps which were really web apps with a mobile device appendage which adds some value but isn't central to the idea.
My application (http://www.synthesyz.com) definitely falls into the second category. It's an application I've been working on for the last year, well before I started thinking about mobile devices. The basic idea is to provide a SaaS application where users can go to build ad-hoc databases of their personal or company information, typically the type of information that people would store in Excel spreadsheets today (or possibly Access for advanced users). The goal is to make data entry as easy as Excel while at the same time allowing the data to be simultaneously updated and accesssed by multiple users. Synthesyz also adds powerful capabilities for relating records to each other so that a full database rather than a bunch of disconnected records can be built. Users can create direct relationships between records without having to worry about primary keys, foreign keys, and join tables. Finally, Synthesyz allows users to do full-text searching of their data. The idea is to make it so that no developers can build and share meaningful databases without getting software developers involved. The following modules make up Synthesyz: API Server - A server that exposes a powerful and efficient public web API for accessing and managing data stored within Synthesyz. All other modules within Synthesyz access data strictly through this API. There is nothing stopping other developers from using this API as well. Web UI - A spreadsheet-like web UI for managing data within Synthesyz. Universalyz - The Google Android client that allows you to access your data from anywhere. It works by making direct calls into the API Server. This is the piece that is nice to have, but not essential to the idea... probably my fatal flaw for this competition. Analyz - (Still under development) A plug-in to Excel that allows you to download Synthesyz data into Excel for analysis. My intention is to open-source both Universalyz and Analyz and maybe the Web UI. You can look at some sample data on the system by logging on with the following names/passwords: [EMAIL PROTECTED]/demo1User, [EMAIL PROTECTED]/demo2User, and [EMAIL PROTECTED]/demo3User. Please don't change any of the data in the system. I don't yet have code in place to write-protect the data. If you'd like, I can email you a script that can walk you through the sample data. I'm definitely pushing ahead with this application, however, I'm not sure that I'll enter into ADCII, mainly because Analyz is really an appendage on my app. I've also got mixed feelings on the judging. I would recommend that in ADCII, Google requires each judge to look at each application for some minimum time, say 2 minutes. That time could be published, and entrants could plan 2 minutes worth of scripts. I understand that judges may have a good idea if they like an app or not just from reading the docs, but out of respect to the entrants, it seems like the judges should spend at least 2 minutes looking at the apps that we've spent so much time writing. (From looking at my logs, it appears that all the judges downloaded the whitepaper from my website, but only 1 judge actually ran my Android client. That's a bit disappointing and frankly disrespectful.) --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Challenge" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-challenge?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
