08/21/2006, 2:20pm, EDT

Monday, August 21st

"Woz" to judge app design contest

A software developer today announced "My Dream App," a competition inviting participants to submit their ideas for a "killer" application. Forty popular Mac developers, well-known bloggers, established members of the tech media, user-interface designers, and Apple alumni have joined the My Dream App contest as guest judges to provide critique on finalist entries. Judges include Digg.com founder Kevin Rose, New York Times columnist David Pogue, former Apple evangelist Guy Kawasaki, and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak. Contestants are to compete for a chance to have their idea realized as a Macintosh shareware application while earning royalties on software sales. The contest is also offering numerous Mac and iPod prizes to finalists. "It's always fun when someone innovates in the computer world. My Dream App is doing that by turning software design and development on its head. It's going to be interesting to see how this all turns out," Wozniak said.

Phill Ryu -- the originator of the contest -- believes that My Dream App represents a revolution in software development.

"My Dream App will do for software users what American Idol did for aspiring singers. All it takes is a really great idea, and you don't even have to use a Mac," Ryu said. "We're democratizing software."

The initial entries will be narrowed down to 24 innovative ideas by the My Dream App team. Visitors will vote to decide which application ideas stay and which get eliminated until three winning ideas remain. During the event, constant feedback from users as well as guest judges will help finalists continually improve upon their original idea. Each finalist will maintain a blog on the site to further articulate his or her dream application.

Experienced Mac developers Jason Harris of Unsanity (author of ShapeShifter), Austin Sarner (author of AppZapper) and Martin Ott (author of SubEthaEdit) will develop the three winning ideas into shareware applications, and development will be managed by software vet and two-time Apple Design Award winner John Casasanta of Inventive (author of iClip).

Submissions are open to all and end Friday, September 1st. After all submissions are collected, the 24 finalists will be announced day by day and the first week of user voting will begin on Thursday, September 21st.

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jarod

SCAM!

08/21, 10:11pm, EDT

This smells like a very clever SCAM. These guys want to fish for what the people want. In turn, they develop the apps, reaping all the profits, and sticking the poor chap with a $79 iPod shuffle. No thanks. If you have a good idea, find the means to develop it yourself! You don't need this SCAM. The avg user is being taken advantage of here. Shame on you!

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ibugv4

hi, it's 2006

08/22, 10:05am, EDT

Welcome to the 21st century, except this dates back to Apple's founding in 1970-something.

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purpleshorts

A little scary

08/22, 10:14am, EDT

Let me get this straight. Hand over my ideas to a panel of experienced developers... any of whom could implement them far easier than I.. in exchange for the possibility of winning an iPod? Uh, okay mister, sounds good to me.

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misterdna

Naive me?

08/22, 7:07pm, EDT

And here I was happy that some fresh ideas might come to market (as shareware). I was also excited to see what idea I could come up with -- since I'm not a developer, I would never try to come up with an application if it weren't for a contest like this.

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phillryu

addressing some concerns

09/02, 12:43am, EDT

Jarod and others, you seemed to miss out on a few things. First, the winners who get their apps made earn royalties on each sale, not just a Macbook. Second, all contestants eliminated (so say, someone who gets an iPod shuffle) is returned ownership of their idea to do whatever they want with.

This is a chance for average Joe's without programming experience or coder friends to get a great idea made and earn some solid royalties in the process. Do you really think "Joe" would've made the app and royalties off sales on his own if he didn't enter the contest?

Good luck to those who entered. I promise we aren't scamming you. ;)

Mac Elite

Joined Aug 2002

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