My Dream App winners

My Dream App -- Phill Ryu's contest searching for 'the next killer app' announced its three winners after a close race to the finish. Three ideas won the most support from the public: Atmostphere, a dynamic desktop representing the weather by Cameron Westland; Portal, a file synchronization utility with wormhole visualizations by Farzad Sadjadi; and Cookbook, a full featured recipe and meal management application by Michael Yuan. The three winners will have their ideas realized as Macintosh shareware applications, receive a free MacBook, and earn royalties on future sales. The My Dream App team is set to begin development on the winning ideas. Contest judges included Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, New York Times tech columnist David Pogue, This Week in Tech host Leo Laporte, and Microsoft executive J Allard.

"I was very surprised and delighted in the final rounds to see Atmosphere u-turn from near elimination to first place. I look forward to working with the MDA crew in making Atmosphere top notch!" first place finisher Westland said.

For the past month contestants endured elimination rounds while continually demonstrating to the voting public why their application idea should advance in the contest. Eliminated contestants received various prizes which increased in value as the contest drew to a close, and voters received over $1,000,000 worth of free software from contest organizers.

"What surprised me most about the contest was how much work and heart our contestants put into their ideas. What they created over the duration of the competition was truly amazing," My Dream App creator Phill Ryu said.

by MacNN Staff