14 DAY TRIAL // Ubuntu for phones and tablets has been deemed stable for quite some time, and the developers are working around the clock to implement new features, but the new operating system from Canonical needs more than core functionality, it also needs apps – and lots of them.
Anyone can develop applications for Ubuntu because the developers released a while ago the Ubuntu SDK, which makes the entire process a lot easier. There is already a number of apps released for this platform but, in order to be successful, Ubuntu will need a great deal more.
This is where the Ubuntu App Showdown contest kicks in. This is not the first contest organized by Canonical. It’s in fact the third one, and the other ones have been rather successful.
According to the announcement posted by Canonical, “contestants will have six weeks to build and publish their apps using the new Ubuntu SDK and Ubuntu platform starting today. Both original apps and ported apps, QML and HTML5, and apps specifically for the Chinese market will qualify for this competition.”
This contest is a little more organized than the previous ones and the company has set up a number of dedicated categories that should make things a lot clearer.
The first one is dedicated to developers who are making their apps in QML, which is the native language used for Ubuntu phones. A combination of QML and JavaScript/C++ is also allowed.
The second category is for applications written in HTML5, either pure HTML (and CSS/JavaScript) or with platform access using Apache Cordova.
The third category of prizes is for people who are porting their applications for Ubuntu.
The last and newest category is for original applications that make apps specific to China and the Chinese culture. The apps will be vetted by a couple of experts from the country.
As in every contest, there are quite a few prizes for the winners of each category. The QML, HTML5, and ported winners will each receive a Nexus 7 pre-loaded with Ubuntu, and the top two Chinese application devs will each get a Meizu-branded device.
The judges for the QML, HTML5, and ported apps will be: Jono Bacon (Ubuntu Community Manager), Adnane Belmadiaf (Ubuntu HTML5 expert), Lucas Romero di Benedetto (Ubuntu Community Design Team), Nekhelesh Ramananthan (Ubuntu Core App Developer), and Joey-Elijah Sneddon (OMG!Ubuntu editor).
The judges for the Chinese apps are Shuduo Sang (Software Engineer in Canonical PES), Joey Chan (Ubuntu Core App Developer), and Jack Yu (Ubuntu Kylin). You can find more details about the contest on the official website.
The previous contests generated several very interesting applications, including the famous Karma Machine, which is now a favorite of the community.