14 DAY TRIAL // BitTorrent, the company behind the popular peer-2-peer protocol, is dead set on making uTorrent much more than a BitTorrent client. It runs several experimental projects aimed at expanding uTorrent’s possibilities and one of them is an apps platform for the popular client. The platform, dubbed Project Griffin, has been in the works for a few months and BitTorrent has now released a software development kit for uTorrent apps. At the same time, it’s also announcing a contest to get developers started working on the new platform.
“Today, we are also announcing the general availability of Apps for BitTorrent SDK, a software development kit (SDK) designed to allow developers a simple way to incorporate content and services into a simple user experience that integrates seamlessly with µTorrent,” BitTorrent announced.
“The SDK also includes a collection of tools, libraries and documentation to make the process of creating, authoring and testing apps as easy as possible. The ecosystem will be completely open, so anyone will be able to create and distribute an App,” the announcement explained.
To get developers interested in creating apps for uTorrent, BitTorrent is holding a Developers Challenge for the chance to win a $1,000 prize. The best app submitted in the coming month, until August 13th, will be selected by BitTorrent.
The apps themselves are built using web technologies, HTML and JavaScript, and will run inside uTorrent through an integrated web browser engine. Using web technologies is a popular way of simplifying the development process. Google Chrome uses the same approach for its extensions and Mozilla is working on similar technology with the Jetpack SDK.
The latest uTorrent 3.0 alpha has support for apps and launched with four apps available. While BitTorrent’s enthusiasm is welcomed, the idea is still to be proven. Extensions and add-ons have been very popular in web browsers, but it remains to be seen if users will want the same modularity in their BitTorrent client.