Alcatel-Lucent, APIs, and iPads (Oh, my!)

Jul 12th, 2010

What do you get when you mix a top-notch development community, some easy to use APIs, wads of cash, and an iPad? Apparently, you get some awesome iPad applications.

Last month Alcatel-Lucent (my new gig) announced the $40,000 Location-Based iPad App Challenge. The premise was remarkably simple, make an iPad app that uses our LBS API, if it rocks you win. Well, it’s been 31 days, the contest has ended and boy do we have some cool apps to show off.

With some help from our friends over at TopCoder (Veredox, I’m looking at you) more than 70 developers registered for the contest and we received 17 shiny new app submissions. Developers from around the world took part in this contest; we saw folks from Brazil, Canada, China, Colombia, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, France, India, Indonesia, Italy, Jordan, Morocco, Nigeria, Philippines, Romania, Russia, United Kingdom, Ukraine and the United States. There was even one developer registered in Antarctica; our SWAT team of researchers are still trying to verify this one.

I know, enough yammering about the contest, get to the apps. Of the 17 submissions we chose 4 apps that best utilized the LBS API, appealed to our fine sensibilities, were highly functional and well implemented. Check out some screen grabs from the apps below. Developers, your checks are in the mail (well, as soon as we pay our Top Coder bill… heh).

Peer Peer – legendapps, United States

A fun mashup that displays geocoded Flickr photos that are close to your friends. LBS + Flickr = sweet visualization to tap into the national zeitgeist. This app also begs the question, “What if you happened to peer on a peer on a pier?”

GeoTrack – dhbellol, Colombia

Use your iPad to track people, vehicles, field/sales employees or even family members via an interactive map powered by the LBS API. GeoTracker also allows you to make calls and send SMS messages via a swift Twillio API integration.

Radar – loveislife, India

Discover who’s around you in an immersive game like experience. Friends and enemies appear as dots moving around in a radar scope complete with toggle switches, rotating bezel to zoom and scanning overlays.

GeoTracker – subchap, China

Use your iPad to track your friends, family and coworkers. GeoTracker also utilizes the LBS API’s powerful “geofence” methods to send email alerts when users enter and exit specific areas. Get an email notification when Dad leaves work, your boss is near the office or your pizza delivery dude is near.

As a new member of the Alcatel-Lucent team, it was pretty exciting to see the company pony up some serious cash for this contest. The APIs are clearly in demand and can support some wicked cool apps. Keep an eye on the Open API Service site for more contests and hack-a-thons coming soon.