Is the Android Challenge legit or an elaborate form of phishing,
or even an outright scam of sorts?
It seems that the challenge has a few glaring problems:
1) The rules favor teams and/or individuals with financial
backing or resources.
The Challenge is scored in 4 areas. I suggest that Originality
and Indispensibility are areas that favor contributors equally
whether they are poor individuals or well funded teams.
However "Effective Use of the Android Platform" and
"Polish and Appeal" penalize those with limited financial
resources. These qualities require more time to implement
thereby favoring those who could spend more time on the
challenge than those who responded to the challenge
in the "Willy Wonka" spirit (believing all had a chance)
and had to work on the challenge in their spare time.
2) Google discontinued support for the Challenge users
while continuing to support OHA and other stakeholders
(e.g., device manufacturers, MIT) thereby marginalizing/
under supporting the Challenge members.
Using the Android platform, which
despite being Linux and Java, is no picnic or walk in the park.
The processing model is *different* (and I'll question it's necessity
on a Linux platform in another post), the SDK has bugs, the
documentation has inconsistencies (e.g., look at the various
places where TableLayout and table row are documented),
pieces of the SDK were missing (e.g., BT, etc.) and so on.
And while independents were toiling away trying to slog through
the Android'isms and bugs, Google was actively supporting members
of the OHA (are they really on the same SDK version as we are?)
Are all submitters *really* isolated from those who had more
inside information? Access to the source?
3) Participants who fail to win in round 1 stand to lose even more.
When you made your submission you agreed that if Google
or any of the Judges developed your idea you had no recourse.
What if Google/Judges never had the idea before you submitted it?
Had not yet visualized it on the Android platform before the
entries were submitted? Do you think you can get your idea to
market faster than the multi-billion dollar Google juggernaut?
In it's most perverse form isn't it all really a way for Google
to potentially get 1700+ original ideas for which they only
need to pay for 50?
/GW
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