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[App Star #2] Announcing the winners and the Runners-up

We're are just off the stage from 360iDev conference where we announced the results from the App Star Awards. On stage we were in particular thinking to all the efforts deployed by all the participants, more than 80 this edition, to get ready for this event. 

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But today only a few will be rewarded. It is at this moment important to remember that the result of this contest is not at all an indicator of the potential success of an app in the App Store. Sometimes it does and some of our finalists and winners in the precedent edition surely enjoyed some great success. All this effort will be rewarded in some way or with the present app, or if you consider this as a learning experience, for future projects.

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The winners will get a free ad campaign with our media sponsors (TUAW, Buzzvoice, ...), a free 3 month subscription on Animoto pro and finally ...finally...an iPad. This is a nice way to start, before you even start!

We had some hard time spotlighting only 3 apps as winners with so many good one submitted. So we decided to include 3 runners up in each category

There will be soon a new edition of the App star Awards. Just register here if you are interested

So here are the results, congrats to them

GAMES CATEGORY

★★ Runner up ★★

Jim and Frank Adventure - a cool adventure game
>Created by 99Games/India

★★ Winner ★★

IsoCards - a cool card table app
>Created by Opetopic (USA)

ENTERTAINMENT CATEGORY

★★ Runner up ★★

PocketZoo, a nice wikipedia app for animals
>Created by Tiny Hearts (Canada)

★★ Winner ★★

Mixr, a super cool DJ set for iPad
>Created by Tasty Little Apps (USA)

UTILITY CATEGORY

★★ Runner up ★★

iMockups - A nice tool for mockups, iMockups is already in the App Store (was not when submitted)
>Created by Endloop (Canada)

★★ Winner ★★

LiveCycle - there are already lots of apps for bikes, but this one is pretty unique
>Created by New Potatoe Technology / USA

[App Star #2] Spotlight on the finalists - Utilities and other

Until monday (1 more day!), when we announce the results on stage at 360iDev conference, we will showcase each days all the finalists [mostly unreleased] of our contest App Star Awards. 
★
 Today the Utilities category ★

14 finalists - the largest category. One of them will win, one of them will be a runner-up. Who will that be? Can you guess?

Remember: only the uber-Jury will decide who wins, but you can also support the developers by rating them here

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

[App Star #2] Spotlight on the finalists - Games

 

Until monday, when we announce the results on stage at 360iDev conference, we will showcase each days all the finalists [mostly unreleased] of our contest App Star Awards. 
★ Today the Games category ★

9 finalists. One of them will win, one of them will be a runner-up. Who will that be? Can you guess?

Remember: only the uber-Jury will decide who wins, but you can also support the developers by rating them here

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 

[App Star #2] Discover the finalists - Entertainment and fun

Until monday, when we announce the results on stage at 360iDev conference, we will showcase each days all the finalists of our contest App Star Awards. 

★ Today the Entertainment and fun category ★

10 finalists. One of them will win, one of them will be a runner-up. Who will that be? Can you guess?

Remember: only the uber-Jury will decide who wins, but you can also support the developers by rating them here

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Won't make it on time for the iPad? Submit your App to the App Star Awards until March 29th!

Many developers are rushing to submit their app with the first release of the iPad. Apple has set a deadline until March 27th.

Ok. Many won't manage to make it on time. Or will prefer to wait a little to come out with something better. 

So if you are in that category, bear in mind that you can submit your App to the App Star Awards until March 29th (we changed it from March 26th)

We promise, a swift app-roval process, instant visibility and super cool rewards

All you need is a short video demo of your app, EVEN if it is not 100% finished

Register Here

Congrats to TheyMakeApps, an AppsFire/ App Star Awards partner for winning SXSW Web awards

We were super happy to learn in real time yesterday at SXSW that our partner TheyMakeApps (a directory for iphone devs) won the Web Awards. TheyMakeApps is also a partner of our own App Star Awards and Olivier Peyre is part of our Uber-Jury and helped us with the creation of our gorgeous web site http://AppStarAwards.com


In addition we are also happy to know that a frenchie was on stage for the award (reminder AppsFire is a french company too..)

So congrats to our App Star Award partner, for winning an Award. Real stars :) You follow?

Announcing the ★★ App Star Awards 2 ★★ in partnership with 360iDev conference

We received so many requests, that we could not ignore it. So we decided to organize a new edition of the App Star Awards, our contest to highlight and reward new and brilliant upcoming apps. 

The first edition was a real blast and our winners (and even finalists) really enjoyed this contest and the energy it gave them to become real top apps in the App Store. We even enjoyed ourself watching a major cellular operator picking our name for their own contest :)

This time organize the App Star Awards 2 in partnership with 360iDev, one of the largest iPhone developer event in the USA, where we'll announce on stage the results of this great contest (on April 12th in San Jose)

★★★★★

If you are an app developer and want to pre-register just go here 
You will be notified by email when submissions open (march 21st)

★★★★★

Only one rule, any app is eligible as long as it is not yet submitted to Apple by March 26th (it has to be a new app, and a legit * no jailbreak * app) - rules here

★  
Rewards, Rewards, Rewards

We changed a little bit the format of the rewards: last time we noticed that what mattered most to developers was the spotlights they were receiving before and after the contest and less the cash that was, let's say it, mainly symbolic. To make things a little sexier each winner will go home with one iPad but also a free ad campaign that will have more importance in this edition (rules here) 
So this time we gathered an awesome line up of media sponsors that will altogether provide tremendous boost to the winners, once their app is in the app store. 
★ Top buzz and Uber-Jury

 

We also have a fantastic line up of partners who are going to help us make as much (quality) noise as possible around this contest. Those include
And finally we have a wonderful group of people constituting our Uber-Jury (those who will decide who win). Most of the previous jury came back and some new faces have joined: 

Robert Scoble, Chris Pirillo, Patrick Jordan, Jyri Engestrom (Jaiku), Frank Gruber (Tech Coktail), Mike Butcher, Marshall Kirkpatrick (Read Write Web), Zee (The NextWeb), Raven Zachary, Jeff Scott (148apps)......Just to name a few! If you want we got them all in a twitter list here

A few more will be announced soon

We also want to thank Kettle for their awesome work on the design of the App Star 2 site.

So! for now that's all. Pre-registration are open. Submissions will start March 21st. So if you are planning an app for soon, you probably want to hold one for the App Star Awards!

We leave you with this great Rap-Star created by our friends at UsTwo

We're proud of our app stars!

We're happy to see that 2 of the finest apps of the App Star Awards we organized, as still unreleased are ending up today in the front page of the US App store.

PositionApp (finalist, iTunes getap.ps/PositionApp) and HereFileFile (Winner, iTunes getap.ps/herefilefile) are featured today in the prestigious new and noteworthy section

So, what do you say? Is it worth participating at our App Star Awards? :)

Congrats to them!

FireCast: interview with SketchNation, App Star Awards Winner

Sketchnation by Ouriel Ohayon  
(download)

We wanted to publish this interview before but since StetchNation (twitter @Sketchnation / blog here)   is not yet published in the App Store we decided to wait a little


Sketch Nation drew a lot of attention at our app competition, App star Awards last december, because it allows to create a sophisticated game very simply: but just drawing it. We we intrigued by the concept and reached out to Nitzan Wilnai (pic below), down in Silicon Valley to discuss his project. FYI the video demo above has been seen already close to 30,000 times. Not bad for an app unreleased!

Find out more in this 08 min interview

PS: Discover the other winner interview, herefilefile