360iDev: The AppStar awards
Appsfire has just announced the winners of their App Star Awards contest at 360iDev here in San Jose -- they had an "uber-jury" go through 30-second pitch videos from 33 different unreleased iPhone and iPad apps, and narrowed down their favorites to six different apps in three categories, Games, Utility and Entertainment.
Click on the Read More link below to see the list of winners as announced at the conference. Each one of these apps will get a free promotional campaign, an iPad to play with, and a subscription to Animoto, all to start off their App Store experience.
A game called The Jim and Frank Mysteries: Blood River Files was the runner-up in the Games category. The game looked very much like the popular Professor Layton titles on the DS, with adventure-style story screens in between touch-controlled math and logic puzzles.
The winner of the Games category is a title named IsoCards for the iPad, which seems similar in functionality to Game Table, with a touchable deck of cards that can be manipulated into whatever game you want. A few nice touches on that one include an iPhone connection that allows for "secret" card hands, and even an on-iPad feature where you can cup your hand on the touch surface, and the iPad will flip up cards that only you can see.
In the Utility category, the runner-up was iMockups, an iPad app that allows you to quickly and easily create mockups for iPad and iPhone apps, web pages, or any number of other different UIs and interfaces. The category's winner was LifeCycle, which uses a wireless module hooked up to the iPhone and attached to a bicycle to track "files" of speed, distance, and so on during bike rides.
And in the Entertainment and Fun category, AppsFire showed off Pocket Zoo, an educational app that lets children and others learn about and observe (via live webcams) zoo animals from all over the world. The winner of the Entertainment and Fun category was Mixr, a good-looking DJ app for iPad with touch-based turntables, lots of different audio controls, and a nice techno aesthetic.
All of these apps should be on the App Store soon, and AppsFire said that they hope to give them all a good start. Stay tuned to TUAW all this week for more information direct from 360iDev here in San Jose.
