Advanced Course in Applications Programming for Apple iPhone/iPad
At the end of June, the closure of the Advanced Course in Applications Programming for Apple iPhone/iPad, organized by idEC/UPF, took place in the UPF campus, with the presentation of the students' projects during the course, a total of 11 iPhone/iPad apps.
The 11 contending apps were presented in 3-min pitches and a jury composed by the professors and external reviewers (AppCircus invited as guest among them) have had a hard time deciding on a winner, as all apps were incredibly interesting. Some of them required really hard programming work, like the SSLTouch, a framework for electronic certificates for mobile apps. Others like La Nevera, tried to solve one of the main student every day needs: find something to cook with the few ingredients you have in your fridge. Finally, two prizes were given; the best app as chosen by the students of the course, and the best app as chosen by the professors and jury members.
Sing a Song was the definite winner in both categories. Sing a Song, a game that follows the paradigm of similar platforms for remote playing (like Angry Words, Draw Something etc), transports the karaoke activity, so popular all around the world, in an app that challenges players to demonstrate their singing abilities. The app has a strong social gaming component and uses various techniques to minimize the bandwidth consumed by sending the songs from one player to the other. Marc Llucia, the developer of Sing a Song, is already on the final step of launching the app while at the same time is working on the creation of his own mobile agency, called beMobile.
In the runner-up position, the jury chose PlantHealth, an app that covers a very specific and real need for the people working in the agronomy industry, digitalizing and providing easy access through mobile anytime & anywhere to a huge database of plant plagues and their treatments. This was a long time project for Xavier Grabulosa, the creator of PlantHealth, seeing how his friends working in this area had to use everyday lots of books or a fixed PC, and capturing the need for mobility of this information out to the camp. The next version of the app will be also enhanced with images for contrasting visually the real plants with the plagues image and make the diagnosis easier.
We were excited to see so many new and interesting apps coming up in such a short time, and we will keep an eye on future editions of the course waiting for more!