Android Developer Challenge Ideas

The $10,000,000 prize money has created quite a stir among Java developers. It is very interesting to know what kind of ingenious software that will emerge as winners in Google’s Android Developer Challenge. Google very well understands that developer acceptance is key to the widespread use of the Android open mobile platform. I for one have my ideas on what would be a cool software to see getting developed for the Android platform.

I believe that one such very cool software to bring into the mobile space is multi-player games. It’s a challenge to bring such a game given the current limitations on several areas like mobile device hardware and mobile bandwidth costs.

I think it’s a great idea to be able to play games even as simple as checkers, chess or even battleship with someone who is across the globe. Imagine playing a game of checkers and chatting with your opponent that is on the other side of the globe. The game wouldn’t have to end in a day, you can play for months at each other’s pace if you’re playing chess for instance. Wouldn’t it be really cool to be able to bring such multi-player games available on Linux such as BZFlag and FreeCiv.

The greatest challenge is to be able to bring Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Games or MMORPG to the mobile world. I think putting MMORPG on the mobile phone is ready for primetime.

The power of mobile phones has improved considerably over the pass years. You can now find mobile phones that support 3D and processor speeds that used to be our desktop computers. Qualcomm has even broken the 1Ghz barrier for mobile phone chips and it won’t be long before we see them on mobile phone units. Mobile phone data speeds are now broadband speeds allowing us to even watch movies on our mobile phones. Unlimited data plan are also now becoming available for mobile phones.

If you’re looking for a great game for the Android challenge, I say multi-player is the way to go!