Money can't buy Google's Android love
Google has pushed back the deadline for its $10 million Android programming contest to April. The jackpot will go to the developer who comes up with the best application for Google's cell-phone operating system. Google says the reason is that it's made updates to Android, and it wants to let programmers take advantage of them. But doesn't it seem equally likely that Google hadn't gotten enough submissions?
Cell-phone coders can write iPhone-friendly Web apps now, or wait until Android-friendly phones show up at some point in the future. Today, Android apps run on every single one of the exactly zero Googlephones in consumers' hands. Money is always nice. But there's something fame-seeking programmers prize just as much: People using their software.