SenchaCon 2011 Contest Winners

Our SenchaCon 2011 Contest encouraged our community to build the best apps possible with Sencha technologies. And, as ever, the entries did not disappoint! We had hundreds of application submissions, and the standard was extremely high.

The contest encouraged the entrants to build apps with a number of characteristics. We were looking for the use of contemporary Sencha frameworks, cloud- & sync-based services, and apps which exhibited sharing and social functionality. And this week, at SenchaCon 2011 itself, in Austin, we announced the short list, the finalists, and the winner.

We had great pleasure to announce that the winner of the contest was Getographer. This is a photo sharing application with a difference: as well as being able to take and share photographs, you are also able to make requests to have certain photographs taken for you in certain locations.

The judges loved this application partly because its user interface is elegant and easy to use, but belies a complex application underneath. The camera integration into this Sencha Touch app is seamless and effective, as was the use of system notifications. The app is themed elegantly and works equally well on both Android and iOS devices.

The application is already available for download from each of the two app stores, and of course we’ve also listed it on our new app gallery. And we’re thrilled that the team wins nothing less than a 2011 Nissan Leaf!

Our second placed app, winning a MacBook Pro and $10,000, was WikPic, a tablet-based gallery viewer. Judges loved the simplicity of the controls and the social interaction–such as being able to comment on photos and pull up galleries created by members of your social networks. A great demonstration of how a web application can look and feel like a native one, and how social network integration can be easily integrated into a client-side web app.

In third place, winning an iPad 2 and $2,500, was Wrike, an Ext-JS-based project-management application designed for enterprise collaboration. The application allows the creation of tasks, status updates and comments, and strongly encourages social interaction between employees. Judges particularly liked the app’s subtle and contemporary theme, as well as some excellent user interface components, such as its Gantt chart.

Special mention should also go to our seven other runners up, each of whom receive $1,500 in prize money. They are, in alphabetical order, Crave, Cube Drive, Latte Connect, Rapasso, Record Evolution, S-Circles, and YoBlurty. Well done to them all!

We had a lot of fun judging this contest, and as ever, are humbled by the quality of applications that our community creates. We hope that everyone who entered enjoyed rising to the challenge as much as we did putting it on. You can be sure there will be more contests in the future like this one!

In the meantime, please go and try out these applications–as well as those of the runners-up. Many congratulations to all involved.