Starting today, the Nokia Create competition is officially open to Windows Phone app developers worldwide. The prizes for this new contest are massive, and include serious promotional opportunities for the winning apps that are selected.
Nokia Create features eight “Master Missions” and six “Mini Missions” (see details below); and there will be one winner and nine runners up in each mission, for a total of 140 prize winners. There will be one Grand Prize winner selected from among the 14 Mission winners.
The Grand Prize winner will receive an expenses-paid trip for two people to attend the 2014 Mobile World Congress (MWC) in Barcelona, Spain. Additionally, this winning app will be eligible for extensive marketing and promotion, including: a 10,000 EURO credit on Microsoft’s pubCenter to run a marketing campaign promoting the winning app; and four weeks of app promotion on Windows Phone Store and App Social in 2014.
‘I’m a developer, how do I get started?’
The 14 contest “Missions” are built around eight distinct categories for app submissions: Image & Photo, NFC, Maps & Places, Music, Fun & Games, Work Life, Freestyle (for apps that don’t fit in elsewhere), and Cross-8, which seeks Windows Phone 8 / Windows 8 companion apps that provide a “seamless experience across screens.”
These Missions are divided into eight “Master Missions” seeking new apps that have not previously been published to the Windows Phone Store; and six “Mini Missions” where developers will add various Nokia APIs and new features to their existing Windows Phone apps.
Ready. Set. Go!
The deadline for the Master Missions, which require the most work, is 15 December 2013 (the app must be published to Windows Phone Store by then to be eligible). Submissions for the first two Mini Missions (one using the Nokia Imaging SDK and one using NFC) are due 30 September 2013. Details and deadlines for the other Mini Missions, based on the other contest categories, will be announced later this fall. Developers can submit apps in more than one category, if they choose to do so.
Complete details about app submissions, the full list of prizes, and contest rules can be found on the Nokia Create contest page.
‘I’m not a developer, what’s in it for me?’
For those of us who are Nokia Lumia fans, this new contest will result in loads of cool new apps and games – along with clever new enhancements to existing apps – for use on Windows Phone 8 devices. The potential is huge. We can hardly wait to see the results.