XDA - Pebble Developer Challenge Winners!

Almost two months ago the XDA Forums and Pebble set out on a mission to find three amazing apps/watchfaces and their developers. We called it the XDA - Pebble Developer Challenge and last Friday it all came to a close! These three developers have taken the Pebble and truly stretched its limits to create some amazing products and we want to show them to you!

The XDA - Pebble Developer Challenge was a 3-week competition - your opportunity to pitch your proposal for the best Pebble app and bring it to life with a Pebble of your own. Of the 20 proposals that we selected for the second phase, the developers of the best three Pebble apps have been invited to attend the 2014 Pebble Developer Retreat in October. We also gave each of them a Pebble Steel to flaunt!

There were a lot of really great entries to the second phase of the competition and all of them deserve a quick download! Check out the complete list of apps and watchfaces that were made during the competition on the XDA forums.

Without further ado, here are the winners of the XDA - Pebble Developer Challenge (in no particular order)

Drag Racing Author: Jan Gruncl Location: Czech Republic

In just 4 years, Jan Gruncl has made dozens of Android apps in all categories - indie, contract jobs and corporate (ew!) - mostly for Czech audiences. He started with Pebble by porting the Silly Walk watchface the second day he got his smartwatch, followed by his reported personal favorite app - Notiwatch. Jan has recently switched to videogame development so his challenge entry, Drag Racing, was a great idea to bring those two together.

Drag Racing is a genre that one might not expect to be as entertaining as this game is for Pebble! Three buttons are just about right for this kind of game and it's almost as addicting as Cookie Clicker! There's no waiting for gas, no double currency, just a fair game designed to be fun and turbo to boot!

Drag Racing can be found on the Pebble appstore. Check out Drag Racing's development thread and Pebble app on Github for the evolution of this awesome game!

PebbleWear Author: Richard Gilbert Location: Australia

Richard Gilbert is an IT student from Griffith University in Australia. He first took an interest in Pebble during its Kickstarter campaign where he created the "Pebble Concepts" website, which allowed people to share their watchface ideas. Since then, he's been active in the Pebble community sharing new ideas, concepts, and developing small apps. PebbleWear was his most ambitious Pebble project yet and we're excited for the possibilities it will bring!

Heard of Android Wear? With PebbleWear your notifications are always accessible right below the watch face in this very well done Android Wear clone. Notifications are mirrored exactly as they appear on your phone and are shown as a list of cards packed with glanceable information. The functionality doesn't end there: by pressing the back button you can dismiss a notification (also dismissing it from your phone) and by pressing the select button you can view additional pages and even trigger actions on the notification!

PebbleWear can be found on the Pebble appstore and Google Play store. Check out PebbleWear's development thread, Android app on Github, and Pebble app on Github for the evolution of this really cool application.

Geek The Time Author: Alexis Rico Location: Spain

Alexis Rico, also known as SferaDev, is a tech student who works on the Paranoid Android team. He is a big fan of science fiction and the Star Wars expanded universe. The open source world is his native environment and he really likes improving on a daily basis. He has been working on several projects but really likes the Android experience which is shown in his masterful use of Android and Pebble for Geek The Time!

Geek The Time is the ultimate geek watchface for your Pebble! What started as a simple watchface that showed some movies and geek quotes now allows you to read news, check the weather and even receive the current bitcoin value in different currencies. You can read headlines from XDA, TechCrunch, Android Police or even keep updated on your carrier or current IP! This IS an Android only app though, so tough luck iOS users!

Geek The Time can be found on the Pebble appstore and Google Play store. Check out PebbleWear's development thread, Android app on Github, and Pebble app on Github for the evolution of this intricate watchface.