After the launch of the Amazon Fire Phone and the announcement of a deal with Blackberry, Amazon have stepped up the pace to bring developers to their app store.
Amazon is gifting $5000 for every approved app for the new Fire Phone in the form of Amazon gift cards. Although the reward is not straight cash, the giftcards can be used to make Amazon purchases or sold for around 90% of their face value.
In order to be awarded the prize, you application must fulfil certain criteria as outlined on their website:
All apps must implement an app widget using the Home API to display contextual information when the app is brought to the forefront on the device Carousel. Non-game apps must implement either (or both) of the left and right panels using Foundation Controls or Dynamic Perspective SDK. Games must use the Dynamic Perspective SDK to create an in-game experience that responds to a user’s motion relative to the device.
Note that games that merely replace swipe-based controls or gyro functionality with head tracking will not qualify. The game must use head tracking to implement an in-game experience. Examples include the ability for a user to pan and zoom the field of view in a game by moving the device back or forward or the ability to rotate the device about any axis to change the viewing angle of the surroundings.
Amazon also made it clear that this is limited to three applications only, so developers can hope to earn a total of $15,000.
This suggests Amazon are clearly trying to boost their arsenal of applications on their appstore which currently hosts 240,000 Android applications.
