Student iPhone App Bounces to the Top

PROVO, Utah – Jun 3, 2009 – Want to bounce a ball inside your phone? There's an app for that. Two students at Brigham Young University created Awesome Ball, an iPhone application that topped the free app charts and won $10,000 at the inaugural BYU iPhone App Competition.

"Awesome Ball is a toy designed to show off just what your iPhone can do." says Jonathan Johnson, co-creator and electrical engineering graduate student from Henderson, Nev. "It's like having a bouncy ball inside your phone."

Johnson and Brian Pratt, an electrical engineering doctoral student from Fountain Valley, Calif., worked together to program an app that shows off the iPhone's accelerometer. They also created a customizable feature that allows users to put pictures of friends or celebrities on the bouncing balls.

"Mobile technology is changing how we work, play and communicate," says Jeff Brown, a Center for Entrepreneurship program director. "Learning how to program in different frameworks is extremely useful and profitable in the current technological environment."

After a month of planning and programming, Awesome Ball and 11 other teams loaded their applications to the Apple Store in March. Omniture, the competition's sponsor, tracked downloads and use through a unique code in each application during a two-week judging period. Awesome Ball had more than 300,000 unique users download and use the application in just 14 days.

"The popularity of the iPhone applications developed by BYU students is a reminder to online marketers that their customers are increasingly going digital and interacting with their brands in new and exciting ways," says Matt Belkin, senior vice president of emerging business at Omniture.

The other top teams with the most unique devices running their apps during the judging period were MicroKart, Battle Dot and Green Wars winning $5,000, $2,500 and $1,000, respectively. In addition, March Mayhem was chosen by the audience as the "coolest app" and won an Apple television for each team member.

The Marriott School is located at Brigham Young University, the largest privately owned, church-sponsored university in the United States. The school has nationally recognized programs in accounting, business management, public management, information systems and entrepreneurship. The school's mission is to prepare men and women of faith, character and professional ability for positions of leadership throughout the world. Approximately 3,000 students are enrolled in the Marriott School's graduate and undergraduate programs.  

BYU iPhone App Competition Entries:

     100 Hour Board — an iPhone optimized view of the BYU 100 Hour Board

     Awesome Ball — bounce a customizable ball in a 3-D environment

     Battle Dot — use the accelerometer to move a dot in a battle game

     GreenWars — buy green products and sell them in a game

     March Mayhem — track the NCAA basketball tournament and get specific information on favorite teams

     MicroKart — race toy cars around various obstacles in a house

     Missing Children — helps people to identify and find people who have been abducted 

     Risk Calc — gives the probability of winning a battle in the game Risk

     StereoStream — streams music from iTunes library on a Mac over Wi-Fi to the iPhone or iPod touch

     Sunrise Sunset — displays sunrise and sunset times around the world

     Tap Memory — tap circles by memory in numerical order

     Would You Rather? — game that makes players choose between undesirable scenarios