App to the Future Design Challenge

App to the Future Design Challenge

Core77 and Microsoft have launched a competition for designers to imagine a Windows Phone 8 app for a better future. App to the Future challenges designers to imagine an app for Windows Phone that helps create, connect or delight your future self.

Apps have become a way for ordinary people to take control of their day-to-day lives. Today apps help us wake up, get dressed, get through our commute, stay abreast of news and reach each other throughout the day; and they offer endless options for dining, socializing and entertainment. ­At their best, apps can help us do the things we want to do, in a way we prefer to do them-they empower our passions-­but what more can they do for us tomorrow?

"Since mobile phones are vital to navigating our daily lives, challenging designers to create for our future selves offers an opportunity to shape that same future-it's the app design crystal ball," commented LinYee Yuan, executive editor, Core77. "We're excited to see how the Core77 design audience answers this challenge and creates thoughtful, useful and delightful outcomes for Windows Phone."

The competition includes three categories:

Design to Do

Love what you do, and you'll never work a day in your life-this is your chance to create an app that helps you do what you love. What part of the design process are you most passionate about? Design an app that focuses on creativity and improve it.

Design to Connect

Sometimes it isn't what you're doing as much as whom you're doing it with. Design an app that keeps you close and connected with the people you love and care about.

Design to Delight

Harness the power of that computer in your pocket and design an app that surprises and delights-get people excited about what they're doing, and they'll love it as much as you do.

App to the Future judges will select 30 finalists, from which five winning entries will be chosen. Winners will receive a Microsoft Surface, a Windows Phone, a one-hour design review call with Windows Phone team members and an opportunity to be featured in an Amp Up Your App segment on Microsoft Channel 9. Additionally all 30 finalists receive a 1-year free Dev Center subscription. Any finalists or winners who subsequently develop and launch their apps in the Windows Phone Store by the development deadline will also receive a Windows Phone device and inclusion in the App to the Future gallery. Developers for launched apps can also receive a Windows Phone device.

The deadline for entries is February 3, 2013.