Sprint announced the winners of its 4G App Challenge, intended to recognise “innovative” apps that use its WiMAX network. Submissions were based on four criteria – creativity, intuitive navigation, functionality and design – and fell into five categories: entertainment, gaming, productivity, social networking and multimedia.

The top entertainment app was NASA Images, which showcases 4,000 images from the space agency, and “because the images are large, Sprint 4G enables customers to download them quickly.” The top gaming app was Say What?, a repetition-based game, which involves players randomly being connected to the game server, with the network providing a “fast and reliable” internet connection for optimal play.

The top productivity app was Recipe Search, where users speak ingredients and the app finds a display of meals that could be cooked: the network “will reduce latency and deliver results quicker.” The top multimedia app was Mediafly Mobile, which enables customers to organise and discover podcasts, audio, video, radio and streams from their Android phone, with the WiMAX network making the viewing of streaming content “easy and enjoyable.” 

Finally, the top social networking app was Facebook Upload, which enables customers to view and share media and content from Facebook, and which “fully uses the bandwidth and reliability of the Sprint 4G Network to manage the connection to Facebook and the speedy media download to the customer.”

The category winners were awarded a US$50,000 prize, one year membership of the Sprint Professional Developer Programme including support, and a device with one year of service. The company has published a guide to developing for apps with WiMAX connectivity on its developer website.