Press Releases

Vodafone today launched a new Apps competition – called App Star – aimed at programmers who want to develop Apps specifically for the new exclusive Vodafone 360 phones. The competition will be divided into two stages: an elimination round in Portugal, followed by a pan-European ‘final of finals’ between the 8 Apps placed first in each of the elimination rounds to be held in the operators of the Group where the service will be launched.

In the first stage of the competition, money prizes of €25,000, €15,000 and €10,000 will be awarded to the 3 best Apps in each elimination round. The winner of the final will receive €75,000, giving him or her a total of €100,000, while the runner-up will receive €50,000.

The competition will be repeated in 2010. Altogether, Vodafone will distribute a total of €1,000,000 to programmer communities, demonstrating the scale of its investment in searching for and stimulating talent, initiative and innovation in all who want to share their best ideas with the users of Internet services. Full details of the competition are available at www.jil.org/vodafone/appstar .

Meanwhile, Vodafone Portugal has announced the winners of the Apps competition it launched at the beginning of the summer, which was entered by 60 Portuguese programmers. 82 entries were received and the following Apps were awarded prizes:

1st Prize (€20,000): SMSXpress by Ricardo Portela
2nd Prize (€5,000): Tweetit by Vítor Carreira
3rd Prize equal (€2,500): Eventos by Heitor Ferreira
3rd Prize equal (€2,500): Guia H1N1 by Carlos Cardoso
3rd Prize equal (€2,500): Wigipedia by Carla Faria

Each of the winners, together with five other entrants, will also receive an expenses-paid visit to Madrid, where over two days (2 and 3 October) they will take part in a campus organised by Vodafone (Dev-Camp) for programmers who want to start creating Apps immediately for the new Vodafone 360 phones. As well as receiving support from Vodafone’s specialist technicians, they will have the opportunity to explore at first hand the new development tools directly on the new phones. The best Apps developed at this event will also receive prizes.

To use the applications, Vodafone customers can download them from its App Store at or directly from their mobile phone. The Vodafone App Store, launched in July, already has 200 Apps available, around half of which were developed by Portuguese programmers. The Vodafone Apps platform is open to all programmers who wish to create their own Apps and distribute them via the Store.