Update

So I released Dominoes this week, and happily it is selling briskly, despite a bug that I didn't catch before released that screwed up whose turn it was when the player couldn't play. I fixed the bug and posted an update. I've already found another minor bug (the quit button in a particular dialog isn't working right), but I'll wait another few days to post another update. I had gotten several requests for a Dominoes game back when I first released Spades, so I knew there was some demand, but it's nice to see that there is quite a bit of demand. People love their dominoes.

Based on a strong first day, Dominoes debuted in the Cards & Casino game category at #144 and then rose 14 positions to #130 the next day, placing it #36 in paid games in that category. Sales aren't slowing down, so I expect it to keep on trucking.

Golf Solitaire finally bumped its way up to the #5 paid game in Cards & Casino, which is nice because in the Android Market interface the screen holds 5 apps at a time, so now it's one of the first games you see when you sort by paid apps. Last month I sold an average of about 3.7 copies/day, and this month it's about 4.7 copies/day. I think the bump to #5 will only help.

And the Android Developer Challenge. Sigh. It was surprising when they closed voting for Round 1 early. I honestly expected user judging to take a lot longer. But the judging app then said that the break to tally the votes and prepare for Round 2 would be "brief", and that we would be able to start judging the finalists after "several days". Well, that was on October 6th, so we're going on several weeks now.

Who knows why it's taking so long. Maybe their having a difficult time finding good judges. Apparently there were some logistical issues equipping and preparing the judges for ADC I, though you'd think they'd have that smoothed out this time around, when availability of Android devices is much higher.

Another possibility is the snafu regarding the release of 1.6 concurrently with Round 1, which reportedly caused errors in some of the entrants' apps. Maybe they're having to decide how to fairly deal with such issues and/or working on updates to deal with 1.6. Maybe they're also considering letting devs perform an update before Round 2.

Another possibility that's been floated is that they're waiting for the release of Droid on Verizon, hoping that the convergence will lead to extra buzz. The latest rumors are that Droid is actually the name of an entire series of devices, rather than a single smartphone, and that the first Droid device will actually be available at Best Buy this weekend. On the discussion groups, some impatient and disgruntled devs have gone ahead and released paid versions of their apps on the market...not sure if this will disqualify some entrants.

Which is yet another possibility, that Google is spending all this time vetting the finalists for eligibility requirements.

Whatever the case, one would hope they announce on Monday...although I was absolutely sure they would announce last Monday. Only thing we can do is wait and see.