ADC finalists gets early access to SDKs

Google notified the top 50 teams from the Android Developers Challenge to explain some of the details of Phase II of the ADC. Google is going to be using these top 50 teams as beta testers for new SDK snapshots. NDA prohibits testers from leaking new features or screen shots of any sorts.

Google has sent out emails to the top 50 applications from the Android Developers Challenge explaining some of the details of Phase II of the ADC. It appears that Google is going to be using these top 50 teams as a testers for new SDK snapshots. The only catch is that the developers must agree to a ‘NDA’ type of agreement forbidding screenshots or descriptions of new features:

As a Round 2 participant, we’ll be providing you with the most up-to-date Android SDK so that you can take advantage of the latest tools & platform capabilities that will be shipping in devices later this year. These early access SDKs have many enhancements, additional features, and bug fixes. However, these SDKs have not had the same level of testing as public SDKs, so there are bugs; these releases are definitely “bleeding edge.” As we continue to update the platform, you’ll receive periodic drops of updated early access SDKs. We’ll do our best to give you a rough timeline on when these early access SDKs will be available so that you can better plan your development schedule. Approximately 3 weeks before the submission deadline, we will provide a final early access SDK. You will need to submit your entry using this version of the SDK.

Since these early access SDKs are not ready for the public, you need to execute a special SDK license. This is the same SDK license that governs the public SDK with the addition of a confidentiality clause. We’ve attached the SDK license document to this email.

Google’s logic for not releasing the latest and greatest version of the Android SDK to the public is because of the instability and bugs. Google pushed the deadline back to July 28th since the teams will be working with the new versions of SDKs. General release of the new SDK will be made available some months down the road.