I’m very excited about the news from Vodaphone. They have started a contest for BB Storm developers, and the grand prize is 50,000 Euros….phew, good thing it’s not U.S. dollars.

Anyway, this is great news. The BB App Store will be opening soon, although there already is a CrackBerry App Store at http://software.crackberry.com which is quite good, and there are many BB apps (Storm and not-Storm specific). If you Google enough, you will find more BB apps then you ever knew existed.  That’s why we need a central store like iTunes, so we can find things quick and easy.

With this contest and the upcoming “official” BB App Store, we Storm users are almost guaranteed to get a smattering of apps, like our iPhone friends across the isle. Just like iPhone, I’m sure we will see lot’s of useless junk and gimmicky stuff, but also lot’s of stuff we really want.

Speaking of what we want, let’s let our voices be heard. In the comments below, shout out what you want to see on your BB Storm. Be as detailed as you want, so that the development community (possibly me included) can hear you loud and clear.

I’ll start. What I want on my BB Storm…
* I want a fully functional music player (just like Pocket Tunes for Palm OS and Windows Mobile). The must have features that do not exist on the Storm music player include: crossfade, incremental FF and Rew buttons for 5, 10, 30, and 90 seconds (must have for podcasts), album art grabber for missing album art, and Internet Radio integrated player.
* Now that GPS is unlocked, let’s get some GPS specific apps. Garmin and TeleNav already have the typical navigation apps on the Storm, and the camera already has geo-tagging. But, what about some games or business apps that take advantage of the GPS?
* Physical fitness apps for tracking workouts. There are apps out there, but not adapted for the Storm. GymTechnik’s web app works well, and I may stick with that, but would like to see some alternatives.
* Games, games, games! Can we please see the likes of Sega make games for the Storm? I know that the BB OS is based on a difficult Java development environment, and the iPhone is based on a simpler C development environment. I really hope that the Storm can become at least a somewhat competitive gaming platform.

If you are a Java or BB developer (or aspiring to be one), check out the contest at Vodaphone.  The contest runs through April 2009.