Developers from over 70 countries have submitted 1788 entries to the Android Developer Challenge, Google has revealed.

"Cool apps that surprise and delight mobile users, built by developers ... will be a huge part of the Android vision", Google has promised in the past, so such a response to their $10 million challenge is positive news for the platform.

Azhar Hashem, product marketing manager for Android provides the news on the official blog, stating that as the 14 April deadline approached, submissions reached as high as 170 per hour.

Hashem states: "What I find truly amazing is how global the interest in the challenge has been. Developers from the United States submitted one-third of the total applications while the rest came from countries such as Germany, Japan, China, India, Canada, France, UK, and many others".

The entries, described as "very diverse" range from games to social-networking to utilities and productivity tools.

Now that the applications are in, over 100 judges will begin to look at the submissions with majority of the judges from member companies of the Open Handset Alliance.

The 50 "semi-finalists" who will be awarded $25,000 each will be informed of their success in May.

>> News - Google launches Anroid Developer Challenge
>> Link - Android blog
>> Via - Phandroid