Magisto Wins Mobile Apps Showdown Event, Macaw Wins Popular Vote

The crowd was pumped, the presentations awesome, and in the end, a small company with a big idea took the award for at The Mobile Apps Showdown held during International CES 2012 in Las Vegas.

Hosted by two of the funniest guys in the business, Jon Hein and Gary Dell’Abate of the Howard Stern Wrap Up Show, the competition,mashes up elements of Survivor, American Idol, and high school play. The field gets progressively narrowed down until 10 amazing companies to strut their stuff.

We’ll have the full videos up momentarily, but here’s a quick summary:

The ten finalists were remarkable examples of the diversity of the mobile apps category. But in the end it was neck and neck between Magisto and CIA Operation Ajax.

Magisto gives you a video editing service right from your smartphone. You shoot some video and pop off a few clips to Magisto headquarters. The clips get artfuly edited into a vignette replete with special effects and title . They can be automatically posted to YouTube.

CIA Operation Ajax takes the graphic novel to new heights. Based on real CIA operative events in Iranian politics in the 1950s, Operation Ajax is an inspiring work that combines a full original score, historical news reels and clips from the 50’s and an unparalleled artistic sensibility along with an intriguing plot.

The popular online vote went to Macaw, a new health application that uses sensors to intelligently track user activity. It lets users link the sensors and devices they may already use to a Prevention Plan account which tracks healthy activities and generations a Prevention Score. What’s novel about Macaw (yes, named for the bird with a long life span) is that it combines US Preventative Medicine (a company that helps change medical behaviors)expertise in monitoring activity, diet and education about staying healthy, with Qualcomm’s new 2Net. Any device data from Bluetooth, WiFi or Ant+ products can be incorporated into the 2Net platform. In a tower of Babel health landscape, Macaw may provide the language all of these devices need to speak.

Videos will be posted momentarily. Thanks to all who entered, judged and all who attended. But mostly thanks to the ten products brilliant enough to win and gutsy enough to take the stage.