We're currently running the My Dream App finals, so if you haven't voted yet, head on over, pick your favorites, and grab your freebies. (This round, we have a free license for the Apple Design Award recipient PhotoPresenter, as well as the slick launcher, Overflow. Plus $5 off coupons for InsanelyGreatTees!

Of course, the coolest part about this round in my opinion are some of the guest judges that have weighed in with their opinions. There's the lovely TV and podcast host Amber MacArthur, Finder creator and original Mac team member Bruce Horn, original Mac evangelist and popular book author Guy Kawasaki, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, and zune/Xbox creator J Allard.

It was stressful and intimidating coming up with a list of potential judges for the finals, because for this round, people expected us to go all out. So I ended up in a situation emailing invitations to the most ridiculous people. Phil Schiller gave me a really nice rejection, with a note saying he's been enjoying the contest so far. Jonathan Ive and Ray Ozzie sent rejections via personal assistants, saying they didn't have the time, but thanks. Unfortunately, Steve Jobs or Bill Gates still haven't replied. But I'm still waiting!

Steve Wozniak was extremely receptive to the contest idea from the start, and while his round of judging coincided with an extremely busy book tour, he got in some outrageous, hilarious comments. If you haven't voted yet, you have to simply to read his comment for Blossom. It's ridiculously awesome.

And ironically enough, I think J Allard (of Microsoft) gets the crown for the best overall comments for the round. What really impressed me about his comments was how much time he put into them. You can tell when he references forum opinions in one comment, and UI mockup progression in another. And in my opinion he was right on the money with most of his praise and complaints. So don't discount the zune quite yet. This man has a really good head on his shoulders. (Oh, and he replied to my invite from his home PowerMac G5. Go figure.)

I guess my conclusion is, it was a pleasant surprise how down to earth a lot of these tech "celebrities" were. They're normal people, just busier than most of us I suppose. To end this, let me share with you guys an extra comment J Allard sent in about the contest as a whole that we didn't have a place for in the MDA voting page:

"great idea. great format. great entries. in these days of crass commercialism, spam, flames, phishing, opportunism and hate common on the internet it was great to see a constructive and fun experience like this spring to life. i was highly impressed by the effort that went into organizing this. the reaction of the community was great and i enjoyed all of the different ideas proposed as well as the community’s support, creativity and enthusism for the different candidates. to phill, the contestants and the community, 'well done'"

Round 3 of voting is currently in progress (ends tonight at midnight) so if you haven't voted yet, head over and pick your favorites! (And pick up your free copy of Musicast, which I wrote about previously here. ) Be sure to check out comments from a group of 6 very talented UI and icon designers, including Adam Betts, Gedeon Maheux, David Lanham, Piotr Gajos, Bill "BBX" Bart, and Josh Keay.

The competition is getting fierce at My Dream App. This morning, contestant Kevin Capizzi posted a mockup video of how a full screen option on his forum browsing app, Hijack, might work. And it's pretty damn gorgeous. Props to him for stepping it up!

Hijack has been doing pretty well in the contest, and grabbed the second most votes in last week's round of voting. I have a feeling it's going to have a shot for #1 with this mockup.

Read his post, download the high-res version here, and if you like it, digg it!

It's been non-stop for me over the past week as we've judged the thousands of entries that came in for My Dream App and picked 24 finalists. Here are my thoughts on them as a whole.

A good 80% were uninspired, infeasible (probably the most common reason for eliminating entries), or already done. 15% were decent but not well fleshed out. We were judging looking at the potential of an idea as well as its current form, but a lot of them just didn't have much beyond the one good idea. Continue reading...

Check it out, and have fun! (And if you like it, Digg it )