Google announced the winners of its Android Developer Challenge contest. There were two categories: $275K and $100K winners. And 50 finalists were competing for the prizes. Twenty developers are dividing the cash awarded.

Among the 10 companies awarded $275K, six have location as a core or significant element. Only one of the $100K winners falls into that category. Among the other announced finalists, 14 out of 30 feature location or have location as a core element. When the iPhone Apps Store initially launched in late July, we surveyed the location-based applications (.pdf file).

Among the more intriguing location-based Anrdoid applications are two that allow users to scan product barcodes in local stores and do price comparisons, as well as determine other stores that may have the product nearby. GoCart and Compare Everywhere offer these capabilities. 

Here's the description of GoCart:

GoCart informs the shopper. It bridges the gap that exists between shopping online and shopping at the store. GoCart is your shopping cart on-the-go. Users can scan the barcode of any product using their phone’s built-in camera. Once scanned, it will search for all the best prices on the internet and through the inventories of nearby, local stores.

Slifter offers local story inventory information in mobile (WAP, apps), as does TheFind's application for the iPhone. In addition, there have been camera-phone-based search tools before, but nobody has elegantly put it all together in the way suggested by these new Android apps. 

Among all the forthcoming iPhone clones with apps stores, etc., software applications will be a critical success factor in the market. For example, without much software to accompany it, Sprint's Instinct looks like a pale imitation of the iPhone.

Given that Android phones still aren't commercially available yet we can tell how these apps will actually perform. But they certainly look and sound good. And if the actual hardware works as promised, Google/Android will have a probable hit on its hands.

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Apparently the HTC "Dream" (Android) from T-Mobile is coming quite soon. Engadget has images.