The Apple iPhone and the applications written for this smartphone have become so popular that Stanford University is now broadcasting a free, 10-week course from the university that will show would-be developers how to write apps for both the iPhone and iPod Touch. While those interested in writing iPhone apps cannot get credit, they might find some useful tips for getting their application into the App Store.The Apple
iPhone and Apple's App Store have become so popular that Stanford University is now offering a free
online course for those developers interested in writing apps for the iconic
smartphone.
On April 1, Stanford announced that it will broadcast a free, 10-week class
called “iPhone Application Programming,” which will be posted at the university’s iTunes U Website.
The lectures, which started this week, will be posted two days after the actual
class, and the university will also make slides and other material from the
class available.
The classes are being offered through Stanford’s Department of Computer
Science. However, those watching the online version of the course are not
eligible for course credit.
The Apple App Store has been garnering a lot of attention in the last few
months as the
applications being developed and built for the iPhone are, in a way, more
popular now than the actual physical device. Apple executives have said
that there are now more than 25,000 apps for the iPhone, and users have
downloaded more than 800 million applications from the App Store.
In
fact, the market for smartphone applications, whether they are built for the
iPhone or another device, has become a driving force in the industry. While
the App Store is considered the premier outlet for smartphone applications,
Microsoft, BlackBerry maker Research In Motion and Nokia are all interested in
expanding or building their own application stores.
At the 2009 CTIA conference in Las Vegas,
Nokia
offered new details about its Ovi Store, and RIM
announced its application store for its line of BlackBerry smartphones. Microsoft
also offered more details about its own online application warehouse and
then hinted that the
company hopes to offer a mobile version of Office for the iPhone.
When
Apple releases the 3.0 version of its iPhone OS later this year, the
software development kit and new features and tools are also likely to lead to
a whole new set of applications for the iPhone.
So far, Stanford has some success with developing applications for both the
iPhone and the iPod Touch. One student-developed application is a
Chinese-English dictionary called Qingwen that is available for downloading.
Mobile & Wireless 
