iApps Gone Wild
April 29, 2009
With the popularity of the iPhone increasing, so are its numerous applications. Brian X. Chen’s article on wired.com describes the competitive new industry of iPhone applications. Chen begins his article by going straight to one of the world’s best universities located conveniently in Silicon Valley. At Stanford University, there is a class based solely on the tenants of designing iPhone applications. Taught by a senior Apple engineer, students explore the many possibilities of creating applications ranging anywhere from controlling the lights in a user’s house, a way to judge whether an outfit matches based on outside users votes, or an application based on fantasy football. Stanford has even taken the initiative to create its own iPhone application which allows users to access class schedules and campus maps. Everyone wants to make a buck, and by all means, the iPhone application industry is very lucrative.
The most direct connection I see to I101 is in the definition of informatics itself: problem solving using information technology. Whether it be a game or useful household monitoring system, iPhone applications exist to enhance the ways people involve technology in their everyday life. When thinking back to how this article relates to informatics, the first thing that comes to mind is Dane’s application to monitor a home’s gas and energy from the iPhone. After seeing his model, we were asked to create our own. This process was very interesting because we had to invent a target group of users and specific problems we were looking to attack. The generation process of an iPhone application is modeled exactly after the way a pupil is taught to analyze problems in the world of informatics.
I found this article to be very eye-opening into the world of software development. The article describes the store of Ethan Nicholas, an independent developer whose iPhone application iShoot earned him $600,000 in the month of January alone. I think the competitiveness of the iPhone application industry is universalizing the usability of the iPhone, a direction I feel Apple is definitely aspiring to head.
