iPhone app dev workshop

Well, the first workshop was today and it was quite interesting.  As I suspected there were quite a few K-12 teachers there interested in getting started with iOS app development so this can trickle down into the high school computer science curriculum; there were some higher education folks there as well.

Even though the workshop was all day, you can't really get that deep into app development in eight hours.  Most of the workshop consisted in getting us oriented toward the apple developer accounts and with getting around xcode.  We messed around with interface builder and xcode and learned how to connect the UI elements to the code - but there was little (almost no) coding involved.  Considering I haven't programmed in close to ten years now, this wasn't bad.  Now I just need to get started with the Stanford iTunesU podcasts on iOS development...and perhaps come up with some interesting idea for mLearning (or something m-related) to develop a sample application.

The one frustrating thing about today was trying to sign up for a iOS Developer University Program membership.  I had to specify the name of someone that can vouch for me (easy - that would be my boss), but I also had to provide information about a course and a professor that would get notified that I have joined?  What if I am any Joe Schmoe student that wants to experiment, why require a professor to be notified?  Small potatoes though, considering that I have yet to develop an app so I won't need to provision a device for testing.

Looking forward to tomorrow's workshop on Windows Phone 7 development. Looking forward to playing with the MetroUI.

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