New iPhone apps classes let you learn, test and earn

— -- There's an app for just about anything, or so Apple says.

And colleges and universities across the country are taking notice, offering courses in programming iPhone applications to computer-related majors. The courses represent a new path of study for many colleges and universities recognizing the longevity of smartphones and social media, college professors say.

iPhone apps, short for applications, are single-purpose programs that allow users to do everything from read the news to play musical instruments. They are largely produced by independent programmers who pay a $99 fee to create, test and distribute — many times for profit — their app.

An iPhone Developer University Program launched last fall, however, allows qualifying colleges and universities to produce iPhone apps at no cost, spurring several institutions to offer a course in the technology.

Apple declined to comment on the number of schools participating, but they include Stanford and NJIT.

A 'big marketplace'

Stanford University is offering a course to 60 students taught by two Apple employees in app development technology. The university started the program last fall and expanded it for the spring semester.

"Students are really liking it," says teaching assistant Paul Salzman. "We have twice as many students apply as there are slots, so we distribute a survey and have to slim it down." The two Apple-employed lecturers declined to comment, as per an Apple company policy.

The information taught in the class is so popular, Salzman says, that the course is filmed and distributed at no charge on iTunes. The video downloads have prompted viewers around the world to create discussion boards and even a website based on the course.

"It's such a big marketplace," Salzman says. "It's a low entry fee — getting your app on the store is not that hard, there's not a big price — and then you have so many users that can get your application. So it's the current big thing, applications on the iPhone. And we're putting it within the reach of students."

Steppingstones for students

NJIT, a science and technology university in New Jersey, offered the course for the first time this spring. Jim Robertson, director of university Web services, came up with the idea before he even heard of Apple's university program.

"It was only after we really started going down the line and writing it up as a course and running it by the dean to get it on the schedule that we realized, 'Oh! There's a developer program for universities that we can apply to,' " he says, noting that they have since opted to take advantage of the program.

Robertson says he used money out of his own budget to give each student an iPod Touch to test his or her apps. Among the apps his students are working on are a "rock, paper, scissors" app and a financial engineering calculator for use on the NJIT campus.

"I started the course because there's a low threshold to entry and because Apple has set up this whole iPhone economy," Robertson says. "Student entrepreneurs can get into this and start making money and gaining experience. And I think some of these apps that our students are developing are only going to be steppingstones toward more complex and involved apps."

A way to make money

The opportunity to make money off a college course was a major draw for Tyler Auten, a senior information technology student at NJIT. So far, Auten has made hundreds of dollars off of three apps he has in the iPhone store.

The first app Auten created was "Kids Be Gone," designed in Robertson's class, which emits a high-frequency sound only kids can hear. The app, as the name suggests, was designed to keep children away from the iPhone user. Auten says he experimentally provided the app at no charge for 24 hours and was shocked to see it downloaded by 2,000 users.

"It blew my mind," he says. "Most classes at NJIT are theory-based, but this one really gives you a way of making money."

Other schools are incorporating the course in a smaller way, either as a part of its existing curriculum or a seminar. At Massachusetts Institute of Technology, iPhone app development was taught as a zero-credit, week-long seminar.

"It was very focused on the mechanics of how to program for this particular platform," says Ph.D. student Edward Benson, who taught the course. "I think the hurdle to the development platform for the iPod is very high, so it was primarily a launching pad to get them familiar with the technology." Benson says the program was inspired by Stanford's course and has led to one of his students working with a Boston-area hospital on a health care app.

He says the seminar inspired students to solve real-world problems.

"It's incredibly empowering and gives students a sense of urgency that they don't normally have," he says. "You start to see a maturity in these students as they start to solve these problems."