College of Engineering News

There's an app class for that...

Posted on: October 30, 2009

Chances are you’ve had some great ideas for Apple’s app store. College of Engineering students have, too, and now they can turn their ideas into reality by taking a new class offered by computer science professor Ken Joy.

ECS 198H – Introduction To iPhone Application Development – teaches students the basics of application development, from working with Apple’s Software Development Kit (SDK) to submitting an application to Apple and even starting your own business.

Students will hear a series of guest speakers, including the main guest lecturer, UC Davis Alumnus Serban Porumbescu, who received his Ph.D. from UC Davis in computer science and now works for Tapuls, the company that has both the best-selling iPhone application and the highest revenue of all application companies.

The first four weeks of the class are devoted to mastering the SDK and managing programming issues. During the following six weeks the class will divide into teams of two to develop applications.

Joy created the class so that his students could work on relevant real-world problems that are dictated by a rapidly changing industry. Meanwhile, the basic tools students learn for this class can easily be translated into creating other web or phone applications, including apps for devices like the Google Android and the Palm Pre.