Category: Uncategorized

Interested in learning how to develop iPhone Apps and develop Android Apps?

Charles Sturt University has announced they are now offering a Master of Mobile Applications Development course, for people who are interested in a University level course teaching them everything they need to develop their own mobile apps.

According to the Press Release;

To meet surging demand for mobile applications developers Charles Sturt University has worked with industry to create the Master of Applications Development, a course devoted to the design and maintenance of mobile apps for the Apple IOS, Google Android and Microsoft platforms.

Since the introduction of the first iPhone in 2007 employment in the app development industry has increased rapidly: 9.4 percent of all IT jobs in Australia now relate to the development, maintenance or support of mobile platforms and this figure is expected to grow. A recent report by the Department of Employment predicted up to 50,000 new job openings for software and apps programmers over the next five years.

Students taking Charles Sturt’s Master of Applications Development course will learn how to use sophisticated development frameworks such as Xamarin, PhoneGap and Unity to build cross-platform mobile apps that fill a need in the market. They will also have the opportunity to create a mobile app that they can commercialise.

The new university course will offer the following subjects:

Core subjects

• TC506 Topics in IT Ethics
• ITC518 Principles of Programming using C#*
• ITC539 Mobile Application Development PG
• ITC571 Emerging Technologies and Innovation**
• ITE508 Developing Web Applications
• ITE528 Cross Platform App Development
• ITE529 Cross Platform Game Development
• MGI521 Professional Communications

Restricted Electives (Choose 4)

• ITC504 Interface Useability
• ITC508 Object Modelling
• ITC561 Cloud Computing
• ITE510 SharePoint Application Development
• ITE517 Developing Applications for Windows Phone and Mobile Devices
• ITE518 Agile Project Management
• ITE523 Virtualization
• MKT501 Marketing Management

What does this mean for the Mobile App Industry?

To me this is an exciting development. Most mobile app developers are self taught – they just picked up a book on iPhone App Development or Android App Development and started working through it. The fact there is sufficient demand that a major Australian university has decided to offer a specific course shows that the Mobile App Revolution has not even begun to fulfil its full potential. The opportunities are growing – and as with every business growth story, the advantage goes to people who move first, who stay ahead of the herd.

The other interesting feature of the course appears to be a heavy emphasis on Microsoft C# programming language. Although Microsoft has struggled to make inroads into the mobile market, which is currently dominated by Apple iPhone and Google Android, Microsoft are still very much in the game. Microsoft Corporation has a cash mountain, 10s of billions of dollars, available for investment. My guess is they are using some of that cash to encourage the deployment of Microsoft centric mobile app development courses, in the hope of stimulating interest in the Microsoft mobile platform.

If you would like to know more about mobile app development, or perhaps you are attending a mobile app course, and would like some mobile app course tuition, Contact me now.

US Sheriffs are campaigning for Google to switch off a feature of their Android app for drivers, which displays the location of police officers on their driving map.

According to The Guardian:

Waze, which Google purchased for $966m in 2013, is a combination of GPS navigation and social networking. Fifty million users in 200 countries turn to the free service for real-time traffic guidance and warnings about nearby congestion, car accidents, speed traps or traffic cameras, construction zones, potholes, stalled vehicles or unsafe weather conditions.

To Sergio Kopelev, a reserve deputy sheriff in southern California, Waze is also a stalking app for law enforcement.

There are no known connections between any attack on police and Waze, but law enforcers such as Kopelev are concerned it’s only a matter of time. They are seeking support among other law enforcement trade groups to pressure Google to disable the police-reporting function. The emerging policy debate places Google again at the center of an ongoing global debate about public safety, consumer rights and privacy.

Waze users mark police presence on maps without much distinction other than “visible” or “hidden”. Users see a police icon, but it’s not immediately clear whether police are there for a speed trap, a sobriety check or a lunch break. The police generally are operating in public spaces.

The Waze mobile app controversy highlights the radical impact mobile apps are having on our lives. Avoiding speed cameras is obviously a very attractive feature for drivers – if nothing else, it helps highlight dangerous stretches of road where they should pay particular care, assuming that speed cameras have been installed with a view to improving public safety. But as the recent deliberate murder of police officers demonstrates, an app which potentially assists deranged individuals to perpetrate crimes is obviously a serious concern.

I don’t know what the right tradeoff is between liberty and safety, though I tend towards the liberty side of the debate. Regardless of police concerns, the threat they have highlighted is hypothetical. There is no evidence anyone has actually used Waze to facilitate a violent crime.

One thing is clear – the original creators of the Waze Android App made 966 million dollars. At the time the app was purchased by Google, nobody had any concerns about possible malicious use of Waze Mobile App features.

In my opinion, the lesson is, if you are evaluating what features to include in your app, do what due diligence you can, with the information available – but nobody can predict every possibility.

Announcing the new Hervey Bay Business Mobile App Development Meetup.

Desirable Apps are hoping to get everyone in the Hervey Bay / Maryborough / Fraser Coast area who are interested in mobile apps together in one place, in the Lakes Room in Hervey Bay RSL, to talk shop, bounce ideas off each other, and stimulate creativity and business inspiration.

Meet us on the 26th November between 10am and midday in the Lakes Room of the Hervey Bay RSL, 11 Torquay Road, Hervey Bay, 4655.

For more details, click http://www.meetup.com/Hervey-Bay-Business-Mobile-App-Development-Meetup/events/216050782/

Everyone is welcome – people with a mobile app idea, people who are interested in mobile apps, businesses or individuals considering creating their own apps, iPhone App developers, Android App developers, Mobile Web developers. Bring your favourite phone. We look forward to seeing you at the meeting!

Today’s Dilbert cartoon is a hilarious take on marketing, which contains more than a grain of truth. Dilbert, in this episode, when asked what should be done to sell more products, replies “we should find out what they need, and give it to them”.

This solution seems so simple, so self evident, yet its amazing how rarely people follow this fundamental prescription for success.

Dilbert is not specifically about iPhone Apps or Android Apps, but its well worth reading – it satirises many common business mistakes.

Anyway, enough preaching – enjoy the cartoon 🙂

http://dilbert.com/strips/2014-09-07/

A security researcher with rather too much time on his hands, has turned his grandmother’s siamese cat into a devastating cyberspy. He did this, by creating a cat collar with a WIFI sensor, which detects weak home wireless internet systems, and reports back to home base.

The original cat collar was just a HTC mobile phone attached to a normal collar, but this proved too much of a burden to the cat, which ditched its payload, then ran off and hid.

So the researcher went all out, creating a super miniature version of his cyber sniffer.

For full details of this hilarious, yet oddly disturbing story, Click Here

The Register reports on a bizarre new Android App hack, which literally makes your phone blab all its secrets.

The malware app sidesteps the normal attack vectors by doing one simple thing – calling the bad guy’s voice phone number – then the malware coerces the phone into actually “speaking” all your secrets down the phone line, using a bug in Google text to voice.

So next time your phone starts talking by itself, listen to what it is saying – because all that unexpected chatter might be something more sinister than a funny little software defect.