I’m taking time whilst waiting for Mobile Monday Amsterdam to get into the swing of things to post my pictures and thoughts from iPhone Dev Camp Amsterdam on Saturday. It’s been a busy few days of mobile application development in Amsterdam and I’m noticing two worlds about to collide.
Whilst we have long been advocates of mobile+web or web+mobile / integrated services (take Treasuremytext as an example), it seems now iPhone is here, more web people are starting to take mobile really seriously.
iPhone Dev Camp was a fabulous indicator of the appeal of the iPhone platform; with a sell out 120 signups on Upcoming; and a packed Mediamatic all day Saturday. So are there 120 iPhone Developers in Amsterdam? Well, no actually nearly all of these guys would like to be iPhone developers but come from the web world. They’re making great 2.0 apps with PHP, Python, Ruby, but Objective C and Cocoa; skills you’ll need to get going with iPhone seem a long way off. iPhone Dev Camp to the rescue! Peter Robinnet made everyone at home with pancakes and the fun began. The Dutch developer scene is pretty friendly, people are happy to help each other out as they start with small scale apps to learn the basics.
We’re lucky to know at least 3 Cocoa Developers (who’s earning potential at least doubled as they can now easily transition and sell their services as ‘iPhone Developers’). For people who have any Mac development skills this is a huge opportunity. iPhone Dev Camp also highlighted that there are people desperate to have their ideas realised in the App store. The web guys get it too; and know the potential of web+iPhone strategies.
Some of the guys at the event managed to learn enough to create their first ‘hello world’ level iPhone apps - and many did much better with some pretty neat ideas. We managed to get the Treasuremytext for iPhone app tested and very nearly ready!
My pictures are here, and the Treasuremytext for iPhone app will be available very soon.
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