It's been almost a year since Stanford University launched it's iPhone developers course on iTunes, and on the 12th of this month, they launched an update for the popular course which boasts over a million users. The course material provides all the know how on working with the Tools and APIs for the iPhone SDK. The course, being run by the Stanford's School of Engineering, is not for everyone, with an intermediate knowledge of C language, UNIX, and object-orientated programming all desired prerequisites. Stanford has embraced the iPhones' many possibilities, even launching the first iPhone Orchestra. Many similar developer courses are appearing in the education world, with courses being offered at many universities and private training institutions worldwide.

What does this mean for the AppStore?

At the launch of the Stanford course there were approximately 40,000 Apps available in the iTunes Store, and now we see figures surpassing 100,000. Okay, I'm not saying that these courses are responsible for a 110% increase in the AppStore, but the availability of Developer training courses can explain the surge of small Indie games, especially in the free - 99 cent catalog. There is word that even MBA students are swaying towards App Development for the entrepreneurial opportunities (I'm sure some Indie developers would have a chuckle about that), with the flood of Apps pooling around the 99 cent mark in order to secure purchases, are we already seeing a knot in this new Marketplace?