New technology brings new computer course

Dr. Mutlu Mete, an assistant professor in the Department of Computer Science at Texas A&M University-Commerce, is teaching an undergraduate course next semester on how to program and market applications for iPhones and iPads.

"I am teaching this course not only for educational purposes but for marketing purposes," Mete said. "It's very obvious that the market is increasing rapidly, not only for mobile phones but for tablets as well."

The Atlantic Wire reports that one-third of mobile phones owned by adults in the United States are smart phones.  Among those is Megan Lambert, a freshman special education major, who owns an iPhone 3GS and gladly expresses her feelings about it.

"It has eliminated the need for some information to be put down on paper, which helps the environment," Lambert says. " It allows a greater access to material, such as articles, religious texts, and novels. It puts many things like television schedules, workout records, maps, calculators, and others in a single place, creating ease for users around the globe."

Technology has become more and more prevalent in everyday life, and the university is no exception. Even the technology used by students in the past few years has received an upgrade.

"The eCollege has a small application for mobile phones," Mete says. "You may check your courses and join discussions through your mobile phone. I can share resources with the students and they are able to access those resources through their mobile phones."

 James Yznaga, a senior computer science major currently studying in South Korea, sees the reliance on technology as both a negative and positive change.

"Since almost everyone has either a smart phone or a music player that is very similar to a smart phone, information has begun saturating our life," Yznaga said. "More information is a double-edged sword. We tend to forget things that we believe we can find or derive later. We obviously want to learn more things and actually learning them is great. However, when we become reliant on technology to replace our memory is when it becomes bad."

In this course students will have the opportunity to choose what sort of application they wish to design, and Texas A&M-Commerce has teamed up with the iOS Developer University Program in order to make this process easier for students.  Through this program, students are given the resources needed to create applications for Apple products, share them among one another, and even have the opportunity to view their applications on an iPhone or iPad in order to see the finished product.