The iPhone is a platform for coding newbies

I love hearing this about the iPhone: the San Francisco Chronicle has a piece about how Apple's little revolutionary telephone has brought a whole new crop of programmers into the development mix. People who had never before looked at code or considered writing their own applications are getting ideas about how to make better software, picking up Cocoa and Xcode books, and going to town. And strangely, we might actually have fart apps to thank for this -- people aren't just seeing the iPhone as an innovative platform, but they're seeing the App Store as an "anything goes" environment, where even their silly little idea might work.

I don't know if we can pin all the credit for the burgeoning iPhone development scene on fart apps and the impression that even a monkey can make bestselling iPhone software (certainly Apple has set the bar and price for entry pretty low, both with the extremely cheap $100 fee for a developer account as well as the high quality Xcode software that comes on every Mac), but there is definitely something in this little device that's driving people to try and create their own software for it.

Oh, and the money probably helps, too. Still, whether people are taking up iPhone development because they want to make millions or are just looking for another hobby, it's us, app consumers, who will benefit.