iPhone conference to touch on developer tools

Can’t find the nearest bookstore? There’s an application for that.

Can’t figure out how to make that revolutionary idea into an application? This weekend, there’s a conference for that.

University Information Technology Services and Apple will have an iPhone conference geared toward demonstrating some of Apple’s developer tools from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday in Alumni Hall in the Indiana Memorial Union.

Apple would not comment on the story, but John Gosney, who helped organize the conference, said that while it centers around the iPhone, the greater goal is to raise awareness of the rising market of mobile computing.

“It’s obviously iPhone-centric, but the focus is really just to bring attention to the growing popularity and emergence of mobile computing, and even more specifically, to try and target students who are interested in learning more about this concept,” Gosney said.

The conference will focus on two different areas, he said, including the development of applications for the iPhone and enhancing the accessibility of Web content for the device.

While the conference is open to the public, Gosney said it is targeted for people with at least a rudimentary knowledge of programming. The conference won’t teach people how to develop an iPhone application from scratch, he added.

“That’s not the intention here,” he said. “Rather, it’s focused on people who have some programming experience who are interested in learning more about how to import that to the iPhone.”