

MIT Media Labs launches new Center for Mobile Learning - canistr
http://web.mit.edu/press/2011/mit-launches-new-center-for-mobile-learning.html

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flyosity
Seems like this is bought and paid for by Google and will be teaching an
Android-centric view of mobile development. This is obviously their choice,
but if they don't include any type of Objective-C and Cocoa development in
their curriculum they're doing students a huge disservice.

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Turing_Machine
I prefer iOS myself, but there are reasons other than Google's sponsorship at
work here. Apple is dead set against allowing user-created or downloaded code
to run (other than JavaScript). That means that tools like AppInventor just
aren't as practical for iOS (sure, every student _could_ fork over $99 to
become a developer, but...). In fact, Apple pulled the Scratch port from the
App Store some time ago (Scratch is a similar visual programming language,
also from MIT). I understand Apple's reasons for exercising tight control over
distribution, and even agree with them to a large degree. It _would_ be nice,
though, if you were at least allowed to download code to your own phone
without being a registered developer. That would definitely make iOS more
student-friendly.

What I'd really like to see is the ability to distribute apps to a limited
number of devices (similar to the current ad hoc provisioning), so students
could play around with networked apps. Apple could still require a registered
dev account before allowing stuff in the App Store for distribution to the
general public.

