iPhone development has created a huge business opportunity for many companies, and the possibilities are only increasing with the announcement of the iPad and constantly improving software. Part of this business involves not only developing applications, but also helping other people develop applications in an easy, hassle-free way. Two companies trying to do this, SachManya and SelfServeApplications, have recently announced new products for this very task.

Stanford University, which has quite the collection of free content available on iTunes U, will soon be beginning their iPhone Application Programming course. This course, which will cover Cocoa programming for the Mac as well as a plethora of other coding practices, will have the content and videos up a few days after each lecture.

A while back I wrote about my initial experience with the iPhone SDK and developing on that platform. It’s been a while since then, and I’ve learned a lot. In that time, I had finished my first app, and it came time for me to get some beta testers to make sure it worked on more than just my iPhone 3G. The Ad Hoc distribution process is certainly not as easy as it could be, but I think once you figure it out, it’s easy to crank out apps for beta testers.

I am currently in the process of developing my own application for the iTunes App Store. Well, I guess you could say I am finished and waiting with eager anticipation for Apple to accept it. However, while that’s going on over in Cupertino, I though I’d share some of my experiences with the first part of developing an iPhone application: the actual coding and software. Using Apple’s XCode, the iPhone Simulator, and example code from Apple, you can have your own app up and running for free in almost no time at all. Apple has done a really great job at helping developers delve into the iPhone SDK.