iPhone Apps: The New High-Tech Gold Rush?
Five developers share their stories.
To kick off the Keller Center's Princeton-Jumpstart Lecture Series on Technology Entrepreneurship this fall, a panel discussion on iPhone applications was held at Princeton University in the Friend Center Auditorium at 5:30 p.m. on November 12. A reception followed in the Friend Center Atrium.
Read the article on Princeton' School of Engineering and Applied Science website.
To read a blog on the event, please click here.
The panel addressed many questions. With over 75,000 applications in the Apple App store and over a billion downloads, is the iPhone app market the new high-tech gold rush? There are apps for everything-but which app categories are hot? How does a developer get started? What are the relevant business models for guaranteeing success? Developers working on communication, gaming, social networking and health apps spoke to a large audience.
The event, was open to the public and sponsored by the Keller Center for Innovation in Engineering Education, Jumpstart New Jersey Angel Network, and Drinker Biddle & Reath LLP.
The Panelists
Bump Technologies makes a universal interface for device-to-device communication. Bump iPhone app users can exchange phone number, other people's contact information, or photos by simply bumping two phones together. Read the news item.
Sharon Fordham, Chairperson of the Board of Skyworks
Skyworks® recently entered the iPhone market. The company has seen rapid consumer acceptance of its games in the fast growing Apple App store. The company's games have quickly arisen to the Top 100 games of their respective segments in the App Store.
Ken Kay, CEO of ici 
ici is a publishing, social network, and blogging platform for location-aware devices such as the iPhone/iTouch. ici enables mobile people to share interests and activities using the mobile device as the viewing and input device. Unlike other messaging tools where location is an afterthought, ici is specifically designed for delivering useful information to mobile communities.
Matthew Connor ’11, Co-Founder of iAbetics
iAbetics offers a mobile Diabetes management application for the iPhone and iPod Touch. Islet™ 2.0 allows quick and easy recording of blood glucose readings, carbohydrate intake, insulin injections, and exercise, as well as email export and graphical analysis. Read the news item about Matthew Connor's $100,000 award to develop his app.
Harry Schmidt, Developer of Lexidium and Lexiphanes
Harry Schmidt is a Ph.D. candidate in Classics at Princeton University. In addition to his primary research interest, ancient Greek tragedy, Harry is at the forefront of computational philology, a new discipline that uses modern computer technology to help solve ancient literary problems. In addition to Lexidium and Lexiphanes, his Latin and Greek dictionary tools for the iPhone, Harry is currently researching the use of optical character recognition to build 
a large machine-readable database of classical texts for the public domain. A program to automatically analyze the complex meter of Greek and Latin poetry is in the works.
About the Princeton-Jumpstart Lecture Series
The Keller Center continues its partnership with the Jumpstart NJ Angel Network, a private, member-led group that makes "angel" investments in early-stage technology companies in the Mid-Atlantic region -- to share knowledge on technology entrepreneurship. Through the partnership, distinguished business leaders are invited to speak to the Princeton and local business communities. The lectures and forums are tailored to help an audience of new, potential, and seasoned entrepreneurs create and nurture new ventures. Events are followed by a reception where students, faculty, entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and angel investors meet informally to discuss ideas and exchange knowledge and advice.