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A short time ago we mentioned that Standford’s iPhone Application Programming course was being made available as a video podcast via iTunes U. In addition to two lectures a week, the course offers special Friday sessions, one of which recently featured Atebits‘ Loren Brichter (iTunes link), the developer behind popular iPhone (and now Mac) Twitter client, Tweetie (see our review).

Brichter, though he worked for Apple on the first generation iPhone, had no actual app development experience when he set out to make Tweetie, yet the app has become the most successful iPhone — and mobile — paid Twitter client in terms of both revenue and user base, hitting the #6 position in the App Store at one point. How’d that happen?

At the beginning of the lecture, Brichter shares his App Store daily revenue graph (sans actual dollar amounts) for Tweetie, which he says he made simply because he wasn’t satisfied with any of the existing clients. Focusing on a mix of functionality and simplicity, and an Apple-like experience, Brichter credits luck, quality, and marketing for Tweetie’s success. Part of that marketing, after a small initial sales spike due to friends and family, was the semi-facetious introduction of PEE (”popularity enhancers” like a flashlight and fart sounds) that garnered a lot of media attention and quintupled growth for a while.

Other growth occurred when Apple featured Tweetie on their main page, but the biggest growth-booster — also thanks to Apple — was when Tweetie 1.3 was rejected by the App Store due to the term f**kitlist just happening to be a trend on Twitter’s search results that day. Press jumped on it and users bought it up. (Apple reversed their decision later that same day).

The final two growth spikes occurred after Twitter itself began highlighting Tweetie as part of their sidebar factoid promotion, and after the press surrounding the recent introduction of Tweetie for Mac.

Being part of the Application Development course, Brichter also touches on some of the things he did from a programming standpoint to boost Tweetie’s performance.

Looks behind the app development curtain, especially in academic settings with some back-and-forth questions and answers, are rare enough in the iPhone world that anyone interested should definitely consider checking out the whole session.

iTunes U has posted the first in what promises to be a series of video lectures on iPhone Application Programming [iTunes link] from Stanford University. Led by Evan Doll and Alan Cannistaro, it’s recommended for people with previous C, UNIX, object oriented programming languages, and graphics tookit experience, but will likely prove of value to anyone interested to in coding the next great iPhone app. Ars Technica says:

Videos of all the lectures, lead by Apple engineers, will be posted on iTunes U two days after each class meeting [...] The slides from the lectures will be available to download as well. The school notes that the material will be the same that enrolled students get, but unfortunately, following the lessons via iTunes U won’t make you eligible for college credit.

So, who’s adding it to their feed?

A while back TUAW reported that an iPhone programming course was being created. Well that course became a reality and they now have 80 students signed up and ready to start developing killer apps this fall. Along with the programming course, Stanford has designed a project that contains a series of apps for their students… The Stanford iApps Project. These apps are currently in beta testing and should be in the App Store soon.

A suite of five software applications developed by students is now being tested on campus. Two of them, for managing course registration and bills, are intended for students. The other three will allow access to Stanford’s searchable campus map, get team scores and schedules, and check listings in the university’s online directory, StanfordWho.

All of this makes me want to go back to college all over again. A class for developing iPhone apps, a series of apps on my iPhone for me to use just to make my learning experience that much better? Where do I sign up?

Steve would be so proud.

[Via TUAW]