Fashion Mode

Today, people carry around computers in their pocket more powerful than computer scientist of decades past dreamed possible. With full colour screens and increasingly high speed internet, as well as multiple choices for operating system, manufacturer and major corporations going head to head to try to dominate the market, an item that once took hauling around a briefcase broadcast unit just for patchy voice calls has become as integrated into modern living as desktop computers became. Add a blossoming expansion in the availability of tablets and e-readers, the flat screened bridge between full feature notebook computers and phones, and computer courses are updating to include new realities.

Applications (Apps)

Small programs designed to run on smartphones, apps, can be everything from alarm clocks to integrated data sharing systems. There's also been a renewed interest in converting vintage computer games, fuelled one part by eight-bit nostalgia, and one part by taking advantage of limited phone memory. Companies are trying to take advantage of name recognition by providing some sort of free phone software, while entrepreneurs hope to duplicate the successes of simple games that captivated audiences with food slicing assassins. Computer courses will help prepare you, not just for developing new products, but also backwards compatibility. Demand for apps is so high that some educational institutions will even run app designer competitions.

Mobile Web

Most phones are now equipped to do both dual wireless and cellphone network facilitated internet, meaning a need for a retooling of all websites for a browser version. Web design courses have to include a section on making pages be useable and look good on tiny screens and slower networks, while programmers for major corporations continue to strive to improve the under pinning operating systems. No university or computer college worth its tuition will fail to provide at least an introduction to the mobile web to budding web designers and programmers alike.

Tablets and Touchscreens

Touch sensitive screens are not a new technology, but asides from a limited range of use in graphic design and public utilities such as ticket machines; for the most part they had been a strict novelty or decorative setting element in science fiction stories. Today, what was once mostly a footnote in computer courses is the essential interface in tablets and smart phones alike. While some ereaders still stubbornly cling to button based interfaces, and all these utilities will maintain at least an old fashioned power button, users learn to swipe their fingers across screens and tap smooth surfaces to type. Capturing a segment of the luxury market, tablets are proving to have an industry use sharing conference proceedings and for lower commitment computer use for the modern, internet anchored worker, who stays in round the clock contact with their office.