Apple has seeded iOS 5.1 beta 1 to developers, the build is 9B5117b and runs on iPhone 4S, iPhone 4, iPhone 3GS, iPad, iPad 2, and iPod touch 3rd and 4th gen. For those in the iOS developer program, you can download the iOS 5.1 beta right now directly from Apple’s dev center as IPSW files. Alongside the iOS 5.1 beta came a new build of Xcode 4.3, which is also required for developing anything for iOS 5.1.

The 5.1 beta notes include many mentions of bugs, you can read the full release notes on 9to5mac if you’re interested. They also uncovered references to an unreleased iPad 2 model in the beta, which they presume is for the Sprint network.

Stanford University’s School of Engineering has released full HD videos and slides of their Fall 2011 “Developing Apps for iOS” course. The lectures and lessons for CS193P are focused on iOS 5 and downloadable for free from iTunes University, offering a great look at beginning iOS development through the eyes of a world class engineering school.

• iTunes U & Stanford: iPad and iPhone Application Development (iTunes link)

If you haven’t downloaded any courses from iTunes before, a new section in the iTunes Library sidebar titled “iTunes U” will appear to contain the lessons.

Stanford’s description of the course is as follows:

Tools and APIs required to build applications for the iPhone platform using the iPhone SDK. User interface designs for mobile devices and unique user interactions using multitouch technologies. Object-oriented design using model-view-controller pattern, memory management, Objective-C programming language. iPhone APIs and tools including Xcode, Interface Builder and Instruments on Mac OS X. Other topics include: core animation, bonjour networking, mobile device power management and performance considerations.

Official prerequisites to the course are: C language and programming experience, and recommend experience with UNIX and object oriented programming. You’ll obviously need a Mac, Xcode, and the iOS SDK installed as well.

• Download Xcode 4.2 from iTunes – free
• Install the iOS SDK – free

Stanford University has made it a tradition to offer select courses for free online, including past iPhone development classes and the currently ongoing “Intro to Databases” course.

If you missed out on the $99 HP TouchPad deals that seem to have the entire tech web in a frenzy, don’t forget that you can experience WebOS for free right now on Mac OS X, just by using the SDK’s emulator. You’ll need to download VirtualBox and then the WebOS SDK which comes as a preconfigured virtual machine, but then you can toy around in WebOS and get a feel for the (possibly defunct) touch OS.

Here’s what you’ll need to get started:

• Download VirtualBox 4.0.12 for OS X (direct download link)
• Download Palm WebOS SDK (direct download link)

Installing the actual emulator is simple, even more so if you have any experience running virtual machines. Just download and run the WebOS SDK installer and when it’s finished the emulator will appear in /Applications ready for you to play around with.

It’s that simple, but if you need any more assistance you can read more on developer.palm.com.

Heads up to @mattgemmell on Twitter for the idea.

Whether you’re a UX or UI designer, app developer, or just want to create some mockups of Mac OS X Lion apps for fun, don’t miss these free OS X Lion UI Element kits from designers Jonatan Castro and Joshua Geiger. The GUI kits come as well labeled multi-layered PSD files that have all the main user interface elements from OS X Lion, ranging from sliders, dials, checkboxes, buttons, tabs, just about everything you can think of.

Download Lion UI Kit PSD file from Dribbble (shown above)

Download Lion UI Kit from SuiteTuts (shown below)

The two kits are slightly different and combine to be fairly complete, with the second kit focusing more on Desktop and Finder elements. The only thing I can find missing is the blue active button you see in things like Save dialogs, but chances are the PSD files will be updated to include that sometime in the near future, and regardless both are well worth the free download.

You can also download similar free GUI element PSD files for iPhone and iPad mockups too.

Want to learn a new programming language? Python is one of the hippest languages in use these days, but why pay for books and coursework when you can do this all on your own, for free, on your Mac? You can do exactly that with Dive Into Python 3, which has been made available as a free download online or as a PDF.

A couple notes, the book is for Python 3, but Mac OS X Lion bundles Python 2.7, so you’ll want to download the latest version. Here’s all you’ll need to get started:

• Xcode 4.1 – free download from the App Store
• Text Editor with Python syntax highlighting – Xcode works for this, or TextWrangler is highly recommended too, it’s the free little brother to BBEdit
• Python 3.2.1 for Mac OS X 10.6 and 10.7 (direct link, other OS versions here)
• Bookmark DiveIntoPython3.org or better yet…
• Download the entire book as a PDF and example files, for free – you can then save and open the PDF on your iPad for quick reference if you want

Thanks to Mike for the link to HackerNews, where the discussion thread also include recommendations for the official tutorial on Python.org and the accompanying reference guide as two additional great resources for learning.

Update: Another good Python book that is available for free online viewing is Learn Python the Hard Way, thanks to those who recommended this one.

A new addition to Mac OS X Lion and Xcode 4.1 is a utility called Network Link Conditioner, a highly customizable tool that lets you simulate a variety of common internet connectivity speeds. The utility is aimed at Mac and iOS developers so they can test their apps response times on a variety of network conditions, but it’s also extremely useful for IT admins, network administrators, and web developers.

• Download and install Xcode 4.1 (App Store link) – free download for OS X 10.7 users
• After Xcode is installed, head on over to:

/Applications/Utilities/Network Link Conditioner/

• Double-click on “Network Link Conditioner.prefPane” to load the utility into System Preferences

You can start using the bandwidth simulator right away. Network Link Conditioner is fairly self explanatory, just select a bandwidth profile that you want to simulate and click the “ON” button to activate it immediately. The default choices are:

• 3G – Average Case, Good Connectivity, or Lossy Network
• Cable Modem
• DSL
• Edge – Average Case, Good Connectivity, or Lossy Network
• Wifi – Average Case, Good Connectivity, or Lossy Network

If you find the existing bandwidth profiles too limiting, click on the little lock icon in the lower left corner, and then onto the “Manage Profiles” button in the bottom right to create or edit a new profile. Here you can set things like downlink and uplink bandwidth, up and down packets dropped, response delay, and even DNS delay.

If you do any sort of development work, network administration, or anything else that requires testing potential users internet connectivity speeds, be it an iPhone app, usage of remote networks, or a web site, Network Link Conditioner is highly recommended, install it now.

iCloud Beta is now live for developers to access, and we know what the pricing plans look like, but average users are left just looking at screenshots for now. Just kidding! If you want to check out iCloud’s very iOS-like Springboard and web apps, and you don’t have a developer account, you can use this cool little trick from @devongovett on Twitter:

Access iCloud Springboard without an Account Using Safari or Google Chrome

• Go to iCloud.com and ignore the login credential screen
• Right-click anywhere on the iCloud.com page and select “Inspect Element”
• Click on the ‘Console’ button on the far right of the element inspector
• Paste the following into the Javascript console:

CloudOS.statechart.gotoState("active.springboard")

• Hit the Return key and skirt right past the login screen and into the iCloud springboard

I have confirmed this works in Safari and Chrome and presumably it works the same in Firefox, just paste that code into their appropriate javascript console.

You’ll notice the iCloud interface is very iOS-like and all the animations and buttons feel like iOS, pretty impressive for the web wouldn’t you say?

This little tip comes from @devongovett via @viticci on Twitter, you can follow us there too.

Update: To clarify, most things don’t work without a beta login, and each time you click on something you will get an error message like the one below that requires you to reload the springboard again.

The final version of Xcode 4.1 has been released as a free download to everyone via the Mac App Store. Mostly for developers, Xcode is the Mac OS X-only development environment for creating OS X and iOS apps, but the package also includes various useful command line tools, and even an iOS hardware simulator, making it a worthwhile download for power users as well as developers.

Before you get the latest version of Xcode though, you will need to download Mac OS X Lion and complete that installation.

Get XCode 4.1 free from the Mac App Store

Here are the key changes for XCode 4.1 with Lion support, via the App Store page:

What’s new in Xcode 4.1 for OS X Lion
- Includes SDKs for OS X Lion and iOS 4.3
- Interface Builder support for Auto Layout and new Aqua controls such as NSPopover
- Full screen support in workspace, project, and organizer windows
- Project modernization to identify and resolve out of date build settings
- Behaviors can be customized and assigned to unique key bindings
- Source control enhancements to pushing, pulling, and management of remote servers
- Assistant editor support for display of generated assembly and preprocessed output
- Additional bug fixes and stability improvements

Prior to this release, Xcode cost $4.99 to download.

For those of us who didn’t make it to WWDC 2011, Apple has released full videos of all the WWDC sessions. There’s a lot to learn here, with over 100 sessions covering both Mac OS X and iOS, and each is presented by Apple engineers.

Head over to the Dev Center to get the videos on iTunes.

The videos are available in both HD and SD formats, and they are accessible to anyone with an Apple developer account – not just the paid $99 iOS and Mac dev accounts – so if you want to watch them all it takes is a brief free registration to get access.

If you use GitHub for version control or just to share and manage code, you ought to grab the brand new GitHub client for Mac OS X. It’s a great looking app that lets you find and manage repositories, check commit history and changes, sync and view branches, create and merge branches, compare and rollback commits, and everything else you’d expect from a version control client and the social code sharing site.

You can download GitHub for free or read more about it on the github blog.

Prototypes is a new Mac app that lets anyone quickly create functional iOS application prototypes and share them with other people, no coding is required.

The prototypes can be created from any Photoshop, Illustrator, Fireworks, PSD, JPG, or any image file at all, just drag a few images into the app, define hotspots (touch locations), setup some transitions, and quickly preview or publish a prototype. These touch-responsive prototypes will run directly from Safari on an iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad, making it very easy to test a functional iOS interface.

You can buy Prototypes from the Mac App Store for $39.99 (App Store link)

How well do these published prototypes function? The developers provide a sample working prototype that has been exported from the app, here is how you can try it out yourself:

• Go to http://ptyp.es from an iOS device
• Follow the onscreen instructions to bookmark the prototype URL to your iOS homescreen
• Enter PIN: 1467 5639

You’ll now be in a working app mockup of a fictitious ‘Garden Snap’ iPhone application, touch on elements and you’ll get a new screen demonstrating features just as you’d expect. Some things don’t seem to work, like scrolling through lists, but remember this is a UI/UX mockup viewed in Safari, not a full fledged working iOS application.

Combine Prototypes with some of the PSD files of iPad and iPhone GUI elements and you should be able to make quick work fleshing out some of the app ideas you have, which may even help you reduce the overall costs of app development. Not a bad deal, right?

Twitter developers have a compelling new reason to update to Twitter 2.1 for Mac: the developer console!

You can enable the developer features through Preferences > Developer tab > “Show Developer Menu”. Unfortunately for tinkerers and those just looking to casually poke around, you’ll need Twitter apps API keys to actually use and access the dev console.

Other notable changes in Twitter 2.1 are some significant UI tweaks, font size adjusting, AppleScript support, the ability to spin tweets off into new windows, and of course various bug fixes. It’s a worthwhile upgrade, even if you aren’t a developer. You can download Twitter for Mac directly from the Mac App Store, it’s free.

Screenshot and tip via Twitter @rsms

Want to help test Chrome development releases and be on the absolute cutting edge of web browser development? Try out the newly released Google Chrome Canary for Mac OS X, which Google says is aimed at the “bravest” of Chrome users.

Chrome Canary installs as a separate app to the stable Chrome builds, so you don’t need to worry about overwriting your existing app or Chrome resources. Canary is then automatically updated to the latest build and offers no testing before each release, meaning you’ll have lots of interesting features and improvements alongside a slew of bugs and crashes, Google even says “we expect it to be unstable and, at times, unusable…” so be prepared to fill out crash reports.

If this sounds like fun to you, you can download Chrome Canary from Google.com and help out.

I like Chrome a lot but I’m partial to stable browser releases, nonetheless Canary is fun to play around with to see what’s cooking over at Google. Heads up to MacGasm for the tip.

Want a world class education on iPhone and iOS development? Check out Stanford Universities iOS & iPhone Development course CS193p, the class has been taught several times now and each one has been uploaded to iTunes as a free video podcast. In addition to the free video lessons, you also get complete access to all class slides, tutorials, and assignments.

The classes assume you have some experience with development concepts and Object Oriented Programming, although the first lesson does a quick overview of object oriented principles and vocabulary. If you’re totally new to programming, you might want to grab a beginners book before jumping into the Stanford lessons.

iTunes: iPhone Application Development – Winter 2010

iTunes: Developing Apps for iOS – Fall 2010

Stanford: Assignment & lectures for Winter 2010

Stanford: Assignment & lecture slides for Fall 2010

The classes require you to have Xcode installed, which you can either install Xcode 3 from an existing Mac OS X 10.6 installation DVD and then install the iOS SDK, or you can get Xcode 4 from the Mac App Store for $5. Registered iOS developers can always download Xcode 4 for free as part of their membership.

FWIW, tuition at Stanford University starts at a whopping $38,000 a year, so being able to watch their courses online is a pretty great deal.

If you have a website of your own or are developing one for someone else, you should customize the saved bookmark icon that appears on a users iOS home screen. In the screenshot above you’ll see the custom OSXDaily favicon sitting on the screen of an iPhone 3GS.

Setting the Apple Touch Icon is a good idea because by default iOS will just save a small thumbnail of the site. The small thumbnails are often hard to identify and generally don’t look that great, so let’s set your own favicon image instead.

How to Customize and Set an Apple Touch Icon for a Website

• Create the icon, make sure it is a square, the one here on OSXDaily.com is 120×120 pixels, but you could choose other sizes
• Save the homescreen icon as a PNG file and label it: apple-touch-icon.png
• Drop apple-touch-icon.png into the root webserver directory, so it can be accessed at domain.com/apple-touch-icon.png
• Test your websites homescreen bookmark icon by visiting the site from Safari in iOS, and then tapping on “Add to Home Screen”
• Look at the iOS device homescreen and you’ll see the bookmark saved there with your new custom icon, like the screenshot above

As long as the file is properly named and in the webservers root directory, Mobile Safari will know what to do with it so there is no further adjustment needed to get the iOS specific favicon to show up.

For reference, here is our custom ‘apple-touch-icon.png’ image that we use for OSXDaily.com:

You’ll notice that the actual icon file does not have the light refraction saved onto the icon, iOS handles this on it’s own. You can use any image you want, but I’d recommend creating one that captures the familiar UI of existing iOS icons.

This obviously isn’t the same as having a dedicated iOS app, but a decent mobile user experience from the web is a good idea and it avoids what can be the high price of developing an iOS app.

And hey, if you’re concerned about stuff like this, you probably use Photoshop to at least design the icons right? So check out some tips to speed up Photoshop while you’re at it.