It is just a year since Udacity launched its Nanodegrees. Now it has added two more courses, making the total number uo to eight. One of the new additions is for iOS beginners; the other is for those with an idea for a startup.

Most Udaciity Nanodegrees are designed for job-readiness and are created with industry partners, taking into account the needs of prospective employers as well as those of students.

In the case of Beginning iOS App Development, however, there's a different objective. It can be seen as a preparation for embarking on the existing iOS Developer Nanodegree and it doesn't have any prerequisites other than being motivated to learn and the ability to communicate in written and spoken English.

The course content is also quite different in that rather than building apps from scratch students are provided with three working iOS apps that they make functional by adding code using Swift 2.0. This beginner's level nanodegree is expected to take 3-4 moths with a minimum of 10 hours per week after which students should be ready for the advanced level iOS Developer one which requires 6-9 months and is being updated to Swift 2.0.

Rather than prepare students as employees of a company, the other new offering sets out to teach the skills need to build their own businesses - and not necessarily ones that are anything to do with software.  According to its description, the Tech Entrepreneur Nanodegree program, which has been built in partnership with Google:

mixes theory and practice to teach students how to transform their ideas into market-ready products and to how to build sustainable, revenue-generating businesses around those products. mixes theory and practice to teach students how to transform their ideas into market-ready products and to how to build sustainable, revenue-generating businesses around those products.

It is expected to take 4-7 months at a cost of $200.00 per month, but if you graduate within 12 months of your start date you'll be refunded 50% of the fees you have paid - a deal that currently applies to all nanodegrees. The current enrollment window for nanodegrees closes October 26 at 11:59 Eastern Time, but if you miss that deadline the next one will open within a few weeks. 

Many of the Udacity courses associated with its nanodegree programs are available free and this is true of a new short course, on developing apps for Smartwatches, that is part of the growing Android Nanodegree curriculum.

Android Wear Development is at advanced level and around 12 hours of effort. It is part of a three-course set on Ubiquitous Computing that prepares students enrolled on the Android Nanodegree program for a project in which they build a watch face. Designed by Google, the course is a practical approach to getting started with Android Wear.

It takes you through code snippets, and deep dives into sample code, showing you how easy it is to extend your existing Android apps to work on Android Wear. It also covers how to design user interfaces and great experiences for this unique wearable platform, which is important because the interface of the watch needs to be glanceable and unobtrusive for all day use. If you are not intent on gaining the nanodegree credential, you can start this course whenever you want. 

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