[Ado]

I am in no way a programmer, nor have ever delved into programming.
I do however have 5 great ideas for iphone apps and wanted to know what sort of knowledge is needed to get started?

Perhaps Apple should make a simple iDev app for hobbyists to simply develop apps for these devices?

[mduell]

Just what the app store doesn't need, more trivial apps.

150k is already a meaningless figure.

[olePigeon]

Xcode is free. You'll need to download a copy of Xcode, then grab yourself a book on basic programming. A great way to learn is to take a class at your local community college.

[torsoboy]

There are multiple applications that allow you to build iPhone apps without having to learn Objective-C code. One of them is Titanium Mobile (Titanium Mobile Application Development | Appcelerator). It allows you to develop iPhone apps using other web technologies such as Javascript and CSS.

They have competitors that offer similar products, so just look around a bit and you should be able to find something that will work for you.

Here's a fairly generic competitor: http://www.appwizard.com/

[-Q-]

And you'll eventually have to join the iPhone Developers Program to submit your apps for approval/distribution: iPhone Developer Program - Apple Developer

(Unless you're going the jailbroken route.)

[Raman]

You can develop web apps instead of those that people download off the app store.

To develop web apps all you need to know is HTML, CSS, Javascript. Someone mentioned appcelerator. Another great resource (the 1st one you should be visiting) is Building iPhone Apps with HTML, CSS, and JavaScript