Apple's new app celebrates code

With posters and invitations written in Apple Inc's Swift code typography unveiled ahead of the annual Apple Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), the US tech giant has hinted about one of this year's themes: coding and code instruction for young generations.

Apple Inc on Monday introduced Swift Playgrounds, a new app for iPad that helps users learn and explore coding in Swift, the same language used to create applications for the App Store.

According to the company, Swift Playgrounds includes Apple-developed programming lessons in which students write code to guide onscreen characters through an immersive graphical world, solving puzzles and mastering challenges as they learn core coding concepts.

"I wish Swift Playgrounds was around when I was first learning to code," said Craig Federighi, Apple's senior vice-president of software engineering.

"Although the performance of coding on iPad through Swift Playgrounds will not be as smooth as on a laptop or even a PC, the interactive features will inspire kids who (have) potential to code and are interested in computers," said An Zhehong, a software engineering major at Tongji University in Shanghai.

Tong started to learn to code at the university and believes that introducing younger generations to the subject at an early age will stimulate innovation.

Tong joined eight Chinese students among the 350 students and STEM organization members selected by the Cupertino, California, company as WWDC scholarship winners.

Tong said award candidates had to submit an application that demonstrated the use of "Apple technologies", such as a school project, or software on the App Store.

Another attendee, Yan Li, a senior iOS software engineer at EF Learning Labs, told China Daily that China has been recognized as one of the most important markets for Apple Inc and that the company is keen to invest more in local services.

Li also expressed optimism about the development of China's market with deeper integration that focuses on third-party apps on the Apple software ecosystem.

"Chinese developers are more project-driven people, and the competition in the talent-recruitment area will become white-hot, as more innovative technology-driven products and developers are demanded in the sector," Li said.

According to Apple statistics, as of October 2015, there were more than 1 million Chinese developers working on Apple software platforms, a 50 percent increase over 2014.

The profits of Chinese developers on the App Store reached $5 billion early this year. Some 270,000 apps created by Chinese developers have been published on the App Store, and the app download volume in the Greater China region has ranked No. 1around the world.

liuzheng@chinadaily.com.cn