Swift Playgrounds is a pretty good way to begin your acquaintance with coding. Indeed, that was the one of the motives when Apple launched the app for the iOS platform last year. After all, the greater the number of developers associated with a particular operating system, the greater would be the number of apps and by extension, its potential to attract users.
Towards its goal of making coding in swift (which is Apple’s in-house language for creating iOS apps) a household thing, Apple has announced that its Swift Playgrounds is now available in five more languages. The new options include Simplified Chinese, Japanese, French, German and Latin American Spanish. If you haven’t had occasion to try the app yet, it packs a cocktail programming lessons, puzzles and challenges that are designed to let the student hit the ground running.
Speaking on the topic, Apple CEO Tim Cook said:
Hundreds of thousands of iPhone and iPad apps, including some of the most popular in the App Store, use Swift — a programming language we designed to be both powerful and easy for anyone to learn.
Swift Playgrounds is part of a wide, important effort by Apple and is far more than being just another coding application. The company launched it for iPads instead of Macs because one, the former can provide a more suitable environment for the kind of comfortable learning Apple had in its mind. And secondly, parents are more likely to get their kids iPads as compared to a Macbook.
While the app isn’t exclusively meant for kids, Apple is hoping to start early and create and nurture the next generation of iOS programmers.
Apple also wants to make iPads more affordable. Again, the intent here is to ensure that the device makes its way into as many places as possible. Along with driving revenue for the company, it will also help it in gaining a foothold in more households and educational institutions, making it easier for the company to deliver swift lessons.
The importance of the mission can not be under rated. An ecosystem is only as good as the developers that are the driving force behind it. Apple’s intent here is to ready a new generation of swift programmers and a look at the choice of new languages also shows Apple aiming for countries that have the potential of further growth or which are important markets for the company, such as China, Japan and the Latin American continent.
This particular strategy will probably take a few years to show fruits, however, making it easier for kids to learn programing and then providing them with the tools to do so is certainly a good way to go about the task.
