Swift Playgrounds Now Available in Five Additional Languages

Apple’s Popular App for Learning to Code in Swift Now Supports Simplified Chinese, Japanese, French, German & Latin American Spanish

CUPERTINO, California — March 22, 2017 — Apple® today announced that Swift Playgrounds™, a revolutionary app for iPad® that helps students learn to code, is now available in five new languages including Simplified Chinese, Japanese, French, German and Latin American Spanish. Designed to make learning and experimenting with real code interactive and fun, Swift Playgrounds is perfect for students and beginners to explore working with Swift™, the easy-to-learn programming language from Apple that is used by professional developers to create world-class apps.

The app includes Apple-developed programming lessons, puzzles and challenges that teach core coding concepts, as well as built-in templates to encourage users to express their creativity and create real programs. And it takes full advantage of the power, simplicity and Multi-Touch™ capabilities of iPad to deliver a first-of-its-kind learning experience. All programming lessons are now localized across five additional languages and are optimized to look even better and run faster than ever.

“The Swift Playgrounds app has helped people of all ages learn the basics of coding, and with more than a million downloads to date, customers and students find it an easy and fun way to get started with Swift,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “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 the perfect app to help our students learn to code, and I’m very excited students in China are now are able to use it with Simplified Chinese support,” said Xiaoming Bao, Hangzhou Foreign Languages School. “Last year, we created an optional coding class for my students to learn fundamental coding concepts using Swift Playgrounds. I had no previous experience with coding, but the engaging and easy-to-learn app, along with the comprehensive teacher guide developed by Apple, made me confident that I could inspire and facilitate my students to learn to code, and understand coding as a way of thinking that can be applied to other subjects and everyday life. Chinese language support will make the learning experience with Swift Playgrounds even easier for students.”

Swift Playgrounds performs great on iPad and is a perfect companion app for the new 9.7-inch iPad, also announced today, featuring a brighter Retina® display and best-in-class performance at its most affordable price, starting at $329. iPad is a hit with teachers and students around the world, bringing them access to Swift Playgrounds and the more than 180,000 educational apps built specifically for it and the widest selection of high quality Multi-Touch textbooks and rich digital content to personalize learning.

Pricing and Availability
Swift Playgrounds is available today for free in the App Store® in English, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, French, German and Latin American Spanish. The app is compatible with the new 9.7-inch iPad, all iPad Air and iPad Pro models and iPad mini 2 and later. Devices must be running iOS 10 or later. For more information including videos, images and demos, visit: apple.com/swift/playgrounds.

Apple revolutionized personal technology with the introduction of the Macintosh in 1984. Today, Apple leads the world in innovation with iPhone, iPad, Mac, Apple Watch and Apple TV. Apple’s four software platforms — iOS, macOS, watchOS and tvOS — provide seamless experiences across all Apple devices and empower people with breakthrough services including the App Store, Apple Music, Apple Pay and iCloud. Apple’s more than 100,000 employees are dedicated to making the best products on earth, and to leaving the world better than we found it.

Press Contacts:
Bill Evans
Apple
bevans@apple.com
(408) 974-0610

Starlayne Meza
Apple
starlayne@apple.com
(408) 974-3391

Apple, the Apple logo, Swift Playgrounds, iPad, Swift, Multi-Touch, Retina and App Store are trademarks of Apple. Other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners.