Select a region
Apple is opening its first European iOS App Development Centre in Italy, giving young coders the chance to learn skills on developing their own apps from the company themselves.
The new facility, which will be located in Naples, will provide a “specialised curriculum” to help developers “be part of Apple’s thriving developer community”.
As well as having the enormous App Store – home to well around 1.5 million apps – Apple has a strong developer community, pushing early versions of iOS updates to members to try out before they go public.
Apple chief Tim Cook said: “Europe is home to some of the most creative developers in the world and we’re thrilled to be helping the next generation of entrepreneurs in Italy get the skills they need for success.
“The phenomenal success of the App Store is one of the driving forces behind the more than 1.4 million jobs Apple has created in Europe and presents unlimited opportunities for people of all ages and businesses of all sizes across the continent.”
The opening of the new centre also gave the technology giant the chance to talk about job creation, with Apple providing information on the amount of jobs that can be connected to app development and iOS. In the UK, 242,000 jobs are now connected iOS app development – making it the biggest market in Europe. There are also 646,000 registered developers here, and the total market in Europe is now 1.2 million jobs, a number that has doubled in the last year.
Apple also said that European developers had so far earned more than 10.2 billion euro from selling apps.
Some of the biggest apps in recent years have come out of Europe, and the UK – keyboard app SwiftKey is based in Southwark, while Monument Valley, one of the most successful iOS games of the past two years is made by UK-based studio ustwo.
