Apple opens its first center for app development and design in Shanghai

Apple yesterday opened its first developer accelerator program in Shanghai, China.

According to the announcement by Apple Hong Kong, the facility, located in Shanghai’s Pudong district and serving as a hub for Apple developers, will host regular events, including various programming and design courses, lectures and laboratories, as well as one-to-one sessions that will give Chinese developers the opportunity to work side by side with Apple experts.

Xie Enwei, Apple’s chief of developer relations for Greater China said:

Chinese developers are leading the world in innovation and have launched a number of popular apps in App Store and we are honored to take this opportunity to provide them with additional support. From education to health and entertainment, we have witnessed many outstanding innovations here. We can’t wait to see them and hope that these talented developers can launch more exciting in the future.

The program kicked off with a workshop about augmented reality. The workshop offers a detailed look into the ARKit 3 software framework, which was unveiled at the WWDC 2019 last month, as well as AR Quick Look , Reality Composer and RealityKit.

According to Apple, there are more than 2.5 million Apple developers in Greater China.

Since the App Store’s inception in mainland China in 2010, local developers have earned more than 200 billion yuan in software sales, or about $30 billion, accounting for more than 30 percent of the store’s total revenue last year.

Apple also operates developer accelerators in Bengaluru, India and Milan, Italy.