by Dan Moren
Apple opens iOS accelerator in Bengaluru
Tim Cook really wasn’t kidding about considering India the next big emerging market. He’s made a few trips to the country in the last year, including this week when he’s scheduled to meet with Prime Minister Modi. And now Apple has announced it’ll be opening a Design and Development Accelerator in Bengaluru (Bangalore), the heart of India’s tech scene, sometime in 2017.
Apple’s team will work to inspire and instruct developers on best practices, help them hone their skills and transform the design, quality and performance of their apps on the iOS platform.
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Each week, Apple experts will lead briefings and provide one-on-one app reviews for developers. The facility will also provide support and guidance on Swift™, Apple’s powerful and intuitive programming language created to build apps for iOS, Mac®, Apple TV® and Apple Watch®.
As far as I can tell, this is the first time Apple has done anything of this sort. While it works with developers at events like WWDC and Tech Talks, this would seem to be the first time it’s established a permanent location somewhere. Not only does this give Apple a leg-up on encouraging app development in the region, but it also enables Indian developers who might otherwise have a hard time getting ahold of these particular resources, whether due to poor Internet penetration or other challenges.
On a personal note, I’m actually planning a trip to India later this year, so I’ll be interested to get an up close look at the tech scene there.