Apple will train thousands of budding app developers in Artificial Intelligence (AI) across its 18 Developer Academies. First launched in 2013, these institutions can now be found across six countries offering free courses to teach students to build an application for iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
Apple has previously shared statistics from its Developer Academies to showcase how many of its graduates have gone on to launch companies and release software in the App Store
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The introduction of these new courses comes less than a week after Apple announced a raft of AI innovations during its annual developer conference, known as WWDC. During a 90-minute keynote, CEO Tim Cook and his team announced Apple Intelligence — a suite of new AI features that can proofread your emails, rephrase text to alter the tone, summarise lengthy notes and webpages, and much more.
New operating system updates for its devices were also unveiled, offering developers an early glimpse at some of the new features coming to iPhone, Mac, iPad, Apple Watch, and more later in the year. The next major update coming to your iPhone, dubbed iOS 18, will let you generate your own custom emoji with AI and send requests to ChatGPT using chatty voice assistant Siri.
The new curriculum, scheduled to launch across all 18 Apple Developer Academies in the autumn, will teach students how to build, train, and deploy machine learning models across Apple devices. Machine learning, also known as ML, uses large data sets and algorithms to teach AI to imitate the way that human beings learn.
The latest developer tools, also announced during WWDC, will be available to students on the courses, including Xcode 16 — the latest version of the software built to craft apps for iOS, iPadOS, visionOS, watchOS and macOS.
With this new version, Apple has added AI-powered predictive code completion, which works exactly like predictive text when writing a text message or email but for complex code when building your app.
Announcing the arrival of AI in the curriculum, Apple Vice President of Worldwide Developer Relations, Susan Prescott said: "At Apple, we see coding as a universal language and believe in empowering developers, creators, and entrepreneurs across the world with tools and technologies that will allow them to create phenomenal experiences. With the introduction of curriculum dedicated to AI and other new technologies, we’re excited to see what students will build to share with their communities and the world."
Apple Developer Academy courses have already produced 12,000 alumni worldwide. Courses range from 30 days to 2 years, depending on the program you've chosen.
With the vast potential of Artificial Intelligence, the Californian company is undoubtedly keen to get the next generation of app developers up-to-speed on the deluge of features coming to Apple devices later this year.
Apple Developer Academies are available in the United States of America, Brazil, Indonesia, Italy, Saudi Arabia, and South Korea. The iPhone manufacturer has previously revealed that over 1,500 apps currently available in the Apple App Store were built by graduates from its Developer Academies.
Over 160 new companies have been founded by people who have been through Apple's free software courses.
