Apple's 'App Development With Swift' Curriculum Expanding to Dozens of Community Colleges - MacRumorsOpen MenuShow RoundupsShow Forums menuVisit ForumsOpen Sidebar
Skip to Content

Apple's 'App Development With Swift' Curriculum Expanding to Dozens of Community Colleges

Apple today announced that its App Development with Swift curriculum will now be offered in more than 30 leading community college systems across the United States in the 2017-2018 school year.

app development with swift
The full-year course, available for free on the iBooks store, teaches students how to build apps using Apple's open source programming language Swift. Apple says the course takes students with no programming experience and enables them to build fully-functional apps of their own design.

“We’ve seen firsthand how Apple’s app ecosystem has transformed the global economy, creating entire new industries and supporting millions of jobs,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We believe passionately that same opportunity should be extended to everyone, and community colleges have a powerful reach into communities where education becomes the great equalizer.”

The community college systems adopting the App Development with Swift curriculum in the fall include Austin Community College District, Northeast Mississippi Community College, Northwest Kansas Technical College, and additional campuses in the Alabama Community College System.

“We’re thrilled to have Apple join our mission to make Austin more affordable for people who already live in the city,” said Austin Mayor Steve Adler. “Apple is going to be a force multiplier in the community’s ongoing efforts to lift 10,000 out of poverty and into good jobs over the next five years.”

Austin town mayor Steve Adler said Apple CEO Tim Cook is in Austin today. Cook will visit the Austin Community College District, meet with employees, and speak with local app developers at tech accelerator Capital Factory in downtown Austin, according to the Austin American-Statesman.

Popular Stories

imac video apple feature

Apple Released Yet Another New Product Today

Friday March 20, 2026 2:39 pm PDT by
Apple has unveiled a whopping nine new products so far this March, including an iPhone 17e, iPad Air models with the M4 chip, MacBook Air models with the M5 chip, MacBook Pro models with M5 Pro and M5 Max chips, the all-new MacBook Neo, an updated Studio Display, a higher-end Studio Display XDR, AirPods Max 2, and now the Nike Powerbeats Pro 2. iPhone 17e features the same overall design as...
iPhone 18 Pro Deep Red Feature

iPhone 18 Pro Launching Later This Year With These 12 New Features

Wednesday March 18, 2026 7:39 am PDT by
While the iPhone 18 Pro and iPhone 18 Pro Max are not expected to launch for another six months or so, there are already plenty of rumors about the devices. It was initially reported that the iPhone 18 Pro models would have fully under-screen Face ID, with only a front camera visible in the top-left corner of the screen. However, the latest rumors indicate that only one Face ID component...
ios 26 4 pastel

iOS 26.4: Top 10 New Features Coming to Your iPhone

Friday March 20, 2026 2:44 pm PDT by
iOS 26.4 isn't the major update with new Siri features that we hoped for, but there are some useful quality of life improvements, and a little bit of fun with an AI playlist generator and new emoji characters. Playlist Playground - Apple Music has a Playlist Playground option that lets you generate playlists from text-based descriptions. You can include moods, feelings, activities, or...

Top Rated Comments

Zirel Avatar
112 months ago
They make it sound way to easy. Some people’s brains are wired for coding but a lot are not. If you’re someone who didn’t/doesn’t excel at math in school I think learning to code will be more difficult. I don’t think anyone can code.
This is untrue.

Programming is basically using the pattern recognition capacity of our brains.

Which is something anybody can do.

Of course some people can’t learn to program, can’t learn anything because it’s easier to turn off their brains and watch junk TV all day.
Score: 5 Votes (Like | Disagree)
JoJoCal19 Avatar
112 months ago
They make it sound way to easy. Some people’s brains are wired for coding but a lot are not. If you’re someone who didn’t/doesn’t excel at math in school I think learning to code will be more difficult. I don’t think anyone can code.
I agree that not everyone can "get" coding, but there are TONS of people who are great at it, and have been successful, and haven't done math beyond high school basics. I know plenty myself. I have talked to people who are doing MSCS degrees, even at like GT, who say the degrees and crazy math are definitely not needed to code.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
jonnysods Avatar
112 months ago
Man I hope they still push teaching trades to people. So many trades colleges have closed us around here. Cant put plumbing or electrical in a building using swift!
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Solomani Avatar
112 months ago
Thank goodness for Apple recognizing the important (vocational) role of US community colleges.
Score: 4 Votes (Like | Disagree)
travelsheep Avatar
112 months ago
The long tail certainly makes Apple billions. Millions of app developers paying $100 per year with 0 apps sold.
Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
D.T. Avatar
112 months ago
I question the value of learning Swift. It is a platform unique language and closely tied to the Apple ecosystem. Great if you want to build Apple apps.

Once you have the basics down, you can always add skills in platform specific tools and languages like Xcode and Swift.
Yeah, I always tell people, you know, "the kids" :D who are interested in programming to learn core concepts, and learn how to implement those with a language outside of any kind of framework/DSL context. (A variant of this mantra is learn-the-language-not-the-framework). Immersing someone into the vast complexity of an IDE like XCode is tricky.





But, IMHO opinion, you are better teaching people something like Python ...
Yes!



... or even javascript.
Dear god, no.

Score: 3 Votes (Like | Disagree)
Related Apple News: Ipad Air | Disable An Airtag Found Moving With You | Lifestyle | Ios | Use Precision Finding Airtag