“Swift Playgrounds is the perfect app to help our students learn to code, and I’m very excited students in China are now able to use it with Simplified Chinese support,” said Xiaoming Bao, Hangzhou Foreign Languages School. “Last year, we created an optional coding class for my students to learn fundamental coding concepts using Swift Playgrounds. I had no previous experience with coding, but the engaging and easy-to-learn app, along with the comprehensive teacher guide developed by Apple, made me confident that I could inspire and facilitate my students to learn to code, and understand coding as a way of thinking that can be applied to other subjects and everyday life. Chinese language support will make the learning experience with Swift Playgrounds even easier for students.”

Swift Playgrounds performs great on iPad and is a perfect companion app for the new 9.7-inch iPad , also announced today, featuring a brighter Retina display and best-in-class performance at its most affordable price, starting at $329. iPad is a hit with teachers and students around the world, bringing them access to Swift Playgrounds and the more than 180,000 educational apps built specifically for it and the widest selection of high quality Multi-Touch textbooks and rich digital content to personalize learning.