Apple recently announced that it is creating a “Sesame Street-themed” show to introduce kids to coding, TechCrunch reports.
The show is a new addition to Apple TV+, and produced by Sesame Workshop; the show will not include Sesame Street itself. Apple decided to focus the show on coding because “coding fosters collaboration, critical thinking skills and is an essential language that every child can learn,” said Cody, a muppet that will be part of the new show, on behalf of the tech company.
According to previous reports, Sesame Workshop and Apple partnered in 2018, announcing that they would create multiple shows, “including live action and animated series, as well as a show with puppets.” The above-mentioned show is included in this lineup.
There currently aren’t any trailers for Apple’s new show, so it is unclear how coding will be presented to its young audience. The goal is to teach kids “coding basics,” similar to how the original Sesame Street taught preschoolers about numbers and letters.
Inspiration generator and moneymaker
TechCrunch says that Apple will ultimately benefit from this new idea, since its apps and “the billions of dollars they generate” are created by millions of third-party developers.” Last year, TechCrunch reported that Apple had 20 million registered developers on iOS, which made the company about $100 billion in revenue. The App Store alone brought in 500 million visitors per week. “For Apple to retain a dominant position in the app industry, it needs to continue to build out its pipeline of new coders.”
Similarly, Apple has been pushing Swift, its “coding language,” through educational workshops at Apple stores, funding school programs and nonprofit initiatives, and through apps, such as Swift Playgrounds. TechCrunch reported that in 2018, Swift picked up “strong momentum,” and was one of the “fastest growing programming language out there.”
“Apple developers are using it in huge numbers, in fact over 350,000 apps have been written in Swift in the app store,” Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO, said at a conference last year. “We believe that coding is an essential skill and believe it should be offered by every school in the world. Learning to code has so many benefits, it developers problem solving, critical thinking skills.”
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