Apple's inaugural app incubator cohort held its demo day in Beijing, with Apple board executive chairman Tim Cook and Apple vice president and Greater China managing director Isabel Ge Mahe appearing together to tour developer booths and engage in in-depth discussions with teams.
Cook and Ge Mahe posed for photos with award-winning app developers. In his on-site remarks, Cook highly praised the performance of the first cohort, and in a post-event media interview he stated plainly: "I am truly amazed to see the passion of these participants, to see that their purpose is to better enrich everyone's lives — I think that is where design begins."
From launching the Mobile Application Innovation Contest a decade ago to now initiating a systematic app incubator, Apple is accelerating the construction of a complete developer cultivation chain in China spanning from "creative inspiration" to "commercial closed loop."
Cook Sets the Tone for AI-Era Opportunities: Apple Silicon Is the Industry's Best Chip for AI
Amid the global wave of generative and on-device AI, how developers can translate cutting-edge technology into products that directly address pain points became the most closely watched focus at the event. In his media interview, Cook systematically articulated the core technological moat Apple has built for developers in the AI era.
Cook pointed out that one of Apple's major advantages is that developers can build an app on Apple's platform, run it, and also publish it externally. Developers use powerful developer tools to build it, run it through Apple silicon — which is precisely the industry's most suitable chip for AI. Of course, developers can also sell or distribute apps through the App Store, reaching users worldwide.
In Cook's view, the combination of AI tools and modern programming environments has dramatically lowered the barrier to development and is unleashing exponential creative potential: as long as you have a good idea, you can develop your own app. Cook believes this trend will only accelerate — what we are seeing right now is that more and more people are becoming developers, and more and more apps are being listed on app stores.
Cook watched developers demonstrate their apps.
From Competition to Incubator: Apple's Ecosystem "Advancement Flywheel" After a Decade of Deep Cultivation
The app incubator unveiled at this event marks an important milestone in Apple's deepening of localized support in China. Tracing Apple's path of supporting developers in China, a clear layered advancement system has taken shape: Inspiration and discovery — Apple (AAPL) has cooperated with Zhejiang University on the China Mobile Application Innovation Contest for over a decade, attracting nearly 50,000 university students nationwide to participate, opening the door to code for young developers; Incubation and refinement — in March of last year, Apple (AAPL) donated 30 million RMB to Zhejiang University to establish an incubation fund, and formally launched the Apple App Incubator earlier this year, with a mentor team composed of industry leaders, investors, and Apple (AAPL) engineers, focused on providing high-intensity technical optimization and commercialization coaching for projects that have begun to take shape; Advancement and empowerment — combined with the Apple Developer Center in Shanghai, providing developers with one-on-one in-depth coaching and the latest technical support.
This ecosystem flywheel has directly generated substantial commercial returns. Cook disclosed a striking figure during the interview: over the past five years, developer revenue has doubled — a truly remarkable achievement. Through the App Store's global network, Chinese developers are accelerating their march toward mainstream overseas markets.
On-Site Product Overview: From Integrated Ecosystem to Human-Centered Technology Implementation
At this demo day, the selected first cohort collectively demonstrated how China's next generation of developers is harnessing Apple's integrated hardware-software ecosystem: Viba (recipient of the 2026 "Acceleration Pioneer Award"): an AI-inspired shopping assistant built with the Apple Vision framework and iPhone personal context information, capable of generating virtual try-on outfit combinations based on life scenarios, with its commercial footprint already smoothly expanded to Latin America and global markets; Douya Kanjian: jointly created by a former WeChat Pay team leader together with visually impaired engineers and product managers, deeply integrating LiDAR, motion sensors, and accessibility features such as VoiceOver to precisely convert visual information from the real environment into voice prompts and interactions, helping visually impaired people live more independently; HoldSay: a multimodal recording tool for presentations in meetings and classrooms, where all voice transcription, speaker separation, and summary extraction are efficiently completed offline on-device via iPhone and Mac, balancing strong computing power with rigorous user privacy protection; Rumina and Aibrary: the former created by a team of Chinese students from Berkeley, addressing the pain points of university students with full-process AI academic planning and personalized tutoring; the latter leverages Xcode and the latest device toolchain to reach over 160 countries and regions globally within just three months of launch, enabling users worldwide to enjoy personalized book audio and knowledge podcasts.
Final Thoughts: A Story Entering Deeper Collaborative Innovation
After touring the developer booths, Cook remarked with sincerity: "They can be said to represent the developers of the future, and I believe several of these teams will have very broad stages ahead." From a single software distribution marketplace to an integrated empowerment platform spanning chip foundations, on-device models, system-level frameworks, and overseas commercialization, the story of Apple (AAPL) and Chinese developers is entering a phase of deeper collaborative innovation amid the AI wave.
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