App Developers Who Are Too Young to Drive
This year, Apple opened up its developers event for the first time to 13- to 17-year-olds.
Apple supplied 150 teens with scholarships to cover the event's $1,599 entrance fee, arranged a student lounge with beanbag chairs and Skittles, and invited their parents to chaperone. The teens, or their parents, still had to sign Apple's customary nondisclosure agreements. "We used to think that inviting students as young as 18 years old was great," said Apple's marketing chief, Phil Schiller, in an interview last week. But he said Apple's iPhone and iPad software, called iOS, has lately attracted interest from an even younger group of developers. "We would get emails after the developer conference from students, 16, 15, 14 years old, saying I already have X number of apps in the app store. I'm a developer. Can I take part in this too?" he said.