By  Aabhas Sharma

Synopsis

Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior vice-president of worldwide marketing, discusses the company’s growing ties to India in an exclusive interview. Apple is increasingly investing in India, recognizing its booming app economy and the potential for innovation within the iOS ecosystem. Joswiak emphasizes Apple’s focus on supporting Indian developers through initiatives like iOS app development labs in universities.

Up on the 14th floor of the recently opened Apple office at Minsk Square in Bengaluru, a bunch of developers are teeming with excitement and nervous energy. They are here to meet Greg Joswiak — better known as ‘Joz’ — Apple’s senior vice-president of worldwide marketing.

Joswiak chats with four developers — handpicked by Apple — and listens to their stories intently. “There’s a thirst to be successful in India and there’s a lot of passion for our products in India,” Joswiak told ET in an exclusive chat.

Joswiak acknowledged the substantial growth of India’s app economy, which currently supports over a million jobs and continues to expand rapidly. He emphasised the immense opportunities available to Indian developers globally, particularly within the iOS ecosystem, where innovations often debut first.

“iOS is huge and most important as things happen first here. We want to bring more developers in the innovation pipeline and the opportunity around the world for Indian developers around the world is gigantic,” he said.

Apple’s India story has seen a massive spurt of growth — something the company and Joz are very much aware of — in the past few years.

India is growing, Apple products are growing rapidly, the economy is being digitised, a young population — these are dynamics which favour Apple, said the man who has been at Apple for 38 years now in various capacities. “It’s not about just selling products but also about being a part of India — retail, manufacturing, and education,” Joz said.

Education is an area that Apple is focusing on. It is partnering with universities to give students a head start in iOS app development. Apple has an iOS app development lab at SRM University in Chennai, and Joswiak on his visit went to Galgotias University in Noida to kickstart a similar program.

The Development Story

Apple’s support is critical for developers. Take the case of Anshul Kamath and Rohan Arora who developed Evolve, an inclusive mental health app for the LGBTQ+ community. The support from Apple, according to the Evolve developers, has been encouraging and invaluable. “We have regular catchups with them, and Apple has helped us immensely in enhancing our UI/ UX . Plus the access to all their development tools has been instrumental,” said Kamath.

Box Box is one-stop-shop app for all F1 fans and its founders Kamal Lakshmanan and Ranjit Ramanan were delighted to have met Joswiak. “Apple’s teams have been great with their feedback in making our app better on multiple levels,” said Lakshmanan.

For Apple, Joswiak said, the idea is to put the user and the product at the centre of everything it does. Apple’s legacy is intertwined with user-centric solutions. And that is something he tells developers as well. “Look for the need and solve it in a differentiated way. We try to solve things in a better way and that’s something we do and tell developers,” said the senior Apple executive. Whether it’s retail, manufacturing, or education, Apple wants to be at the heart of the action in India.

Joswiak started at Apple long before apps and has been there, done that, seen it all. Yet, it’s the App Store — and developers remain core at that — which he feels is something that changed people’s lives. “2007 is when we launched the iPhone and 2008 is when the App Store debuted. We changed the world with it,” he said.

The app store democratised things and Apple has all kinds of developers working on apps. “We want to continue to provide a rich canvas for developers to do amazing things. Be it a small-town developer, big city developers, young or old, we want to support them,” he added.