Apple Opens First European Developer Center in Berlin

Berlin sits at an interesting crossroads here: Apple is opening its first European Developer Center in a city that has spent the last decade positioning itself as a tech hub, but that still punches below its weight compared to London or Amsterdam in terms of App Store revenue and developer density. The location in Mitte is deliberate, placing Apple inside the city’s commercial and cultural center rather than on a suburban campus.

The center joins four existing locations in Bengaluru, Cupertino, Shanghai, and Singapore, which means Europe has been conspicuously absent from this network for years. That gap is harder to ignore given that European regulators have spent the last two years forcing Apple to restructure how it operates on the continent, including mandatory third-party app marketplace support under the Digital Markets Act.

Opening a physical developer relations facility in Europe right now is not purely altruistic outreach. Apple has a direct interest in keeping developers building within its ecosystem rather than distributing through the alternative channels the DMA now requires it to permit. A center offering one-on-one consultations, workshops, and platform-specific labs is a retention tool as much as a training resource.

The programming will span iOS, iPadOS, macOS, tvOS, visionOS, and watchOS development, targeting teams at every stage. Apple also flagged that European App Store storefronts averaged more than 150 million weekly users in 2025, a number that frames the developer opportunity while quietly reminding developers what they would be walking away from.

Broader Developer Investment

Apple’s existing European footprint includes the Swift Student Challenge, Apple Developer Academies, and Foundation Programs in Italy and France. The Berlin center adds a permanent, staffed facility to that mix, which is a different kind of commitment than a scholarship program or a short-term coding initiative. Whether the programming schedule justifies the trip for developers outside Germany will depend entirely on how frequently Apple rotates events and whether remote participation becomes an option.