9-year-old writes iPhone app

Meet the world’s youngest iPhone developer. Lim Ding Wen of Singapore, who recently turned 9 (not a typo), has written an iPhone app called Doodle Kids that allows you to paint on the iPhone using shapes like triangles, circles, squares made up of random colours and sizes.

Ding Wen originally wrote Doodle Kids in Pascal on his Apple IIGS (again not a typo) when he was 8 (need I mention that this is not a typo either?).

For the fun of it, the Primary 4 student then ported Doodle Kids to the iPhone using GScript, a JavaScript library for Apple IIGS programmers to do web programming.

Apple logo done in Doodle Kids (thus demonstrating why I don't draw very much).

Of course, it helps that his dad, Lim Thye Chean, runs a website calls Virtual GS that promotes programming on the Apple IIGS. Thye Chean, the chief technology officer of a tech company headquartered in Malaysia, wrote an Apple IIGS application called Simple Paint that he subsequently ported to the iPhone using GScript.

Ding Wen is now busy porting his Apple IIGS title Invader Wars to the iPhone. According to his dad: “To him, the iPhone is the new Apple IIGS. One of our Apple IIGS’ caught fire when he was using it so now we seldom switch the other one on.”

It will not come as a surprise to learn that Ding Wen displayed an affinity for computers at an early age. At 2, he was already able to insert a disk, boot up a computer, use the mouse to find programs and double click on the icon to run it, says his father.

This kid is brilliant. When I was his age, the highlight of my life was watching The Flintstones.


Doodle Kids was released on the App Store less than a week ago and has been downloaded more than 700 times already. Version 1.1 is now awaiting Apple’s approval.

Update: Doodle Kids was released on the App Store less than a week ago and has been downloaded more than 1,100 times already. An update, version 1.1, is already available on the App Store.

Doodle Kids, Simple Paint and Kids Paint (a simpler version of Simple Paint) are all available for free on the App Store.

More about Ding Wen

- Find out how he learned to program.

- He writes Doodle Kids for the Apple IIGS.

- He ports Doodle Kids to the iPhone.