ZDNet's latest analysis reveals that the tech giant's programming language, Swift, is languishing at the bottom of the popularity charts.

Apple's much-touted successor to Objective-C. Despite Jobs’ Mob’s boasting of a thriving developer community, Swift's lacklustre performance in these rankings tells a different story. The demand for Apple app developers is not as robust as Cupertino would have us believe.

 Once the cornerstone of Apple programming, Objective-C is fading into obscurity, replaced by a language that has failed to capture the imagination of the coding community.

The results are a stark reminder of Apple's waning dominance. The top tier of programming languages is dominated by Python, JavaScript, and Java—stalwarts in the AI coding arena. Following closely are the classic C-based languages (C++, C#, C), TypeScript, and SQL.

Further down the list, we find the once-dominant web languages like HTML/CSS, PHP, and Shell, alongside a mix of rising stars (R, Dart) and those on the decline (Ruby). Hovering just above Ruby are Go, Rust, Kotlin, and Lua.

Senior contributing editor David Gewirtz aggregated data from nine different rankings, including PYPL, the Tiobe index, GitHub's Usage 2023 summary report, and several from Stack Overflow and IEEE Spectrum.

And then, at the very bottom, we have Swift,

The article concludes with a sobering reality check: "With the exception of Java, the C-family of languages still dominates." Aspiring programmers are advised to focus on Python, Java, and JavaScript instead.

The message is clear—if you want to stay relevant, diversify your skills and not put all your eggs in Apple's basket. Learning multiple languages and frameworks is crucial, as programming is not just an intellectual exercise; it's about creating tangible, impactful projects.