Apple's WWDC 2025 Swift Student Challenge Now Live

Apple's 2025 Swift Student Challenge kicked off today, which means that students from around the world can showcase their coding skills and creativity by developing app concepts using Swift Playground or Xcode.

2025 Swift Student Challenge
Students have had time to prepare because Apple announced that the challenge would be held in February 2025 way back in October 2024, plus Apple gave an exact date in January. Apple also hosted an online session to provide students with info on participating in the challenge, with tips from former Challenge winners and Apple engineers.

Apple holds the Swift Student Challenge each year. In past years, it has been timed with the Worldwide Developers Conference, but in 2024, Apple began holding it earlier in the year. Students are tasked with creating an app concept, with Apple providing Develop in Swift tutorials to help students learn the foundations of coding.

Apple plans to select 350 winners based on "innovation, creativity, social impact, or inclusivity." 50 of the winners will be invited to spend three days at Apple Park in Cupertino, California this summer. The trip is expected to coincide with the 2025 Worldwide Developers Conference.

Submissions are open as of today, and will remain open for a three-week period before judging begins. Students can learn more through Apple's developer website.

Popular Stories

AirPods Pro Firmware Feature

Apple Releases New Firmware for AirPods Pro 2, AirPods Pro 3, and AirPods 4

Thursday November 13, 2025 11:35 am PST by
Apple today released new firmware designed for the AirPods Pro 3, the AirPods 4, and the prior-generation AirPods Pro 2. The AirPods Pro 3 firmware is 8B25, while the AirPods Pro 2 and AirPods 4 firmware is 8B21, all up from the prior 8A358 firmware released in October. There's no word on what's include in the updated firmware, but the AirPods Pro 2, AirPods 4 with ANC, and AirPods Pro 3...
iOS 26

iOS 26.2 Available Next Month With These 8 New Features

Tuesday November 11, 2025 9:48 am PST by
Apple released the first iOS 26.2 beta last week. The upcoming update includes a handful of new features and changes on the iPhone, including a new Liquid Glass slider for the Lock Screen's clock, offline lyrics in Apple Music, and more. In a recent press release, Apple confirmed that iOS 26.2 will be released to all users in December, but it did not provide a specific release date....
CarPlay Pinned Messages

iOS 26.2 Adds New CarPlay Setting

Thursday November 13, 2025 6:48 am PST by
iOS 26 extended pinned conversations in the Messages app to CarPlay, for quick access to your most frequent chats. However, some drivers may prefer the classic view with a list of individual conversations only, and Apple now lets users choose. Apple released the second beta of iOS 26.2 this week, and it introduces a new CarPlay setting for turning off pinned conversations in the Messages...
homepod mini thumb feature

New HomePod Mini, Apple TV, and AirTag Were Expected This Year — Where Are They?

Wednesday November 12, 2025 11:42 am PST by
While it was rumored that Apple planned to release new versions of the HomePod mini, Apple TV, and AirTag this year, it is no longer clear if that will still happen. Back in January, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman said Apple planned to release new HomePod mini and Apple TV models "toward the end of the year," while he at one point expected a new AirTag to launch "around the middle of 2025." Yet,...
ios 26 digital id passport wallet

Apple Announces Launch of U.S. Passport Feature in iPhone's Wallet App

Wednesday November 12, 2025 9:15 am PST by
Apple today announced that iPhone users can now create a Digital ID in the Apple Wallet app based on information from their U.S. passport. To create and present a Digital ID based on a U.S. passport, you need: An iPhone 11 or later running iOS 26.1 or later, or an Apple Watch Series 6 or later running watchOS 26.1 or later Face ID or Touch ID and Bluetooth turned on An Apple Account ...
Tesla Charging

Tesla Working to Add Apple CarPlay Support to Vehicles

Thursday November 13, 2025 8:31 am PST by
Tesla is working to add support for Apple CarPlay in its vehicles, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman reports. Tesla vehicles rely on its own infotainment software system, which integrates vehicle functions, navigation, music, web browsing, and more. The automaker has been an outlier in foregoing support for Apple CarPlay, which has otherwise become an industry standard feature, allowing users to...
m1 chip slide

Five Years of Apple Silicon: M1 to M5 Performance Comparison

Monday November 10, 2025 1:08 pm PST by
Today marks the fifth anniversary of the Apple silicon chip that replaced Intel chips in Apple's Mac lineup. The first Apple silicon chip, the M1, was unveiled on November 10, 2020. The M1 debuted in the MacBook Air, Mac mini, and 13-inch MacBook Pro. The M1 chip was impressive when it launched, featuring the "world's fastest CPU core" and industry-leading performance per watt, and it's only ...
iOS 26

Everything New in iOS 26.2 Beta 2

Wednesday November 12, 2025 3:29 pm PST by
Apple today provided developers with the second beta of iOS 26.2, which adds a few new features worth knowing about. Measure App Apple's Measure app now features a Liquid Glass design for the level, with two Liquid Glass bubbles instead of white circles. Games App There's now an option to sort games in the Games app Library by size, in addition to Name and Recent. CarPlay The...
tvOS 26 Profiles

tvOS 26.2 Adds a Useful New Feature to Your Apple TV

Friday November 14, 2025 10:02 am PST by
Starting with the upcoming tvOS 26.2 update, currently in beta, additional profiles created on the Apple TV no longer require their own Apple Account. In the Settings app on the Apple TV, under Profiles and Accounts, anyone can create a new profile by simply entering a name and indicating whether the profile is for a kid. The profile will be associated with the primary user's Apple Account,...
apple intelligence erroneous support list

Apple Intelligence Apparently Too Smart for M1 Macs After Listing Error

Wednesday November 12, 2025 2:49 am PST by
Update: It took a day, but Apple has now corrected its Apple Intelligence device compatibility list to show support for the earliest Apple silicon Macs. The original article follows. Apple's website is causing some confusion among Mac owners, and for good reason – its device compatibility listing for Apple Intelligence appears to have dropped support for M1 Macs. The U.S. version...

Top Rated Comments

macduke Avatar
10 months ago
I lost my job as a web developer a few weeks ago before Christmas. A couple weeks ago I decided to learn Swift and started building a simple game for fun and to do something productive to take my mind off of the bad situation I'm in. Since then the game has taken on a life of its own with deeper complexity, multiple modes advanced features, and I have been doing playtesting with my kids and their friends and taking notes to balance everything.

This is some of the most fun that I've ever had as a developer, and I feel like I may have found a new calling. The game is actually pretty fun, and my kids are becoming addicted to it, lol, and they're just playing the iPhone build on their iPad. I still need to add iPad support. And the game has such simple controls that I think I may also add Apple TV support, although latency may become an issue with the remote since it requires such fast reflexes. It's a great little mobile time killer that is a lot of fun too, with simple satisfying graphics and sound, and a gameplay loop that keeps you wanting to come back to beat your high score over and over again.

Swift is an amazing language. It's fairly easy to work with and understand, and Xcode is a great IDE that does a really good job with giving feedback about different issues. I hardly have issues that make it through to the build and crash the game. The SpriteKit/GameKit/GameplayKit stuff is really great. I love that it can just handle physics interactions simply and easily. The code is very cleanly structured and concise as well. Xcode itself can be a bit overwhelming, but I'm getting the hang of it. I'm still very early, and part of me kinda hopes I have a bit longer before one of these places decides to hire me because I'm having so much fun learning this.

My goal is to get this thing onto the App Store by the end of next month! I'm just concerned about how crowded the store is nowadays—my app will probably get lost in the sea of apps. I'll probably give out a bunch of codes for it here when it launches, maybe even do some beta testing in the forums with people. Wish I was eligible to submit to this contest! But I'm just somebody's dad.
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
emmab2006 Avatar
10 months ago
Cant wait to see all those Vision Pro Apps ! ...
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
usersince86 Avatar
10 months ago
Sure wish this existed back in the 80's when I was a kid... glad it exists now!

(Also, cool logo.) :cool:
Score: 1 Votes (Like | Disagree)