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

iOS 18

iOS 18.4 Will Include These New Features for Your iPhone

Wednesday February 5, 2025 7:15 am PST by
iOS 18.3 was released last month, so the first iOS 18.4 beta should be coming soon. iOS 18.4 is expected to be a more substantial update for the iPhone, with several new features and changes related to Apple Intelligence and beyond. Apple's website suggests that iOS 18.4 will be released in April, following beta testing. Below, we outline what to expect from the update so far. Apple...
iCloud General Feature Redux

iPhone Users Who Pay for iCloud Storage Receive an All-New Perk

Thursday February 6, 2025 11:21 am PST by
If you pay for iCloud storage on your iPhone, Apple has a new perk for you, at no additional cost. iCloud+ is the official name for Apple's paid iCloud storage plans, which range from 50GB for $0.99 per month to 12TB for $59.99 per month in the United States. iCloud+ plans already come with multiple perks for free, such as Hide My Email and HomeKit Secure Video, and now there is another one...
maxresdefault

An Apple TV Refresh is Coming in 2025 - Here's What You Should Know

Wednesday February 5, 2025 10:17 am PST by
Apple hasn't refreshed the Apple TV since 2022, but rumors suggest that we're finally going to get an update in 2025. We don't have a full picture of what to expect yet, but we have some hints on what's coming. Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. Updated A-Series Chip The current Apple TV 4K uses the A15 Bionic chip that was in the iPhone 13 lineup, and it's time for...
iPhone SE 4 Single Camera Thumb

iPhone SE 4 Launching as Soon as Next Week

Thursday February 6, 2025 3:30 pm PST by
Apple's next-generation iPhone SE could debut as soon as next week with a launch to follow later in February, reports Bloomberg's Mark Gurman. Apple isn't expected to hold an event for the iPhone SE 4, and will instead unveil the device through a press release. The iPhone SE 4 is expected to have an iPhone 14-style design, with Apple eliminating the thick bezels and Touch ID Home button of...
iOS 18

iOS 18.3.1 Update Coming Soon for iPhones

Thursday February 6, 2025 7:31 am PST by
Apple is internally testing iOS 18.3.1 for iPhones, according to our website's analytics logs, which have been a consistently reliable indicator of upcoming iOS versions. The software update should be released within the next few weeks. iOS 18.3.1 should be a minor update that addresses software bugs and/or security vulnerabilities. Apple Intelligence notification summaries for news and...
iCloud General Feature Redux

Apple Ordered by UK to Create Global iCloud Encryption Backdoor

Friday February 7, 2025 2:37 am PST by
The British government has secretly demanded that Apple give it blanket access to all encrypted user content uploaded to the cloud, reports The Washington Post. The undisclosed order is said to have been issued last month, and requires that Apple creates a back door that allows UK security officials unencumbered access to encrypted user data worldwide – an unprecedented demand not before...
disney

Disney+ Loses 700,000 Subscribers Following Price Increase

Wednesday February 5, 2025 3:34 pm PST by
Disney+ lost 700,000 subscribers worldwide in recent months, according to Disney's earnings results for the first quarter of 2025. Disney said it now has 124.6 million Disney+ subscribers, a decrease of 0.7 million compared to its subscriber numbers in the fourth quarter of 2024. The drop in subscribers comes after Disney+ prices increased in the fall. Disney+ with Ads went from $7.99 to...
Apple Leak Feature

Apple Leaker Issues Apology: 'Profound and Expensive Mistake'

Friday February 7, 2025 9:21 am PST by
Last year, we reported that Apple sued its former software engineer Andrew Aude for providing journalists with confidential information about the company's future plans, including details about the Journal app, Vision Pro headset, and more. As reported by 9to5Mac, the Superior Court of Santa Clara County on Thursday dismissed the lawsuit after Apple and Aude reached an agreement to resolve...

Top Rated Comments

macduke Avatar
5 days ago at 11:14 pm
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
5 days ago at 10:02 am
Cant wait to see all those Vision Pro Apps ! ...
Score: 2 Votes (Like | Disagree)
usersince86 Avatar
5 days ago at 09:40 am
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)