Announcing the Swift Student Challenge 2026 Every year, Apple’s Swift Student Challenge celebrates the creativity and ingenuity of student developers from around the world, inviting them to use Swift and Xcode to solve real-world problems in their own communities and beyond. Learn more → https://developer.apple.com/swift-student-challenge/ Submissions for the 2026 challenge will open February 6 for three weeks, and students can prepare with new Develop in Swift tutorials and Meet with Apple code-along sessions. The Apple Developer team is here is to help you along the way - from idea to app, post your questions at any stage of your development here in this forum board or be sure to add the Swift Student Challenge tag to your technology-specific forum question. Your designs. Your apps. Your moment.

To whoever is bothered enough to help (trust me, I get the feeling if you're not), I want to enter the swift student challenge either this year or next year, depending on how things play out. Anyway, I just wanted to know two things: 1) how long on average it takes to build a project which won distinguished winner and 2) whether any distinguished winners could send me the playgrounds they built. To be clear, I do not want the code, I just want to know what you did, what you called the playground, a list of some features it had, how long it took, just to help me prepare, because YouTube doesn't have much of that. Thanks :)

I hope you’re having a fantastic New Year and that your apps are doing great! This is my first time entering SSC , and I’m excited to share that I’m developing a screen timer app. The idea is to encourage you to take breaks by suggesting a run or workout instead of spending too much time on your screens. I was wondering, have anyone else included short videos or animations in their entries before? Also, could my screen time timer be running in the background? I know there are some limitations with integrations like HealthKit and Screen Time, which is why I’m using a regular countdown timer on the App Store as a prototype. I’m just trying to clarify the rules below to make sure that it’s all good to go : “If your submission includes any open source software, music, photos, artwork, or any other content that you do not have ownership rights in, you agree to (a) comply with all applicable licensing terms and copyright obligations and (b) provide an explanation of why it was used.” And regarding any tracking stuff in the disqualification section, whereas nothing in the app should include: “You track and/or insert analytics code in your App Store meant to identify or track judges’ activity while they review your App Store.” But my app will only have a simple timer in it.

👋Hi This problem is related to SSC. I remember that the form submitted last year needed to be filled in with Xcode or Playground test, and it seems that it was also mentioned: • If you use Xcode, the judges may use Simulator to run. • If you use Playground, it's a real machine. But my work this time will encounter two limitations: It will use the framework/API only available in iPadOS 26 (so if it is a Playground environment, it may not run, playground can't use iPadOS 26 SDK) It will also use some content that must be real to run (such as ARKit), which means that Xcode Simulator is not good. So I would like to ask: Does this year's review allow you to compile and connect the iPad to the real machine? Or did I misremember last year's regulations? If the judge's environment is fixed (for example, only Playground or only Simulator), how should I adjust the submission method or implement the scheme? Looking forward to your reply, thank you.

I have a question about the full-time employment eligibility requirement for the Swift Student Challenge 2026. The rules state that applicants cannot be "employed full time as a developer" at the time of submission. My situation is a bit nuanced: I work as a software engineer at a company, but my contract explicitly distinguishes between summer and school year employment. During the summer I work full-time, but during the school year my hours are part-time and flexible, and therefore not a fixed schedule. Since the submission deadline is February 28th, I would be submitting during the school year, at which point I am not working full-time. My question: Does the eligibility rule apply strictly to full-time hours at the time of submission, or does being employed in a developer role at all (even part-time during the school year) disqualify me?

What OS will a Swift Student Challenge submission run on? I want to use iOS 26 features but the version history for Swift Playground doesn’t show it being updated past the iOS 17.5 SDK. So, can I still use features from the iOS 26 SDK?

My app uses Foundation Models and Apple Pencil. The app runs great through Xcode; however, due to Apple Pencil support, it has to be run on a physical device. However, Swift Playgrounds on iPad doesn't support iOS 26. I was just wondering if this is something that can be mentioned in submission notes. eg. The app needs to be compiled in Xcode but run on a physical device.” Or should we expect iPadOS 26 support for Swift Playgrounds by the time of submission? Thank you!

Hello I was building my submission for contest and I noticed that my app built and ran fine on Xcode but didn't even build on swift playground, so should I be concerned about this, and where do the judges finally run and test our submitted playground is it in swift playground app or Xcode ??

I am looking through the rules and terms and it just says Xcode submissions will be run on a simulator. Does this mean Mac Catalyst or can it be run on a iPad VM? Or more so should we specify in the comments on where to run it. Thank you!

Hello everyone, I have already submitted my app playground for the Swift Student Challenge. After submission I noticed a few things I would like to improve and fix. Is it possible to withdraw my current submission and then immediately resubmit an updated version? Any clarification (especially from Apple staff or anyone who has done this before) would be very helpful. Thank you!

Hello! i developed an app for the Swift Student Challenge and submitted it, can I publish it to the app store before it is judged.

Hello, is it allowed to use Foundation Model in the app? Will it work when launched on the jury's device, or will it not work because the jury will not enable Apple Intelligence?

👋Hi, I want to ask what equipment the auditors in SSC will use to evaluate students' playground, whether it is iPad pro and mac with camera, or something else. And what system will they use, iPadOS/macOS 26 or something else? Looking forward to your reply. Thank you

Hello all! My name is Luke, and I'm a 14 year old with a idea for SSC. This is my first SSC submission ever. I would like some feedback concerning a question. My app is an AI powered academic planner that helps you and your life. I won't give too much away, but I believe it's a really helpful concept. It uses a mini on-device LLM (built with simple if this word typed then do this logic) to help organize assignments. This is a real business I am building, and I put inside of my app simulated features such as the app saying "scanning your Google Classroom..", would this go against any terms and make the app less likely to win? I also have my app fully polished, and feels like an actual app and finished product, with demo assignments pre-loaded, and most stuff is placeholders. Should the app be more like a guided simulator? Such as "click here to see how this will be simulated in a final release" or again should it be polished? I just want some feedback, since I only have 3 minutes, and the app needs to be offline, I just want to improvise. Hopefully I can get some feedback from the community, and/or ex-winners! Thanks all! And good luck! :) - Luke

Hello, I want to use the Speech framework in my app. However, I found that if I want it to work offline, it must be downloaded separately on the device. Do I understand correctly that it is not allowed to use it in a Swift Student Challenge submission if English (as the speech language) must be downloaded by the tester on their device using the internet beforehand?

Hello Everyone, I reviewed many previous year's submissions posted on swift's student's challenge distinguished winners section and noticed that most of them or all of them were designed and implemented for iOS devices only so is it a valid option to design our playground apps solely to run and function on macOS only?

Hello developers, i have a project for SSC that includes metal shader code. The project runs fine when I build and run it in Xcode, but it does not run in the Swift Playground app. The reason is that Swift Playgrounds doesn’t compile/build source files with the .metal extension the same way Xcode does (so the shader never gets built/loaded in Playgrounds). The requirements say: “Your app playground must be built with and run on Swift Playgrounds 4.6 or Xcode 26, or later.” Since it says “or” (not “and”), does that mean it’s acceptable if the project only builds/runs in Xcode?

My playground may require that the device has downloaded some resources in advance, such as Apple's advanced voice, translation language... But this is not necessary. It is just an incidental function. If it is not downloaded, the app will prompt that this function is not available and most of the other functions can continue to be used. But I want to know whether the judge's device will download these things in advance, and if not, will the judges think that there is a problem with my app that can't be used normally, which will cause my work to be rejected directly? Because my app uses the API of iOS 26, it needs to run in Xcode, and the competition allows the Apple intelligent function, but it is stipulated that if it runs with Xcode, the app will be tested on the simulator. However, my app involves image playground and cannot run on the simulator. Does anyone have a good solution? Thank you!

Recently, applications for the Swift Student Challenge opened up. I noticed, that when selected "where to run your app" (mine was developed in Xcode 26), and you select Xcode26, there is a note underneath it that basically says all Xcode projects will be run on the simulator. What if my project is dependent on AR? How would I let the judges test my submission?

I am building my app for iPhone users generally, and realized that maybe I should have had the iPad in mind since I read somewhere that the submissions will be judged on iPad. Should I be testing and tweaking on iPad now or can it be somehow ran on iPhone?