Apple today announced it will accept submissions for the 2026 Swift Student Challenge from Friday, February 6 through Saturday, February 28.


The annual Swift Student Challenge gives eligible student developers around the world the opportunity to showcase their coding capabilities by using the Swift Playground or Xcode apps to create an interactive "app playground."

Apple said winners will be selected based on submissions that "demonstrate excellence in innovation, creativity, social impact, or inclusivity." A subset of Distinguished Winners with "truly exceptional" submissions will be invited to visit Apple in Cupertino, California for three days in summer 2026, with travel and lodging included.

Distinguished Winners are typically invited to attend Apple's annual developers conference WWDC, at the company's Apple Park headquarters. Apple has yet to announce WWDC 2026 dates, but the weeklong conference is typically held in June.

WWDC 2026 is where Apple will announce iOS 27, iPadOS 27, macOS 27, watchOS 27, tvOS 27, visionOS 27, and other software updates.

Apple's announcement highlights three past Swift Student Challenge winners.
This article, "Apple Announces Next Swift Student Challenge Ahead of WWDC 2026" first appeared on MacRumors.com

Discuss this article in our forums

Apple has announced MacOS Tahoe, versioned as macOS 26, jumping 11 versions ahead from the current versioning of MacOS 15. This versioning number change is congruent with the new year-based versioning system that also arrives on iOS 26, iPadOS 26, watchOS 26, and the rest of the Apple operating system suite. MacOS Tahoe features an ... Read More

Apple has debuted iPadOS 26 today, complete with some notable new features and changes to the iPad operating system. First to notice is the new numerical versioning system, with iPadOS 26 jumping many version numbers ahead of the current iPadOS 18 version, following a numerical system much like Microsoft used to use for Windows (remember ... Read More

Apple has announced iOS 26, the next version of system software for iPhone. And yes you read that correctly, it’s iOS 26 – twenty six – jumping way ahead from iOS 18, to follow year numbers. It’s not just iOS that is facing the numerical versioning change, it turns out that Apple is labeling all ... Read More