I am new to Apple development program, started learning coding and now I want to publish my app - is it mandatory to pay 100$ per year to Apple? any one has any solution for this?

Hi there, I’m currently developing an App Playground for the Swift Student Challenge, and a core feature of my playground uses SpeechAnalyzer with SpeechTranscriber from Apple’s Speech framework to transcribe microphone input to text. I understand that SpeechTranscriber performs transcription on-device and does not use the internet. However, from the dev documentation for AssetInventory, it looks like the required language/model assets may first need to be downloaded from Apple’s servers for devices that may not have it installed by default. Since Swift Student Challenge submissions are evaluated offline, I’m unsure how this should be handled. My main questions are: If the device on which my playground is tested does not already have the required SpeechTranscriber asset installed, will transcription fail when the submission is run offline? Is it safe for my submission to depend on SpeechAnalyzer / SpeechTranscriber as a core feature, or should I redesign it to work even if it is unavailable? Thank you!! :)

Can some one tall me when are the Swift Student Challenge i want to join it

Can I submit a smaller version of an app I already published on the AppStore to the Swift Student Challenge? The code is all mine and the app on the AppStore is all my work too.

Hello, My 14-year-old daughter is beginning high school in Florida and is interested in learning Swift and developing applications for Apple platforms. She currently has an iPad and iPhone but does not yet have access to a Mac. We understand that Swift Playground can be used on iPad, while Xcode requires a Mac. We would appreciate guidance on the best learning path for a beginner in her situation: Which official Apple Swift or SwiftUI curriculum should she begin with? How much can she realistically learn and build using Swift Playground on an iPad? At what stage would access to Xcode on a Mac become necessary? Can an app playground started on iPad later be transferred to Xcode on a Mac? Are there recommended Swift Coding Clubs, education programs, or student resources for high-school students in the United States? What should she focus on during her first year if she eventually wants to participate in the Swift Student Challenge? She is motivated to learn correctly from the beginning and build her first small app playground. Thank you for any guidance or educational resources you can provide.

Hello Developers, I'm wondering if anyone of you knows if swift student challenge apps are evaluated on real device or on a simulator ? Actually, I'm working on an app which requires iPad Taptic Engine, and I don't wanna restart it from scratch a week before submissions cause I'll learn the evaluations are on a simulator. So, if anyone can explain me how apps are evaluated, that would be great. Thank you!!

Originally, I set my iOS deployment target to 18.1, but now that I'm integrating Foundational Models, I set it to iOS 26.0. Is this ok?

Hi, I’m a winner of the Apple Swift Student Challenge and wanted to ask about a couple of things. It has been around two weeks since I received the winning notification, but I haven’t received any update regarding the delivery of the AirPods Max (2th generation). Additionally, I wanted to check on the Apple Developer Program upgrade that is included with the award. My account doesn’t appear to be upgraded yet. Could you please confirm the timeline for both the prize shipment and the developer program upgrade, or let me know if anything is required from my side? Just want to make sure everything is on track. Thank you! Best regards, Kiaan

Any idea when will the results of Swift Student Challenge be declared?

I am preparing for Swift Student Challenge, but it seems like the iPad Playground app still not support the latest SDK. I can't use frameworks like FoundationModel, etc., directly in playground app My playground for this year would require iPad environment since it uses PencilKit, ARKit, etc., and I also want to use the latest tech + the liquid glass UI Right now, I develop the project as a normal Xcode project, and I am wondering how do I post it? As Xcode playground, it must run on macOS As Swift Playground project, the iPad version of Playground does not support latest APIs and it can't compile

I'm building an app which runs around the Foundation model framework. My expected output is generated when testing on a real device or in preview in Xcode but it throws Foundation Model error when I try running it on the simulator. I'm using a Macbook M1 air and have apple intelligence turned on and my simulator run destination is also an iPad Pro M5 (26.0). Any solution for this as this is my submission for the SSC so I need to make it work on the simulator iPad. Thank you👾

With AI getting so powerful, do you think Swift Student Challenge will change a lot next year? Will Apple update the rules or change what they're judging? Would love to hear thoughts from anyone who's followed SSC for a while.

Hi, I submitted my Swift Student Challenge 2026 app and I'm worried about a build error I got when testing. I have both PlateClassifier_2.mlmodel and PlateClassifier_2.mlmodelc in my Sources folder. Only the .mlmodelc is listed in my Package.swift resources. When building I got: PlateClassifier_2.mlmodel: No predominant language detected. Set COREML_CODEGEN_LANGUAGE to preferred language. Build failed — 1 error Will judges hit this same error? Does having an unlisted .mlmodel alongside the .mlmodelc cause a hard build failure on other machines too, or is this specific to my setup (Xcode 26.2 beta, building to physical device)? Will this get me instantly disqualified? Any help appreciated.

Hello, I recently submitted my Swift Student Challenge app playground (“Crest”) and realized after submission that I accidentally selected Swift Playgrounds as the software to run it, instead of Xcode 26 or later. My project builds and runs successfully in Xcode 26 using the iOS 26 SDK and simulator. However, when opening the same .swiftpm project in the Swift Playgrounds app on iPad, it does not compile because Swift Playgrounds currently only supports up to iOS 18 SDK and does not support iOS 26 APIs. The submission itself is complete, builds correctly in Xcode, and was submitted before the deadline. The incorrect selection of Swift Playgrounds was an honest mistake during the submission process. I wanted to ask whether reviewers are able to run the submission using Xcode 26 in cases like this, or if there is anything I should do. Thank you very much for your time.

Hi all, The SSDC states: Challenge submissions are due by Saturday, February 28, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. PST I am curious does this apply to local timezone? I am GMT+0, so would this mean the deadline for GMT+0 is on the 1st of March at 7:59AM? Kind regards, Adam

Hello Apple Developer Community, I am planning to participate in the Swift Student Challenge 2026. However, while reviewing the application form, I noticed that my country of residence is not listed in the address dropdown menu. I would like to clarify the correct way to proceed in this situation to avoid disqualification: Is it permissible to use the address of a relative who lives in a supported region as my contact address? Is filling out the shipping address mandatory for the initial submission, or is there an option to proceed without it? I want to ensure I fully comply with the Terms and Conditions. Any guidance or advice would be greatly appreciated. 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!

I’m building a Swift Playgrounds app (.swiftpm) in Xcode 26.2 and I consistently see this warning, even on brand-new Swift Playgrounds apps created from the default template: “Skipping duplicate build file in Compile Sources build phase: /Users/.../.swiftpm/Media.xcassets” Everything builds and runs normally and all images/assets appear correctly, so it seems like it’s just an annoying warning. I’ve checked for duplicates and don’t see the asset catalog listed twice, but the warning still appears whenever I add an asset catalog to any playground project in Xcode. Is this warning safe to ignore for submission, and it won’t affect Swift Student Challenge eligibility?

The deployment target for my app was set to iOS 18.1 originally, but now that I'm using Foundational Models framework, it has been set to iOS 26.0. Is this ok?

Hello, I built my app in Xcode and used IOS 26 latest frameworks like Foundation Models. But some of this frameworks don't work properly in Swift Playground(MyApp.swiftpm) and cause crashes. My question is can I submit a MyApp.xcodeproj file and choose Xcode 26 as a software to run my app ? Thank you in advance.