Apple Developer has today announced the Swift Student Challenge for 2027, a program that gives young developers a chance to show their skills and get recognition at Apple's annual developers conference.

Submissions are open from the 8th to 28th of February 2027, and Apple will shortlist a group of distinguished winners that will be invited to WWDC27 in June. This is a major event that is held each year at Apple Park, where the company unveils its next-generation of platforms and software features.

This year, Apple has expanded app submissions beyond iPhone apps, now allowing submissions for an app across any of Apple's six software platforms:

  • iOS
  • iPadOS
  • macOS
  • watchOS
  • visionOS
  • tvOS

Apple says that apps should be developed in Xcode or Swift Playground, both of which are development software to create App Store applications.

The company is also hosting various sessions for new developers to learn from Apple experts, with the first session taking place next month all about agentic coding.

To sign up, you must have an Apple Developer account and meet the age requirements for the challenge, which is 13 or older in most regions.

Here are the app submission requirements, as per Apple's website:

Requirements:

  • Your submission must be an Xcode app or an app playground built with Swift Playground. It should be included in a ZIP file. Other Xcode project types, such as command line tools and packages, aren’t eligible. New for the 2027 Challenge, your app can be for any Apple platform: iOS, iPadOS, macOS, visionOS, tvOS, or watchOS.
  • Your creation should not rely on a network connection, and any resources used in your app should be included locally in the ZIP file. Submissions will be judged offline.
  • Your ZIP file can be up to 500 MB.
  • Your submission must be created by you as an individual. Group work will not be considered. You may include third-party open source licensed code and/or public domain images and sounds, with credit and an explanation of why it was used.
  • Your app must be built with and run on Xcode 27 or Swift Playground 4.7, or later. You may incorporate the use of Apple Pencil.
  • All content should be in English.