Apple just announced that its annual Swift Student Challenge will return starting February 6 for three weeks, and new Develop in Swift tutorials and Meet with Apple code-along sessions are now available to help prepare. Alongside the announcement, Apple is highlighting four apps from three former winners.
Four apps from three former Swift Student Challenge winners
Apple Newsroom has today spotlighted three former Swift Student Challenge winners as part of encouraging students to participate in the 2026 challenge.
Brayden Gogis, who has a passion for games, has created two apps:
- Solisquare: “a reimagined take on the classic card game with quick gestures and an intuitive, hands-on feel”
- Joybox: “a social media app that allows users to create groups and add photos, stories, and songs to their collective Joybox, and select a time to open the box together”
Adrit Rao is especially interested in using technology to help accessibility. That led him to build an app called Signer.
Here are the details:
Rao used Core ML, Apple’s on-device machine learning framework, to convert sign language gestures into speech — an idea that came to him after reading an article about how frustrating it can be for people in the Deaf community to communicate with people who aren’t fluent in sign language. The app is designed to help facilitate real-time communication in everyday situations where learning sign language may not be immediately possible, such as a quick exchange at a grocery store or placing an order at a local coffee shop.
Sofia Sandoval was a winner of the Swift Student Challenge just last year.
Inspired by a desire to stay connected with loved ones over long distances, she created Cariño. The app “channels the warmth and thoughtfulness of a physical handmade card into digital form. She designed the app’s card templates in Procreate on iPad using Apple Pencil.”
You can read more about Gogis, Rao, and Sandoval’s stories in the Apple Newsroom article.
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