Apple Makes a Big Change to Its 2027 Student Coding Challenge

Apple is expanding its Swift Student Challenge for 2027, letting students build an entry for any Apple platform for the first time. Submissions will open February 8 and close February 28, giving eligible Canadian students aged 13 and older a chance to take part.

The change, announced November 10, brings macOS, watchOS, tvOS and visionOS into the competition alongside iOS and iPadOS. Students can now design around the device that suits their idea, whether that is a Mac, Apple Watch, Apple TV or Vision Pro.

The 2026 competition required an app playground (.swiftpm), a small interactive project created with Swift Playground or Xcode, packaged in a ZIP file no larger than 25 MB. Students could already use a Mac or iPad to build these projects.

For 2027, Apple accepts full Xcode apps as well as app playgrounds across all six platforms. The ZIP file limit also rises to 500 MB, 20 times the previous cap.

Apple selected 350 winners from 37 countries and regions in 2026, with accessibility among the themes explored by students.

What Canadian students need to know

Age is only part of eligibility. Applicants cannot be employed full time as developers and must meet Apple’s education requirements. These cover eligible school, homeschool and Apple Developer Academy students or recent graduates, STEM-program students, and certain recent high-school graduates heading into further education.

Free registration as an Apple developer is enough; a paid Apple Developer Program membership is not required to enter.

For the app itself, the key requirements are:

• An experience that judges can explore within three minutes.
• An Xcode app or Swift Playground app playground, submitted as a ZIP file no larger than 500 MB.
• Offline operation, with resources included locally.
• Individual work, with all content in English.
• Compatibility with Xcode 27 or Swift Playground 4.7, or later.

Apple’s requirements spell out the education and recent-graduation conditions, so students should check those before committing to an entry.

Winners will receive a year of Apple Developer Program membership and a special gift. Distinguished Winners will also be invited to an experience at Apple in Cupertino.

There is time to prepare before February. Apple has free online sessions planned for December 10 on agentic coding in Xcode, January 14 on getting ready for the challenge, and February 4 on creating an app’s story.

Which Apple platform would you build for, and what problem would your app solve?