Apple begins notifying 2025 Swift Student Challenge winners

Win or lose, emails are going out to all that entered the 2025 Swift Student Challenge ahead of WWDC.

The Swift Student Challenge is an annual event that encourages up-and-coming student developers to practice their craft and win prizes. Participants must be over 13, enrolled in an academic institution or homeschool equivalent, and not employed as full-time developers.

Those who wish to compete are required to submit an interactive app playground scene that can be experienced within three minutes. Just as it did in 2024, Apple has evaluated these submissions based innovation, creativity, social impact, or inclusivity.

The company has now selected the 350 winners of its Swift Student Challenge.

As was previously announced on Tuesday, Apple has now notified the challenge winners, 50 of which have been classified as "Distinguished Winners." As a reward for their outstanding submissions, distinguished winners be rewarded with a three-day visit to Apple Park in Cupertino.

All 350 challenge winners will receive a free one-year membership to the Apple Developer program, an opportunity to take the Swift certification exam and AirPods Max. Apple will also provide them with a personalized certificate, recognizing their achievement.

Who won the 2025 Swift Student Challenge, and what did they submit?

Apple has selected a total of 350 different Swift Student Challenge submissions, and the winners were quick to share their accomplishments on social media.

Winners of the challenge received an email from Apple congratulating them and detailing the various prizes that they've won. There's a lot of variety among the projects that won the challenge, and quite a few participants described their submissions in detail.

One Swift Student Challenge winner, known simply as Fayaz, submitted an application called GyroCam. It makes use of the iPhone's gyroscope for video recording — whenever the device is flipped to a different orientation, video recording stops and starts automatically.

Fayaz has uploaded a detailed video demonstration of GyroCam, which can be found on his website and YouTube channel.

Arjun Pratap Choudhary, another winner of the 2025 Swift Student Challenge, submitted an "ADHD-friendly focus timer" known as FocusFish. According to an X post by the apparent winner, the project helps students stay on track by gamifying focus and incorporating "aquarium vibes."

I did it!
FocusFish — my ADHD-friendly focus timer — just WON the Swift Student Challenge 2025!
Inspired by my journey, it blends aquarium vibes + gamified focus to help students stay on track.
Your fish grows as you do. #SwiftStudentChallenge #WWDC25 #ADHD pic.twitter.com/5bJCBQbZ0w

— Arjun Pratap Choudhary (@arjunxpratap) March 27, 2025

Note that these are only two out of the more than 300 winners of this year's challenge, and each project has its redeeming qualities and unique attributes.

Interesting projects that didn't quite make it

Though only 350 participants were ultimately recognized as official challenge winners, plenty of other projects are just as interesting, even though they didn't officially win anything. Those who didn't win the 2025 Swift Student Challenge mostly remain undeterred, as they too have decided to share their submissions on social media.

One of the projects that didn't quite win Apple over was known as Dub Dub Circle. As described in an X post by its creator Om Chachad, Dub Dub Circle was meant to help developers keep track of important information about events. For instance, users would be able to enter the contact information of the people they met during a conference or make a note of their thoughts and experiences.

No win for me, unfortunately!

Maybe it's because of the mess up I did during submission, but anyways, this isn't about finding excuses

Dub Dub Circle will be rebranded and is set to launch later this year, couldn't be more excited.

Congrats to the winners!!!! https://t.co/50KxwRxqLN pic.twitter.com/UIW8IOAozd

— Om Chachad (@TheOriginaliTE) March 27, 2025

Another student submission that didn't win the favor of Apple was known as Aegis. According to its creator, who goes by Ranga Reddy, Aegis is an Apple Watch-compatible app "designed to empower parents of children of autism by providing real-time insights."

Aegis didn't make it to the Apple Swift Student Challenge 2025.

I loved the process of building it. https://t.co/mTMftzeq8g

— ranga reddy (@irangareddy) March 27, 2025

Overall, the 2025 Swift Student Challenge saw a multitude of different student submissions. Though some of them weren't impressive enough for Apple, many of them still demonstrate creative thought and novel ideas. Apple's next big event is its annual Worldwide Developers' Conference or WWDC, scheduled to begin on June 9 with a keynote video.