Developers decode their journeys from app ideas to App Store

6 November 2025

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Developers decode their journey from app ideas to the App Store

Meet three Swift Student Challenge winners building immersive apps with a distinct human touch; Applications for next year’s challenge open on 6 February

Every year, Apple Swift Student Challenge Celebrates the creativity and ingenuity of student developers around the world, inviting them to use Swift and Xcode to solve real-world problems in their communities and beyond. Submissions for the 2026 challenge will open on February 6 for three weeks, and students can prepare for the fresh Develop in Swift Tutorial And Meet Apple Code-Along Sessions,

Former Swift Student Challenge winners Braden Gogis, Adrit Rao, and Sofia Sandoval have experienced firsthand how app development can unlock creativity and curiosity, strengthen their critical thinking, and lay the foundation for exciting careers. Using cutting-edge technologies like machine learning and spatial computing, they have created complete apps and games brimming with warmth and a distinctly human touch.

Below, the trio share their journeys in app creation, from learning to code, to submitting their projects to the Swift Student Challenge, to launching their first apps and games on the App Store.

Braden Gogis doesn’t remember a time when he wasn’t completely interested in sports across all formats. He recalls, “In preschool, when they asked us to dress like what we wanted to be when we grew up, I dressed like a game show host.”

In second grade, when he discovered the App Store on his iPod Touch for the first time, his excitement reached a whole new level. “My dad showed me a game that a 14-year-old kid made and I thought it was pretty cool,” says Gogis.

Making games for traditional consoles seemed out of reach, but making games for the app store seemed accessible, so he scoured the web for tutorials and learned everything he could about coding.

When Gogis entered the 2019 Swift Student Challenge, they won with their now-published app solisquareA reimagined rendition of the classic card game with quick gestures and an intuitive, hands-on experience. “SwiftUI is really helpful for making apps and games feel super interactive, because I can quickly prototype not only what something is going to look like, but also how it’s going to feel,” says Gogis.

The 21-year-old, now a senior at Taylor University in Upland, Indiana, has brought that same personal touch to his latest App Store release, joyboxA 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. Built with SwiftUI and UIKit, the app features detailed backgrounds, morphing gradients and haptics to replicate the feeling of physically writing to memory and putting it in a box, and allows users to share songs through integration with Apple Music.

“I enjoy coding because I love people and I want to make people’s lives better in whatever way I can,” says Gogis. “It’s great for your brain to take five minutes every day and focus on what you’re grateful for, and share it with other people.”

Adrit Rao was first introduced to Block programming when he moved to Palo Alto, California, in elementary school, and he taught himself the basics of coding during the COVID-19 pandemic. From the beginning, he was impressed by the problem-solving possibilities enabled by app creation.

“The App Store provides a direct way to share what I’ve created with people beyond my community,” explains the three-time Swift Student Challenge winner. “When you don’t have to worry about how you’ll reach people, you can instead focus on the second step: What kind of problem are you going to target, and what kind of accessible solution are you going to create?”

Rao, an alumnus who recently began his freshman year at the University of California, Berkeley, is particularly interested in the ways technology can help improve access and bridge connections. He is currently putting the finishing touches on EyeSee, an app that taps into powerful on-device algorithms on the iPhone to simulate the experience of various eye conditions. “The idea behind the app is to create empathy, because it can be difficult to understand how other people see the world,” he explains.

with previous app signerRao 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 are not 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 the grocery store or placing an order at the local coffee shop.

Rao plans to collaborate with organizations that support deaf communities to gather more feedback to help refine and improve it. “It’s always very exciting when you get feedback that helps you improve your apps,” he says. “I want to iterate on Signer to make sure it meets the needs of the deaf and hearing communities.”

Sofia Sandoval always had a creative spark. Growing up between the US and Mexico, she stayed connected to her loved ones by creating elaborate cards for every occasion. But when she went to college to study computer science at the Tecnológico de Monterrey, she found it hard to continue the ritual and stay in touch. “Everyone gets messages these days,” she explains. “Receiving a real card is a special feeling, and even the creation process feels intentional, making sure people feel loved and appreciated.”

Before last year’s Swift Student Challenge submission deadline, when Sandoval was feeling tired and a little homesick, an idea came to her mind. CarinoHer winning app Playground, channels the warmth and thoughtfulness of a physical handmade card into digital form. She designed the app’s card templates in Procreate on an iPad using Apple Pencil.

“I wanted the user experience to feel like writing on a paper card,” says Sandoval. “Using Swift and SwiftUI, I created borders for the card and made it so you can flip it like the real thing, and added functions to erase and export the final design.”

She is currently experimenting with adding even more dimension to the app through the power of spatial computing. “In my school’s Innovation Lab, I installed the app on an Apple Vision Pro and it really sparked my curiosity to learn how I could develop and optimize solutions for this,” says Sandoval, who launched Carino on the App Store earlier this year.

For students who want to take the leap and explore coding for themselves, Sandoval says there’s no better time than the present to open up Xcode and get started. “I know it can be really overwhelming, but the only way to really learn is to fully immerse yourself in it—to get uncomfortable,” she advises. “All the tools are literally within reach; they’re all right here with you.”

This fall, interested developers can prepare for the 2026 Swift Student Challenge with the new develop in swift Tutorials that dive deep into topics like SwiftUI, spatial computing, app design, and machine learning. Students and teachers can also sign up for special with codes meet apple Sessions on getting started with app development, experimenting with Coding Intelligence in Xcode, and participating in the Swift Student Challenge.

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