Issue 658  April 26th 2024

Visiting WWDC is always a special experience, but attending is harder than with many other conferences. You have to win the ticket lottery due to the demand, almost everyone will need a flight of some duration, and let’s not even talk about the hotel prices! 😱

That’s a challenge even if you have a company willing to fund you, but it must feel completely out of reach for almost all students, which is why I love that Apple organises the Swift Student Challenge every year. Apple announced the winners this week, and from the 350 winners, Apple picked 50 to attend a three-day event around this year’s conference. 🎉

I got a chance to talk with a couple of the winners this week: AJ Nettles and Dezmond Blair. In previous years, the students have organised to keep track of everyone’s submissions, and I always loved browsing and linking to those repositories each year. There is no 2024 repository, unfortunately, but getting to meet AJ and Dezmond was a treat.

Their apps are impressive, too, with AJ creating a password manager using CryptoKit and Dezmond making a mountain biking companion app using ARKit.

Congratulations to all the winners this year, and I hope those who are attending the conference will make them feel welcome and part of the community.

I’ll finish with some words from AJ, who had this to say when I asked if he had any advice for next year’s students:

“Don’t be afraid to fail. If your code doesn’t compile then try again with a different approach. It will error. It will have bugs. But if you keep trying to improve it, you’ll get there.”

That’s good advice for everyone, not just next year’s students! 👍

Dave Verwer