Hi everyone, my Digital Services Act (DSA) status in App Store Connect has been “In Review” for over a week. Is this normal? The app is already available in 178 countries, but it can’t be released in the EU (my home market) solely because this DSA isn’t approved yet. How long did it take for you? Is there anything that helps speed up the DSA review? Thanks for any insights.

Hello all! My name is Luke, and I'm a 14 year old with a idea for SSC. This is my first SSC submission ever. I would like some feedback concerning a question. My app is an AI powered academic planner that helps you and your life. I won't give too much away, but I believe it's a really helpful concept. It uses a mini on-device LLM (built with simple if this word typed then do this logic) to help organize assignments. This is a real business I am building, and I put inside of my app simulated features such as the app saying "scanning your Google Classroom..", would this go against any terms and make the app less likely to win? I also have my app fully polished, and feels like an actual app and finished product, with demo assignments pre-loaded, and most stuff is placeholders. Should the app be more like a guided simulator? Such as "click here to see how this will be simulated in a final release" or again should it be polished? I just want some feedback, since I only have 3 minutes, and the app needs to be offline, I just want to improvise. Hopefully I can get some feedback from the community, and/or ex-winners! Thanks all! And good luck! :) - Luke

I’m building a Swift Playgrounds app (.swiftpm) in Xcode 26.2 and I consistently see this warning, even on brand-new Swift Playgrounds apps created from the default template: “Skipping duplicate build file in Compile Sources build phase: /Users/.../.swiftpm/Media.xcassets” Everything builds and runs normally and all images/assets appear correctly, so it seems like it’s just an annoying warning. I’ve checked for duplicates and don’t see the asset catalog listed twice, but the warning still appears whenever I add an asset catalog to any playground project in Xcode. Is this warning safe to ignore for submission, and it won’t affect Swift Student Challenge eligibility?

I’m concerned because my iCloud account was recently migrated to AWS (Amazon Web Service) against my will, and now it seems.like people are rummaging through my files, photos, and mail, When I try to contact Apple Support, I get bumped to a spoofed site. Calling the hotline is the same, I get a Siri operator with platitudes and gaslighting but no action. I have run sysdiagnose and it looks really sketchy. Can anyone help?

After the last OS26 developer beta update the watch series 6 battery drains fast, in less than two hours life. I visited Apple Store , they said the battery was dead so I had to buy new watch series 10 The same issue happened in the new watch, the battery meter shows 50% after 1 hour Right now I’ve downgraded my update version to beta 11 until I can find a solution

Hello Everyone, I reviewed many previous year's submissions posted on swift's student's challenge distinguished winners section and noticed that most of them or all of them were designed and implemented for iOS devices only so is it a valid option to design our playground apps solely to run and function on macOS only?

My playground may require that the device has downloaded some resources in advance, such as Apple's advanced voice, translation language... But this is not necessary. It is just an incidental function. If it is not downloaded, the app will prompt that this function is not available and most of the other functions can continue to be used. But I want to know whether the judge's device will download these things in advance, and if not, will the judges think that there is a problem with my app that can't be used normally, which will cause my work to be rejected directly? Because my app uses the API of iOS 26, it needs to run in Xcode, and the competition allows the Apple intelligent function, but it is stipulated that if it runs with Xcode, the app will be tested on the simulator. However, my app involves image playground and cannot run on the simulator. Does anyone have a good solution? Thank you!

👋Hi, I want to ask what equipment the auditors in SSC will use to evaluate students' playground, whether it is iPad pro and mac with camera, or something else. And what system will they use, iPadOS/macOS 26 or something else? Looking forward to your reply. Thank you

So I downloaded and installed iOS26 on my iPhone 15 Pro and after that it does not want to boot anymore. It shows a battery with one red line. Which is weird because before it restarted it had 80% of the battery and I had the power cable connected at all time. Now I can't boot it up anymore. Not even with the volume button up, down, power button trick. Please help!

Hello developers, i have a project for SSC that includes metal shader code. The project runs fine when I build and run it in Xcode, but it does not run in the Swift Playground app. The reason is that Swift Playgrounds doesn’t compile/build source files with the .metal extension the same way Xcode does (so the shader never gets built/loaded in Playgrounds). The requirements say: “Your app playground must be built with and run on Swift Playgrounds 4.6 or Xcode 26, or later.” Since it says “or” (not “and”), does that mean it’s acceptable if the project only builds/runs in Xcode?

We made a purchase to join the Apple Developer Program, but we have been waiting for 5 days and have not received any response such as an approval or rejection. Are you experiencing the same issue as well?

アプリ開発を依頼して公開中ですが、 アプリ開発会社が倒産し、連絡もつかず、 アップル社への年間料金の支払いができません。 登録アカウントがわかりませんので、どうしたらいいでしょうか？ よろしくお願いいたします。

Hello, is it allowed to use Foundation Model in the app? Will it work when launched on the jury's device, or will it not work because the jury will not enable Apple Intelligence?

I've paid - and have the confirmation of subscription email. But when I try to enroll both on my iphone and macbook air - I get errors. on the iphone said could not complete enrollment. on the macbook it said "not available in your area" I am in australia and it should work. Does anyone know how to fix the enrollment bugs?

Dear Apple Developer team, dear Apple Developer community, I’m posting this publicly because I honestly don’t know how else to get a response. Timeline: December 3rd: I applied for the Apple Developer Program and received the confirmation email: “Your program enrollment has been received.” After that: complete silence for weeks – no status updates, no emails, nothing. End of December: Only after I opened a support ticket myself did I receive a response asking me to upload additional documents. January 12th: I uploaded all requested documents in full. Since then: silence again. Last Monday, I sent a follow-up email → no reply. Today (January 26th), I opened a new ticket, referencing the existing case number. Honestly, I have to ask: Where is the professionalism in this process? For comparison: The Google Play Developer account verification (including identity and company checks) took around 24 hours. Apple is one of the most valuable technology companies in the world. Why does a basic developer enrollment take over two months, without transparent communication or even a simple status update? At this point, I would really appreciate: a clear status update, or at least a realistic timeline for when this process will be completed Right now, this experience feels neither professional nor developer-friendly. Thank you for reading, and I sincerely hope for a timely response.

«Hello everyone, after installing iOS 26, I noticed that on my iPhone 13 Pro, which had its battery replaced, the battery status in the settings shows 0%, and the phone does not charge more than 1%, no matter how long I leave it plugged in. The same problem is observed on iPhones 14 and lower where the battery (FB18154101) was replaced.»

I'm suddenly receiving zero products from SKProductsRequest, even though this setup previously worked without issues. The debugger shows that both of my product identifiers are now being returned under invalidIdentifiers, and response.products is empty. I’ve confirmed the following: There are no pending agreements in App Store Connect. The subscription is active and configured correctly. The product identifiers match exactly with what’s defined in App Store Connect. Here is the delegate method I'm using (unchanged from when it previously worked): extension UpgradeViewModelProvider: SKProductsRequestDelegate { func productsRequest(_ request: SKProductsRequest, didReceive response: SKProductsResponse) { if response.products.count > 0 { delegate.send(.onProduct(response.products)) } } } Since everything was functioning before, I’m trying to understand what may have caused the identifiers to suddenly be marked as invalid. Any guidance or suggestions on what to check next would be greatly appreciated.

I’d like to develop an online marketplace and service provider iOS app similar to the Airbnb app for my startup company. I need standard functions like email registration, user profile, listings etc. And special functions like: location tracking, map, booking system, embedded messenger for the host and customers, internet surveillance camera and rating system, payment system.I have two questions:-How much does it cost?-Is it possible to develop it by myself and how long?(no programming background)

There seems to be an error with a code checkpoint in Swift Playground "getting started with apps" It says to put a VStack inside an HStack and shows how to do it. my screen looks the same but it is not getting marked as correct which is preventing me from moving on. Any Ideas?