The winners of Apple's 2023 Swift Student Challenge have been announced, with their projects spanning health, sports, and science, demonstrating their creative use of coding skills to make a positive impact on others and the environment.Apple reveals the winners of the 2023 Swift Student ChallengeEvery year, Apple organizes the Swift Student Challenge as a means to motivate student developers to hone their skills and compete for prizes using Swift Playgrounds, Apple's development environment for new coders. To be eligible, participants must be at least 13 years old, enrolled in an academic institution or homeschool equivalent, and not employed as full-time developers. Read more...

Ahead of Apple's keynote event at WWDC on Monday, June 5, the company's annual "AR experience" easter egg is now available. Apple's imagery for WWDC 2023 has a bubble-like theme that emphasizes the colors of iridescent thin film interference. The AR experience shows an Apple logo-shaped bubble that animates clockwise with the date of June 5, 2023 in the center. To view the AR experience, open up the Apple Events website on an iPhone or iPad and tap on "View the AR experience." From there, you can scan the area around you to see the logo in real time, or view it in "Object" mode to get a clearer picture of what it looks like without having to navigate your…

The Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC), Apple's annual developer and software-oriented conference, is now just a few days away. As with previous years, Apple is expected to introduce major updates to all of its operating systems, but unique to WWDC 2023, Apple is also very likely to unveil xrOS, the software that will run its much-rumored AR/VR mixed-reality headset. Here's everything we're expecting from it. xrOS: What's in a Name? Apple has not publicly acknowledged the existence of its headset, but internal Apple sources have confirmed that the operating system will be called xrOS, and Apple has used hidden shell companies to trademark the name in various countries. ‌xrOS‌ is meant to stand for "extended reality," hinting at the augmented and…

Apple’s oft-rumored mixed-reality headset, which the company is expected to reveal at WWDC on June 5th, “is likely to accelerate the adoption of augmented reality — and the broader phenomenon of ‘mixed reality,’ which encompasses full-immersion virtual-reality headsets that completely occlude a person’s vision,” Christopher Mims writes for The Wall Street Journal Designer Marcus Kane’s conception of Apple’s mixed reality headset (via Behance) Christopher Mims for The Wall Street Journal: Just as personal computers and then smartphones were once exotic and now both teach and distract us daily, augmented reality is coming for how we interact with the digital and physical worlds. Apple has a chance to succeed where others have failed… The key to Apple’s success — or failure —…

Macworld With just about a week to go until WWDC, the rumors are beginning to paint a picture of a jam-packed show, with a major watchOS refresh, some of our “most requested features” in iOS 17, and a customizable Lock Screen in iPadOS 17. But beyond the upgrades and enhancements coming to our older devices, Apple will also use the stage to unveil some products that are completely brand new to Apple’s catalog. Here are five that may make an appearance as we all watch the June 5 keynote. Reality Pro headset While the first part of the keynote will almost certainly be devoted to iOS, iPadOS, macOS, and the rest, everyone will be waiting for Tim Cook to throw…

Illustration by Hugo Herrera for The Verge It’s easy to blame trackers when fitness goals don’t go according to plan, but sometimes the problem lies closer to home. I almost quit this year’s New York City Half Marathon. The moment is seared into my brain. I’d been running for nearly two hours in freezing temperatures, straight into the wind. The Apple Watch Ultra on my left wrist buzzed to tell me I’d just passed mile nine. On my right wrist, the Garmin Forerunner 265S said I’d only run 8.55 miles. A short-ish distance ahead, I could see the official mile nine marker. I had no idea which distance was “true.” It didn’t matter, though. All I wanted was to beat…