The exclusive WWDC 2020 jackets that Apple sent to winners of its Swift Student Challenge feature a nifty plaid pattern made of emojis.
Brayden Gogis, a 16-year-old game developer who lives in Indianapolis, is one of 350 winners in this year’s youth coding competition. He described the experience of unwrapping his Apple prize package — and gave us a closer look at the unique emoji pattern.
“A FedEx box arrived marked as Priority Overnight Shipping,” Gogis told Cult of Mac. “Inside was a box wrapped in gray paper. Inside of the wrapping paper was another wrap around the box that was made of thick, dark gray paper and embossed with the WWDC20 logo. After taking that off, I could finally open the black box. Inside was a black cardboard-paper layer with a white envelope inserted inside. The white envelope also had the WWDC20 embossed on it. Inside was a letter congratulating me on the award. After taking off the black layer, I could see the jacket. Underneath it was the sleeve of pins. The packaging was very impressive.”
Apple will hold this year’s Worldwide Developers Conference entirely online due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The Swift Student Challenge replaced the usual WWDC Scholarship program, since Apple couldn’t fly in scholarship winners to a virtual conference.
For a shot at winning Apple’s exclusive WWDC 2020 goodies, student developers had to show off some Swift coding prowess and their coding history. The winners found out yesterday at 9 a.m. Pacific time.
Look what arrived at my house this morning! Thanks @apple! Emoji Plaid! This is awesome!#WWDC20 #SwiftStudentChallenge pic.twitter.com/KcSHFDpLvK
— Chain Reaction Games (@ChainReactGames) June 17, 2020
CleanMyMac X: Your all-in-one Mac solution
It cleans! It optimizes! It keeps viruses at bay! And now, MacPaw’s killer app is available on Apple’s official Mac App Store, so you know it’s safe. Cult of Mac readers can get CleanMyMac X at an exclusive 30% off through July 5. Activate your discount now!Brayden Gogis is on Apple’s radar
Gogis might be early in his developer journey, but he’s no novice. He has already developed multiple games for the App Store, with two of his most popular being The Company Game and Solisquare. Apple featured them multiple times under its “Game of the Day” and “New Games We Love” categories.
Photo: Brayden Gogis
His next title, Circulous should launch for preorder next Monday, June 22 — the day that Apple’s virtual developers conference kicks off.
Last year, Gogis won the WWDC19 Scholarship challenge and attend the conference for the first time. This year, he’s not so fortunate (along with the rest of the Apple-watching world). However, being singled out like this still shows he’s firmly on Apple’s radar. We imagine we’ll be hearing a whole lot more from him in years to come!
WWDC kicks off Monday with a keynote set for 10 a.m. Pacific. The keynote will stream live on YouTube, Apple TV and Apple’s website.
