Hi! I am not entirely sure if Swift Packages (a Swift Playground is essentially a special type of Swift Package) support editing build phases like in Xcode projects. When adding the folder to your playground (either by drag & drop or the plus button in the bottom left), wasn't it automatically placed within a "Resources" folder? It believe the USDZ needs to be placed within the generated Resources folder, not at the root of your playground. Then, you can access it using Bundle.main.url (and perhaps also Bundle.main.path): // make sure that "filename" doesn't contain the extension! guard let url = Bundle.main.url(forResource: filename, withExtension:"usdz") else { fatalError("Couldn't find the USDZ file.") } If you really need multiple Resources folders, a "hacky" thing you could do is to edit the Package.swift file. Control-click the Playground file in Finder and choose theShow package contents option, then open the Package.swift file and edit the target's resources: targets: [ .executableTarget( name: "AppModule", path: ".", resources: [ .process("Resources"), .process("Second Folder") // your second folder ] ) ] But make sure to pay attention to the warning that you may have at the beginning of this file: // WARNING: // This file is automatically generated. // Do not edit it by hand because the contents will be replaced. This file's contents may change when you edit other settings such as the App Icon from within Xcode. From my testings the resources folders seem to stay intact, but it's good to keep the warning in mind. Thus, the best way would be to simply use the provided "Resources" folder.

If you need to use images fetched from the internet, the terms say that all resources must be included within the Playground: "Your creation should not rely on a network connection and any resources used in your app playground should be included locally in the ZIP file. Submissions will be judged offline." You can store images locally, within your Playground, and "ship" them with your app. If you are asking if you may use photos from the internet to train ML models, that depends on the usage terms & license. When using photos from the internet, always check the license to see how these may be used and if any attribution is required.

I haven’t looked into this further than you did yet, but I think I also reproduced this same issue a few days ago when I was trying to find the differences between Xcode and Swift Playgrounds regarding building projects with ML models. What I know for sure is that at least the app builds successfully, compared to doing the same thing in Xcode - more details about this are available in this thread.

I'm curious, have you tried using the coremldata.bin file as a resource? It should contain the model data. I haven't tried this and it's just a guess. I'm still getting issues with tabular regressor ML models in Swift Playgrounds as well, just as in Xcode - that multiple commands produce coremldata.bin. I'll look into this further, perhaps with other models too (including MobileNetV2). Also, it seems that .mlmodel (uncompiled) files are simply copied to the bundle and not compiled - which I believed it used to happen last year, at least in Xcode 14. Perhaps CoreML models are completely unsupported in Swift Playgrounds?

I think I found out why I couldn't build playgrounds with .mlmodelc files - it seems that the playground I used had a Resources folder but it didn't appear in the target's resources in Package.swift due to some reason - perhaps I manually played with it at some point and forgot about it. Editing this file / making a new playground solved the build issues for me. However, I still get the same build problems with uncompiled models (.mlmodel) in Xcode 15.

I believe I finally found an overall solution that works for both compiled (.mlmodelc) and uncompiled models (.mlmodel, .mlpackage), plus an explanation of why .mlmodelc files may not be correctly copied in the bundle during the build process (even though it succeeds). I also sent a similar answer to this other thread, and included a few more details about an issue unique to Xcode and uncompiled models. You will need to edit the Package.swift file manually. Go to the playground in Finder, control-click it and select Show Package Contents. Then, open the Package.swift file. At the bottom of this file, you'll find the following target section, which might look different for you: targets: [ .executableTarget( name: "AppModule", path: ".", resources: [ .process("Resources") // copy resources to the app bundle without keeping folder structure ] ) ] The .process("Resources") line indicates that the resources (in your case, your model) must be copied without keeping the original folder structure. Say you have 2 folders inside the Resources folder, and in each of these you have a few files. Only the files inside will be copied in the bundle, and the 2 original folders won't appear. You will need to replace (or add, if you don't have the process() function) process() with copy(), which maintains the internal folder structure (I explained below why). You can either use .copy("Resources"), which require you to change the model's bundle URL like this: class var urlOfModelInThisBundle : URL { let bundle = Bundle(for: self) return bundle.url(forResource: "Resources/MobileNetV2", withExtension:"mlmodelc")! } Or you might directly copy the model folder to the Bundle using .copy("Resources/MobileNetV2") and keep the original URL - note that this way, any other files in the Resources might not be available unless you add other process / copy functions to your Package.swift file. For more information about process() and copy(), check the docs for bundling resources with Swift Packages (since a Swift Playground is a special type of a Swift Package). Why compiled models are not correctly copied in the bundle using process() Compiled ML models are essentially a folder that contains one or more coremldata.bin files (and maybe other files as well) - in fact, they appear as a folder on the filesystem (you can cd into them in Terminal). The reason why these .mlmodelc aren't correctly copied to your bundle when using .process("Resources"), or may give a build error with certain models that contain more coremldata.bin files, is that the internal folder structure is not copied, but only the files inside it. That's why you found that your bundle contained a coremldata.bin file only. Using the previously mentioned .copy() method, you can keep the internal folder structure. Regarding why uncompiled models cannot be built in Xcode, something similar might be happening, but these do not appear as folders on the filesystem - so this should probably not happen and perhaps it is a build issue. It also seems that .mlmodels are not compiled at runtime, which I believe used to happen in the previous Swift Playgrounds / Xcode versions from last year. Let me know if this works!

I meant tabular regression models.

Quinn's resources are great! If you don't mind, I would like to add a few other resources that you might find helpful as well: The resources already listed in the Get Ready section of the Swift Student Challenge website. The Swift Programming Language docs, especially the Swift tour part. Also, you can go deeper and read all the topics included in these docs, especially if you want to gain a deeper understanding of the language itself. The SwiftUI sample apps. This also appears on the Swift Student Challenge's website. After you are comfortable with Swift & SwiftUI, you can learn how use the many technologies (such as ML frameworks) described in the Apple Developer docs, watch WWDC videos about these, and explore other resources as well. But of course, the idea would be to simply just start with one of them and dive deeper into this subject. As you gain more knowledge, you will know what you'll need to focus on next. Also, there are two main apps that you can use for coding Swift apps for Apple platforms: Xcode and Swift Playgrounds. In both you can create App Playground projects (if you need guidance regarding this, check this thread), but the latter is beginner friendly and can run on iPad, while the former is more advanced.

I believe I finally found an overall solution that works for both compiled (.mlmodelc) and uncompiled models (.mlmodel, .mlpackage), plus an explanation of why .mlmodelc files may not be correctly copied in the bundle during the build process. I also sent a similar response in this recently opened similar thread. Steps to fix the bundling issues You will need to edit the Package.swift file manually. Go to the playground in Finder, control-click it and select Show Package Contents. Then, open the Package.swift file. At the bottom of this file, you'll find the following target section, which might look different for you: targets: [ .executableTarget( name: "AppModule", path: ".", resources: [ .process("Resources") // copy resources to the app bundle without keeping folder structure ] ) ] The .process("Resources") line indicates that the resources (in your case, your model) must be copied without keeping the original folder structure. Say you have 2 folders inside the Resources folder, and in each of these you have a few files. Only the files inside will be copied in the bundle, and the 2 original folders won't appear. You will need to replace (or add, if you don't have the process() function) process() with copy(), which maintains the internal folder structure (I explained below why). You can either use .copy("Resources"), which require you to change the model's bundle URL inside your code, not this Package.swift file to this: Bundle.main.url(forResource: "Resources/MobileNetV2", withExtension:"mlmodelc") Notice this includes "Resources/" inside the path. Or you might directly copy the model folder to the Bundle using .copy("Resources/MobileNetV2") and keep the URL without the "Resources/" part - note that this way, any other files in the Resources might not be available unless you add other process / copy functions to your Package.swift file. For more information about process() and copy(), check the docs for bundling resources with Swift Packages (since a Swift Playground is a special type of a Swift Package). Why compiled models are not correctly copied in the bundle using process() Compiled ML models are essentially a folder that contains one or more coremldata.bin files (and maybe other files as well) - in fact, they appear as a folder on the filesystem (you can cd into them in Terminal). The reason why these .mlmodelc aren't correctly copied to your bundle when using .process("Resources"), or may give a build error with certain models that contain more coremldata.bin files, is that the internal folder structure is not copied, but only the files inside it. That's why you found that your bundle contained a coremldata.bin file only. Using the previously mentioned .copy() method, you can keep the internal folder structure. How do I use my ML models, now that I can bundle them with my App? You can create your own code that reads the model from the bundle and compiles it if necessary, or you can copy the Model Class file that is usually generated in Xcode projects. You will need to make the necessary changes related to the file's Bundle URL. Why do uncompiled models result in build issues? Regarding why uncompiled models cannot be built in Xcode, something similar to the compiled models issue might be happening, but these do not appear as folders on the filesystem - so this should probably not happen and perhaps it is a build issue. It also seems that .mlmodels are not compiled at runtime, which I believe used to happen in the previous Swift Playgrounds / Xcode versions from last year. So, if the bundling issue is fixed and .mlmodels are bundled with your app, you might need to insert additional code that compiles the model with something like this: let compiledModelURL = try await MLModel.compileModel(at: url) let model = try MLModel(contentsOf: compiledModelURL) Let me know if this works!

Hi, yes, you can modify the Package.swift file included in your playground. It is normally not accessible within Xcode / Swift Playgrounds but you can edit it if you show the playground's contents in Finder. This file's names comes from Swift packages (Playgrounds are essentially a special type of Swift Package). Be aware that this file is automatically generated, so there may be chances for it to be overwritten when you change playground's settings, as the warning at the top of it suggests (I would also like more insight into this if somebody else knows - is editing the minimum target version or the target resources a good practice, or is it at risk to be overwritten? From my testings, it seems to work fine with changing the target resources). Check this thread for ideas on how to support older iOS versions in your code, or modify your Package.swift file like I explained above. If this is for the Swift Student Challenge (as your tag suggests), I'm not sure if it's okay to modify the minimum target version. Perhaps the judges will have the latest version of iPadOS / macOS, but currently the website says the following: "Your app playground must be built with and run on Swift Playgrounds 4.4 or later (requires iPadOS 16 or macOS 13.5) or Xcode 15 on macOS 13.5 or later. You may incorporate the use of Apple Pencil." https://developer.apple.com/swift-student-challenge/eligibility/

I just tested this by creating a new iOS Xcode project with Swift & UIKit, then copied the Swift files to a new App Playground (and deleted the old MyApp and ContentView SwiftUI files). It seems to work fine (I'm not entirely sure about storyboards though), which was expected in my opinion - as long as you have the necessary code and the @main attribute somewhere in your code, the app should compile and run. What I'm not entirely sure of is how / if storyboards are supported in Playgrounds. However, I'd definitely recommend you to learn SwiftUI as well. It should be easy to learn using the available resources and you can also use UIKit with SwiftUI code. Good luck!

Last year, you had to pick from one of these options: Swift Playgrounds on iPad Swift Playgrounds on Mac Xcode on Mac I guess it will probably be similar this year, if not the same. While it didn't specify if Apple Silicon Macs will be used, I suppose that will be the case, though I believe your project may work fine on Intel-based ones too. I'm curious why your app doesn't work well on iPad, including M1 ones. Sounds like your app uses quite a lot of processing power, but I guess it should work on M1 iPads as well. Maybe you need to make some additional changes to fully support them. But, in any case, I think you will be able to select one of the options above. What I'm curious about is what run destination will be chosen in Xcode (iPhone / iPad Simulator, Mac Catalyst app etc.) - but since I made my app fully support all platforms last year, it did not really matter for me. If you have other any specific instructions to run your playground, last year I received this response, and it might also apply this year. Do not rely solely on this information and be sure to check the updated terms and conditions on February 5th! A link to the terms should appear here when the challenge opens.

Hi! App Playgrounds don't really have an Info.plist, but you can add capabilities such as camera access via Xcode. Click on your project > Signing Capabilities, then click the "+ Capability" Button. Add the capabilities you want, such as camera access, via the menu that appears. Then, at the bottom of the Signing & Capabilities page, you should have the new capability added, where you can also modify settings such as the purpose string for camera access: Internally, Xcode adds these capabilities to a Package.swift file included with your project which replaces the Info.plist. This file is not directly accessible within Xcode (you can view it in Finder if you show the .swiftpm's contents), but you can add capabilities from Xcode as I explained above.

I believe you are only allowed to submit App Playgrounds (.swiftpm) files as it is described on the eligibility page. That was the case for last year's challenge as well. Make sure you submit an App Playground, not an Xcode Playground. Here is a thread that explains how to properly choose the right thing in Xcode or Swift Playgrounds. I assume you're referring to the Vision Framework, not visionOS. I would try to find out why your app doesn't work as expected in Playgrounds, as I believe it may possible to use this framework as well, perhaps with a few small changes. What is the issue with your Vision code? Make sure to check the full terms and conditions on February 5th.