Awesome Swift Playgrounds – Massive Collection of Resources

A curated list of awesome Swift playgrounds.

Downloading all the playgrounds

Unless otherwise indicated, all playgrounds are compatible with Swift 3.

All the playgrounds are available as submodules in the playgrounds/ directory, to download them all in one go, just clone this repository with git clone --recursive https://github.com/uraimo/Awesome-Swift-Playgrounds.git or execute git submodule update --init after you have cloned the repository the usual way.

Apple’s playgrounds distributed as zip archives have to be downloaded manually.

Tags

🌟 = My personal favorites

🍁 = Swift 4+ Playground

⏳ = Pre-Swift 3 Playground

Contents

• PlaygroundBooks
• Learning Swift
• Learning Swift: Advanced Topics
  • Design Patterns
  • Protocol Oriented Programming
  • Functional Reactive Programming
• Apple’s Playgrounds
• WWDC Students Submissions
• Playgrounds about Playgrounds
• Playgrounds from Playgroundbooks
• Theoretical Computer Science
  • Algorithms and Data Structures
  • Languages
  • Machine Learning
• UIKit And Graphics
  • Core Image
  • Metal
  • Animations
  • SpriteKit
• Audio
• Mathematics
• Libraries and APIs
• Playground sets
• Miscellaneous

PlaygroundBooks

Playgrounds that can be run on your iPad

• Guilloche Pattern Playground Book – Learn more about this pattern you see every day, but probably never knew it was really carefully designed. 🍁
• Accessibility – Accessibility for iOS developers. 🍁
• TJBot Playground – Swift Playground for interacting with IBM’s TJBot. 🍁
• Tree Trouble Playbook – An interactive Swift Playground Book about Binary Search Trees.
• Auto Pong – A tutorial to implement a pong based on a simple AI.
• Neural Network Playground – A neural network Swift playground, with no third party dependencies.
• Window Manager Playground – Playground for an experimental window manager.
• AudioKit Playground Book – A set of playgrounds using AudioKit designed for the iPad Playgrounds app.
• Numsw – A swift playground book that mimics some of the features of numpy and jupyter notebook.
• File Browser Playground – Simple File Browser for Swift Playgrounds on iOS.
• Geometry with Swift – In this course your students will learn the fundamentals of Swift 3 programming, using geometry as their context for learning.
• Image Filtering – A Swift playgroundbook about Image Filtering. 🍁🌟
• Spacetime Rhapsody – A Swift Playground visualizing gravity based on Einstein’s Theory of General Relativity. 🌟
• Neural Network – A Swift PlaygroundBook about Neural Networks. 🍁
• coreml-playground – Core ML examples for Swift Playgrounds. 🍁
• SF Symbols Viewer – An SF Symbols Viewer for Swift Playgrounds. 🍁
• jscore-playground – A JavaScript REPL using JavaScriptCore. 🍁

Learning Swift

Some interesting playgrounds to learn Swift

• What’s new in Swift 4 – An Xcode playground showing off the new features in Swift 4.0. 🍁 🌟
• What’s new in Swift 4.2 – An Xcode playground showing off the new features in Swift 4.2. 🍁 🌟
• Codable Playground – Playground that demonstrates advanced uses of Codable. 🍁
• Generics In Swift – Playground that explains generics. 🍁
• Swift String Cheat Sheet – A quick guide to using Strings with Swift. 🍁
• About Swift – A playground about Swift language. 🍁
• The Swift Programming Language Playgrounds – 40+ playgrounds, one for each chapter of Apple’s Swift book. 🌟
• Swift Hack Pack – Collection of playgrounds that teaches Swift.
• The Swift Summary Book – A summary of Apple’s Swift language. 🌟
• Swifter Tips – Examples for every feature of the Swift language.
• MPCS51032 UChicago iOS Course – Playgrounds from the 2017 Spring iOS course of the University of Chicago.

Learning Swift: Advanced Topics

Advanced topics, useful once you have mastered the basics of the language

• A Swift Introduction to Core Data – Learn Core Data experimenting directly in this playground. 🌟
• TDDSwiftPlayground – Demonstration of using Swift Playgrounds in Test Driven Development with XCTest.
• Concurrency on iOS – Concurrency and Parallelism in iOS.
• Modern Core Data – An introduction to Core Data.
• Swift DSL Example – Implementation of a DSL in Swift.
• Katan – A micro web server that replies “Hello world!” to every request, an example of how to use sockets in Swift.
• Swift Regular Expressions – A playground to learn regular expressions with Swift.
• Network Stack – Clean & simple Swift networking stack playground.
• Swiftly Typed Resources – A playground showing how Swift makes Strings, Colors, Fonts, Images, etc easier to deal with. ⏳
• Swift KVO Closures – Swift KVO playground. ⏳
• Swift Date Tutorial – Learn everythig about NSDate. ⏳
• Swift And C – Examples about using C with Swift. ⏳
• Swift Memory Management – How to avoid retain cycles, from this post. ⏳

Design Patterns

• The Principles of OOD in Swift 4 – The Principles of OOD based on Uncle Bob articles.🍁
• Design Patterns Playground – Learning GoF’s Design Patterns in Swift 3.
• iOS Design Patterns – Sample projects for MVC, MVP, MVVM, and VIPER.
• Design Patterns in Swift – Design patterns in Swift 3.
• GOF Swift – Learn all 23 Gang of Four patterns using Swift.

Protocol Oriented Programming

• Swift Diagram Playgrounds – Adaptation of the Protocol-Oriented Programming in Swift talk from WWDC 2015.
• Swift Protocol Extensions – A playground to explore Protocol Extensions. ⏳
• Battleship Example – An example of how to use Protocol Oriented Programming with the battleship game. ⏳

Functional Reactive Programming

• ReactiveCocoa Playground – The easiest way to get a taste of ReactiveCocoa. ⏳
• Swift Reactive Playground – Companion to the article: ReactiveCocoa made Simple With Swift. ⏳

Apple’s Playgrounds

Playgrounds from Apple, usually presented at some WWDC

• Apple’s Mandelbrot Playground – A playground with the mandelbrot fractal (updated to Swift 3 by @palmerc, @kemalenver).
• Interactive Newton’s Cradle – Apple’s interactive playground of a Newton’s Cradle where collisions and gravity are applyed with UIKit dynamics. 🌟 (updated to Swift 3 by @p-sun)
• Apple’s Balloons Playground – The balloons playground showed at WWDC14. ⏳
• Apple’s Crustacean Playground – Protocol-Oriented Programming with Value Types. ⏳
• Apple’s Swift Standard Library Playground – experiment with Swift standard library types and high-level concepts using visualizations and practical examples. ⏳

WWDC Students Submissions

Playgrounds submitted by students for the WWDC scholarship

• 2019
• 2018
• 2017
• 2016
• 2015
• 2014

Playgrounds about Playgrounds

Playgrounds that describe what you can do with playgrounds

• XCTest Playground – Better looking tests for playgrounds.
• Interactive Playground – Exploring interactivity in Playgrounds.
• Mondrian – Make iOS app mockups in Swift 2.x playgrounds. ⏳

Playgrounds from Playgroundbooks

Playgrounds derived from iPad Swift Playgroundbooks

• iPad Swift Playgrounds – The sample playgroundbooks converted to playgrounds.

Theoretical Computer Science

• Functional Debug View – Playground to visualize functional programming with graphical sequences. 🍁 🌟
• OOP with Functions in Swift – Object-Oriented Programming in Functional Programming in Swift. 🍁
• Logician – Logic programming in Swift. 🌟
• Function Composition in Swift – Exploration of function composition in Swift. 🌟
• Swift Adventures in Monad Land – Learn about monads.
• Functional Design Patterns – A few functional programming concept and patterns.
• Learn about transducers – A little tutorial that explains transducers. ⏳
• Swift Functors, Applicatives, and Monads in Pictures – Companion to the article: Swift Functors, Applicatves, and Monads in Pictures. ⏳
• Functors in Swift – A playground to introduce Functors in Swift, and their practical usage. ⏳

Algorithms and Data Structures

Algorithms and data structures implemented in Swift

• Animated Sorting Algorithms – Swift 4 playgrounds to view and manipulate sorting algorithms.🍁
• Expressions – Arithmetic and logical expressions elegantly modeled and visualized using protocol-oriented binary trees.🍁
• Swift Algorithm Club – Algorithms and data structures in Swift with explanations. 🌟
• Sorting Experiments – Alluring experiments with sorting algorithms in Swift, sort of.
• Visual Binary Trees – Effortless visualization of arbitrary Binary Trees, along with their pluggable traversal implementations. 🌟
• Julia Fractal Playground – A Swift playground that generates beautiful Julia set fractal images.
• A Star – Protocol oriented A* pathfinding algorithm implementation in Swift 4.🍁
• Sorting Algorithms – Live Visualization of some famous sorting algorithms and your experiments.
• DataStructures Playground – Data Structures and Algorithms in Swift. ⏳
• Swiftography – Standard cryptographic algorithms in a Swift Playground. ⏳
• Algorithms Playground – Various algorithm implementation in Swift. ⏳
• The Jelly Bean Problem – The Jelly Bean problem from Wait But Why. ⏳
• Euclidean Strings – A playground leveraging ReSwift to generate Euclidean Strings. ⏳

Languages

Programming language interpreters implemented in Swift

• Introduction to Compilers – Great introduction to the inner workings of compilers. 🍁🌟
• Pascal Interpreter – Simple Swift interpreter for the Pascal language inspired by the Let’s Build A Simple Interpreter article series. 🍁
• Write your own language: Mu – A playground explaining how to create a tiny programming language named Mu. 🌟
• ASM Swift – A playground for learning Assembly language through Swift. 🌟
• Let’s build a compiler in Swift – Let’s Build a Compiler by Jack Crenshaw translated to Swift Playgrounds. 🌟
• Register VM – A register-based VM in a Swift playground. 🌟 ⏳
• Turtle Playground – A playground with Logo-like commands. 🌟 ⏳
• Swift Brainfuck – Brainfuck interpreter written in Swift using Playground. ⏳

Machine Learning

• Emoji Intelligence – Neural Network built in Apple Playground using Swift. 🌟

UIKit And Graphics

A list of playgrounds that demostrate various aspect of UIKit and other graphical frameworks

• UIStackView Playground – Interesting examples of use of UIStackViews.🌟
• Bezier Path Playgrounds – Some playgrounds to better understand UIBezierPaths.
• UIKit playground – Playgrounds to experiment interactively with UIKit views.
• UIDynamic Playground – Multiple Playgrounds using almost every behaviour of UIDynamic.
• WWDC16 Typography 🇯🇵 – Draw a logo or any text with the WWDC16 ASCII texture.
• Animated GIF Playground – Swift playground for generating animated GIFs.
• RPClarity – Shows a technique for blurring an image behind the characters behind one or more UILabels. ⏳
• Swift Clock – An animated clock in a swift playground. ⏳
• WatchKit Asset Playground – A swift playground for creating awesome animations for your WatchKit Apps. ⏳
• Swift 2.0 Protocol Extension Example – Showing how to use Swift2 protocol extensions to render errors in UIViews and UIViewControllers without subclassing or creating classes. ⏳
• Tinting – A small playground to demonstrate image tinting in UIKit. ⏳
• Ray tracing Playground – A playground and a series of articles on ray tracing, see also part 2, 3, 4, 5 🌟 ⏳
• WWDC16 Logo Playground – Drawing the WWDC16 logo in a playground. ⏳

Core Image

• Interpolation Playground – Playground demonstrating lerp, smooth step, Catcall-Rom and others! ⏳
• CoreImage for Swift Playgrounds – Growing collection of CoreImage playgrounds from the upcoming book “CoreImage For Swift”. 🌟 ⏳
• Image Processor – Implementing different image filter algorithms. ⏳

Metal

• Metalbrot – Interactive playground that draws the Mandelbrot fractal with Metal. 🌟
• METAL Playground – Apple Metal framework playground. 🌟 ⏳

Animations

• Core Animation Swift Playgrounds – A set of interesting Core Animation playgounds.
• UIViewPropertyAnimator Playground – Playground demonstrating UIViewPropertyAnimator.
• WWDC Crowd Simulator 2017 – A SpriteKit experiment to simulate the WWDC2017 logo crowd.
• Duet-Inspired Trail Effect – How to get a Duet style trailing effect in SpriteKit.
• Additive Animations – Experiment with multiple additive animations in Core Animation. ⏳
• Core Animation Playground – Companion to Apple’s Core Animation Programming Guide. ⏳
• Core Animation Timing – Playground demonstrating effects of CAMediaTiming properties. 🍁

SpriteKit

• SceneKit ARKit Demo – The Xcode 9 ARKit SpriteKit demo as a playground.🍁
• SpriteKit Swift 3 – Playground for exploring Sprite Kit.
• SpriteKit Collisions – Demonstrates how to perform physics collision detection using Swift and SpriteKit. ⏳
• SceneKit Examples – Experiment with SceneKit and Swift. ⏳
• Astronomy – A 3D earth model written in swift playground using SceneKit.

Audio

Sounds and music

• Bach Playground – A Simple Swift Playground that plays a brief piece by Bach with AVAudioEngine and AVMIDIPlayer.
• PlayerNode Playground – Playground using AVAudioEngine with a playernode and effects to play an audio file. 🌟
• Miles – A Swift Playground that creates jazz improvisations in any key using AudioToolbox and AVFoundation.

Mathematics

Live math with playgrounds

• Guilloche Pattern Playground Book – Learn more about this pattern you see every day, but probably never knew it was really carefully designed. 🍁
• Lindenmayer Systems – A Swift playground exploring Lindemayer systems.
• Swift Natural Numbers – A playground for implementing the natural numbers and more concepts in number theory.
• Polydoxical – Interactive playground to experiment with roulettes and polygons.
• Abstract Algebra – Abstract algebra concepts implemented in Swift.
• Swift Accelerate – Using the Accelerate framework and Swift for Linear Algebra. ⏳
• Swifty Mathematics – A collection of swift playground about mathematics. ⏳
• Numerical Algorithms – Numerical argorithms playground from Ray Wenderlich. ⏳

Libraries and APIs

Library tutorials, in a playground

• AudioKit Playgrounds – 130+ Audio synthesis, processing, playback, and analysis playgrounds with AudioKit.
• AIToolbox – A set of playgrounds showing machine learning algorithms, all implemented with pieces of the AIToolbox framework code.
• Cognitive Service APIs – Get started with the Microsoft Cognitive Services APIs.
• Rx Playground – A playground with RxSwift examples.

Playground Sets

Sets of playgrounds about various topics

• Parks And Recreation – Great collection of interesting playgrounds, for fun and for profit. 🍁🌟
• URaimo’s Playgrounds – My playgrounds, various topics. 🍁
• Public Extensions – A set of useful extensions from @PublicExtension. 🌟
• ManuelCarlos’s Playgrouds – Various playgrounds.
• Mgrebenets’s Playgrounds – Various playgrounds.c 🌟
• Cocoa With Love Playgrounds – Playground versions of select articles from Cocoa with Love. 🌟
• Sketchytech’s Playgrounds – Various Playgrounds. 🌟 ⏳
• Swift fun playgrounds – A few playgrounds to showcase Swift peculiar features. ⏳
• BradLarson’s Playgrounds – Various playgrounds. ⏳
• Dmikusa’s Playgrounds – Playgrounds that show basic Swift, JSON parsing, sending HTTP requests and basic file IO. ⏳
• Cananito’s Playgrounds – Various playgrounds. ⏳
• Uberbruns’s Playgrounds – Various playgrounds. ⏳

Miscellaneous

What doesn’t fit anywhere else, but still awesome

• Rubik’s Cube – Implementing basic model and behavior of Rubic’s Cube in Swift. 🍁
• Icon Creator – Create app icons on Swift playground.
• 2048 Playground – The 2048 game implemented with a playground.
• SwiftShell – Bash shell in a playground.
• LaunchPad Playground – A playground that simulates a real LaunchPad for making music.
• Super Maze – A programmatic maze generator and solver.
• Tic Tac Toe – Tic tac toe in a playground.
• Pixel Art Maker – A playground where you can make pixel art.
• SwiftCoin – A simplistic blockchain & cryptocurrency in a playground.
• SentimentlySwift – Sentiment analysis in Swift.
• SwiftChain – Simple Cryptocurrency in a Swift Playground.
• Game Boards – Chess, checkers, tic-tac-toe, sudoku and many others in playground. 🌟 ⏳
• StarWars Seals – Emblems from Star Wars in Swift playgrounds via CoreGraphics and UIViews. ⏳
• SwiftFiles – Save, Load and Delete files easily from within a Swift playground. ⏳
• Earth photos – A slideshow of Earth photos taken by DSCOVR/EPIC. 🌟 ⏳