Swift 4.2

Этот ответ является идеальным, поскольку он расширяет String и все его Subsequences (Substring) в одном расширении

public extension StringProtocol {

    public subscript (i: Int) -> Element {
        return self[index(startIndex, offsetBy: i)]
    }

    public subscript (bounds: CountableClosedRange<Int>) -> SubSequence {
        let start = index(startIndex, offsetBy: bounds.lowerBound)
        let end = index(startIndex, offsetBy: bounds.upperBound)
        return self[start...end]
    }

    public subscript (bounds: CountableRange<Int>) -> SubSequence {
        let start = index(startIndex, offsetBy: bounds.lowerBound)
        let end = index(startIndex, offsetBy: bounds.upperBound)
        return self[start..<end]
    }

    public subscript (bounds: PartialRangeUpTo<Int>) -> SubSequence {
        let end = index(startIndex, offsetBy: bounds.upperBound)
        return self[startIndex..<end]
    }

    public subscript (bounds: PartialRangeThrough<Int>) -> SubSequence {
        let end = index(startIndex, offsetBy: bounds.upperBound)
        return self[startIndex...end]
    }

    public subscript (bounds: CountablePartialRangeFrom<Int>) -> SubSequence {
        let start = index(startIndex, offsetBy: bounds.lowerBound)
        return self[start..<endIndex]
    }
}

Использование

var str = "Hello, playground"

print(str[5...][...5][0])
// Prints ","