Swift Playgrounds For iPadOS 15 Lets You Build Apps On the iPad, Submit Them To the App Store (9to5mac.com) 28
For the first time, you can code, iterate and build apps on the iPad itself. 9to5Mac reports: Using Swift Playgrounds on iPadOS 15, customers will be able to create iPhone and iPad apps from scratch and then deploy them to the App Store. It remains to be seen how limited or not the development experience will be. It is probably notable that Apple chose not to rebrand this as "Xcode," signifying that you aren't going to be able to do everything you can do with Xcode on the Mac. TechCrunch highlights some of the other new features available in iPadOS 15: iPadOS 15 retains the overall look and feel of the current iPad operating system. The updates in the new OS are mostly centered around multitasking. The iPad's widget support gets a big update with iPadOS 15. The widgets are larger, more immersive and dynamic. And, iOS's App Library is finally available on the iPad, where it tweaks the overall user experience. The feature, added to the iPhone in 2020, presents the user with an organized view of the apps on the iPad.
Also added to iPadOS 15 is a new multitasking system. Called Split View, a drop-down menu at the top of the screen unlocks several multitasking, multiwindow options. The system seems much smoother than the current multiscreen option on iPad OS, which is clunky and hidden. With Split View a feature called Shelf makes it easy to switch between different screens and screen grouping.
Also added to iPadOS 15 is a new multitasking system. Called Split View, a drop-down menu at the top of the screen unlocks several multitasking, multiwindow options. The system seems much smoother than the current multiscreen option on iPad OS, which is clunky and hidden. With Split View a feature called Shelf makes it easy to switch between different screens and screen grouping.
Also can move over to Xcode (Score:5, Interesting)
This was by far the most interesting news of the keynote to me, there are a ton of people who can take advantage of developing a whole app on just an iPad.
Of note is that if something is beyond Playgrounds to be able to accomplish, they said you could take the Playground over to Xcode to expand on it. Not sure if any work done can then all be brought back to the iPad though.
The updated Playground app that supports this is sadly not out for a little while yet, but they'll probably have more details this week in an individual session or two.
I think this approach is a lot smarter than just porting Xcode to the iPad, as many have asked for - SwiftUI is inherently a better approach for developing apps on a device with more challenging input (they have pretty good autocompletion helpers that makes coding not to hard compared to a Desktop, but entry is still not as easy).
Another side effect of this some may have missed is that it automatically sets up the app in AppStoreConnect for you, which traditionally has been a bit of a slog to fill out initial app details.
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SwiftUI is inherently a better approach for developing apps on a device with more challenging input
The iPad supports touchscreen, stylus (Pro), mouse, trackpad and keyboard input. There's more input options on the iPad than there are on the Mac.
Excellent point (Score:2)
The iPad supports touchscreen, stylus (Pro), mouse, trackpad and keyboard input. There's more input options on the iPad than there are on the Mac.
That is a really insightful comment, after all look at the pretty magical things the Notes app on the iPad has done parsing Pencil input. You could imagine an alternate input method where you sketch out UI elements or kinds of code block with the pencil and the are translated into code from your scribbling... could be a powerful fast way to stand up the framework
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Yes, nothing like the further dumbing down of a development platform to attract the best developers. Now Apple can recruit people to develop apps that can't even choose an appropriate platform to develop apps on. People like SuperKendall.
Simpler on the surface, depth underneath. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, nothing like the further dumbing down of a development platform
I can see where developers unfamiliar with the ecosystem might make that mistake, but nothing could be further from the truth. It's like you are seeing only a small tributary but ignoring the huge river flowing just out of sight.
In fact it simply adds another path for presenting UI, that is as with all things development related, better for some UI's and not as good at others.
But using SwiftUI and Playgrounds does not limit you from using the traditional parts of the SDK any way you like. You seem to have missed the part where I noted you could move the project to Xcode and carry on with a more complex UI if desired there - but even without that movement, you can still add programmatically any of the traditional UIKit or other aspects of the iOS APIs, so it's not less powerful at all.
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Actually, Swift Playgrounds is a hidden trojan horse for iOS development. Because you can use it to prototype your app quickly in fro
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Great, now you can do on iOS what you've been able to do on Android for years and years. *golfclap*
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Great, now you can do on iOS what you've been able to do on Android for years and years. *golfclap*
You can develop apps on an Android tablet, then move over that project to Android Studio?
Not sure you comprehend what is happening here, as your name is Drinkypoo I'll assume a bad batch of scotch. :-)
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You can develop apps on an Android tablet, then move over that project to Android Studio?
Of course, why wouldn't you? There are several small IDEs that run on Android. And of course you can move the code to Studio.
Not sure you comprehend what is happening here
That's pretty fucking ironic coming from someone like you who doesn't even know that there's been IDEs that run on Android for, again, years and years.
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This aint like running a text editor boy, it's an entire development environment, for building tablet based apps.
I note you provided no links because all of the options I've ever seen for coding on Android are horribly primitive, and certainly cannot be used to submit an app to the Play store.
So again, you don't see to understand what is going on here.
I'll let you have the last word since you can't comprehend what can happen on an iPad now, vs, what can happen on an Android table in terms of building apps.
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t kinda boggles the mind that you wouldn't think this is possible,
No links I see- not possible given anything I've ever seen for Android.
Show me one Android IDE for tablets that lets you deploy an app to the Play store, or simulate running an Android app on device.
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Re: Obvious things are obvious (Score:2)
Why not just put XCode on there?!?! It's the same hardware, essentially the same OS and has trackpad, mouse and keyboard support. The limitations are purely to make you buy a Mac as well.
They're working in that! ...or didn't you see the little teaser about XCode Cloud...?
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The limitations are purely to make you buy a Mac as well.
Exactly.
And now show me your iPad.
Oh, and now please show me your Mac which "they made you buy".
Great! (Score:2, Flamebait)
easy side loading (Score:2)
Just provide the code instead of the app. A good phishing email will have lots of people loading your code into their phone.
Issue with scenario (Score:2)
Just provide the code instead of the app. A good phishing email will have lots of people loading your code into their phone.
A) You have to install the Playground app to even run the code.
B) The Playground app issues a warning that you are about to run something from an untrusted source.
C) (Killer problem) Playgrounds does not run on the phone at all, only the iPad....
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On your Point C, fair enough. There is still a large audience.
I think you under-estimate the willingness of people to follow instructions if they believe they will get something of value in return. Social engineering goes a long way.
Wow, multi window multi tasking! (Score:1)
Welcome to the 1970s iPad!
Seriously, on Android you've been able to have multiple overlapping windows for as long at least 5 years which is as long as I've used it and probably much longer than that. I can understand why this interface is no use on a small phone screen , but on tablets that have screen sizes equivalent to small laptops it should have been a default from the get go.
What about physical backups? (Score:2)
Call me old fashioned, but I like to back up my code to physical devices I can hold as well as to the cloud since we all know cloud connections are not 24/7/365 despite what vendors would have us believe. So can an iPad backup to a USB stick/drive yet even if via a Mac (but if you have a Mac why would you develop on an iPad in the first place?)
iOS backup to external media (Score:3)
> Call me old fashioned
I‘d call you uninformed instead
> So can an iPad backup to a USB stick/drive yet even if via a Mac
I used to move the iPad Backups off my Mac to an external harddrive years ago, with the first iPhones and iPads. IIRC they were just (encrypted) tar-files in the iTunes-Directory or in ~/Library.
Today you just can just select ‘Manage Backups’ and then ‘Show in Finder’ to find them and move them to your USB-Stick. You may even automate this with a symboli
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Wow, thanks for the heads up on how to copy files from a Mac - such advanced guru knowledge bestowed upon us unworthies! Personally I prefer Terminal + (s)cp but each to their own.
I was thinking more of whether the code can be taken from the iPad itself.
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Since they made a point of saying projects can be moved to Xcode I'd wager that most projects are stored in iCloud Drive.
Hence auto-backups to the cloud and transferrable to another device.