Swift Playgrounds for iPadOS 15 lets users code & submit apps to App Store

While it isn't quite the full-fledged Xcode on iPad that some developers have been clamoring for, Apple on Monday announced that Swift Playgrounds in iPadOS 15 will be greatly enhanced, teaching users how to build iPad apps and even allowing them to be submitted to the App Store.

The improvements to Swift Playgrounds are a major change, as for the first time, developers will be able to create and submit iPad apps entirely from an iPad, with no need for a Mac.

Apple's Swift Playgrounds originally debuted on the Mac in 2014 and was ported to iPad in 2016. The app's goal is to help users learn to code Swift, Apple's general-purpose, compiled programming language.

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4 Comments

crowley

said about 2 years ago

I predict bad apps

mikewallace

said about 2 years ago

@crowley

A lot of simple apps probably, and without actually seeing the constraints that comes with the playgrounds dev-en, possibly convoluted interfaces.

But since Apple will have total control of the compiler and environment I’d wager they’ll be better apps then a lot of what is created in these cross platform monstrosities and then hoisted upon us.

melgross

said about 2 years ago

crowley said:

I predict bad apps

You mean, in addition to all the bad apps that are there now?

larryjw

said about 2 years ago

Great idea. It may not be the ideal developmental foundation, but the ability to create useful apps while still learning coding principles via the Playground show real promise.

My guess is most such apps will not be generally useful but the creation of private apps that can be shared for a particular business or group is a great step.

As it is, businesses always have a lot of little specialized utilities staff writes for use in the business. Most of us have written 100's of them.