Apple releases Swift Playground 4 with iPad-based app development support

Apple has released Swift Playgrounds 4, the newest version of its development app with support for creating apps directly on an iPad.

The new version of Swift Playgrounds has been in development for some time. At WWDC 2021, Apple previewed the fourth version of the app, which will allow users to learn how to build apps and submit them to the App Store directly on an iPad.

On Wednesday, Apple released Swift Playgrounds 4 as a free download on iPadOS and macOS. The iPad version requires a device running iOS 15.2 or later.

In addition to the iPad development support, Swift Playgrounds 4 also features App Store connect integration and a new App Preview mode that will allow users to see live updates as they make changes to an app.

Other minor updates include a full-screen preview mode, project-wide searcing, and the ability to move projects between Swift Playgrounds and Xcode with App Projects.

The full release notes for the feature are available below.

Swift Playgrounds 4.0 features:

Build iPhone and iPad apps with SwiftUI right on your iPad (requires iPadOS 15.2 or later)
App Store Connect integration lets you upload your finished app to the App Store
App Preview shows live updates as you make changes to your app
Full-screen preview lets you see your app edge-to-edge
Smart, inline code suggestions help you write code quickly and accurately
App Projects make it easy to move projects to Xcode and back
Project-wide search finds results across multiple files
Snippets Library provides hundreds of SwiftUI controls, symbols, and colors
Swift Package support lets you include publicly-available code to enhance your apps

8 Comments

melgross 33607 comments · 20 Years

About 2 years ago

It’s taking time, but they’re getting there.

dewme 5737 comments · 10 Years

Wow, this sounds kind of like a big deal. Will definitely have to check it out on my iPad Pro.

Could this be a stepping stone along the path to getting a fairly robust version of XCode on the iPad?

We will see.

rezwits 854 comments · 17 Years

Definitely a stepping stone, but Xcode is a BEAST.

One day we might see a STRIPPED down SwiftUI? or just Swift Xcode...

MacsWithPenguins 82 comments · 3 Years

rezwits said:

Definitely a stepping stone, but Xcode is a BEAST.

One day we might see a STRIPPED down SwiftUI? or just Swift Xcode...

Yes. I know Apple has rewritten the code base multiple times already, perhaps the biggest one being Xcode 4.0 (btw, those Xcode 4 betas were crazy unstable). But despite that, just look at the number of files it unzips when you install it from a direct download: I've seen it report an install of more than 500k (!) files). This is pretty interesting, though, because, likewise, Microsoft Visual Studio Professional apparently installs more than 700k (seven hundred thousand) registry entries. Yes, registry entries. That is mindblowing to me, but I think both VS Pro and Xcode contains a lot of baggage, a lot of backwards compatibility.

I'm starting to think the task of trimming Xcode is too unwieldy at this point. Maybe some day in the future (maybe?) they will start fresh with a new app development tool written from scratch. It will be completely designed for Swift 5.0 and upwards with SwiftUI only, dropping all of Objective-C and every Swift version prior to Swift 5.0, calling the app something else (sort of like how they slightly renamed iMovie HD to iMovie and the Final Cut Pro 7 sequel became Final Cut Pro X and then just Pro), while still maintaining Xcode as the stable, feature-rich version developed in parallel with the new development tool. In a way, some people might say this is what Playgrounds is. However, Playgrounds is targeted towards learning development – not professionals.

crowley 10431 comments · 15 Years

MacsWithPenguins said:

rezwits said:

Definitely a stepping stone, but Xcode is a BEAST.

One day we might see a STRIPPED down SwiftUI? or just Swift Xcode...

Yes. I know Apple has rewritten the code base multiple times already, perhaps the biggest one being Xcode 4.0 (btw, those Xcode 4 betas were crazy unstable). But despite that, just look at the number of files it unzips when you install it from a direct download: I've seen it report an install of more than 500k (!) files). This is pretty interesting, though, because, likewise, Microsoft Visual Studio Professional apparently installs more than 700k (seven hundred thousand) registry entries. Yes, registry entries. That is mindblowing to me, but I think both VS Pro and Xcode contains a lot of baggage, a lot of backwards compatibility.

I'm starting to think the task of trimming Xcode is too unwieldy at this point. Maybe some day in the future (maybe?) they will start fresh with a new app development tool written from scratch. It will be completely designed for Swift 5.0 and upwards with SwiftUI only, dropping all of Objective-C and every Swift version prior to Swift 5.0, calling the app something else (sort of like how they slightly renamed iMovie HD to iMovie and the Final Cut Pro 7 sequel became Final Cut Pro X and then just Pro), while still maintaining Xcode as the stable, feature-rich version developed in parallel with the new development tool. In a way, some people might say this is what Playgrounds is. However, Playgrounds is targeted towards learning development – not professionals.

It's a shame Xcode is already on version 13, they missed the chance for Xcode X.