Apple brings Swift Playgrounds 4 to the iPad! It is reported that Swift Playgrounds 4 provides developers with a new way to easily create apps and share them with the world. It can help developers build apps for iPhone and iPad directly on iPad and submit them to App Store Connect. After a long wait, Apple’s announcement of this new feature at WWDC 2021 was finally overdue.
For artists, designers, and text workers, the iPad has always been a production tool, and this has been confirmed in the display content Apple designed for the iPad in various press conferences and promotional videos in recent years. But for programmers, before Swift Playgrounds 4, the iPad may hardly be called a productivity tool. Because before Swift Playgrounds 4, developers needed to use the more professional development tool Xcode to complete the development, compilation, and release of iPodOS or iOS applications on macOS. Now, with Swift Playgrounds 4, developers can complete the entire application on the iPad. Development Process.
When a developer builds an APP in Swift Playgrounds 4, the code will be immediately reflected in the real-time preview, and the developer can also run the app in full screen to test the APP, and it also supports Apple’s Swift software package to provide richer functions for the APP. And more importantly, Swift Playgrounds 4 also supports easy switching between Swift Playgrounds and Xcode, which means that developers can continue to write code in Xcode on Mac even if they write code in mobile office scenarios.
In a sense, Swift Playgrounds 4 can almost be regarded as Xcode on the iPad. However, there are still some aspects worth noting. Due to the lack of the ability to load Framework locally, support for CocoaPods (Xcode dependency library management), support for Apple’s high-performance graphical programming interface Metal, and many third-party SDK access approvals, so now Using Swift Playgrounds 4 can only build the most basic APP.
However, considering that at WWDC this year, Apple also launched a project called Xcode Cloud, which provides developers with a complete development process on the cloud, including functions such as building, testing, distributing, and collecting feedback. So it means that after the Xcode Cloud is online, developers using iPad and Swift Playgrounds 4 can have a complete experience of using Xcode on the Mac, and the real application development in the mobile scene is close at hand.
Swift Playgrounds 4.0 features:
Use SwiftUI to build iPhone and iPad apps directly on iPad (requires iPadOS 15.2 or higher)
Integrated with App Store Connect, allowing you to upload completed App to App Store
“App Preview” displays real-time updates when you change the app
A full-screen preview allows you to see the full picture of the app
Smart inline code suggestions help you write code quickly and accurately
“App project” can easily move the project back and forth in Xcode
Full project search can find results across multiple files
“Fragment Library” provides hundreds of SwiftUI controls, symbols, and colors
Support for Swift packages, allowing you to include publicly available code to enhance your App
If you are a novice but want to get started in programming, or you are a parent preparing to enroll your child in programming training classes, starting with the Swift Playgrounds tutorial, it will be a very good choice.
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