Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iPad Could Swift 2.0 finally bring XCode it iPad?
- Thread starter RudySnow
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Xcode? No. Not gonna happen anytime soon. Way too many changes need to be made to have a good development environment. Unless, Apple has some crazy cloud solutions that allow developer to compile/run the code over the cloud and test app can be loaded to target device remotely. Definitely viable, but the problem is how to achieve that.
SwiftUI would certainly bring it a lot closer to being possible but like the others who have commented I'm skeptical it will be any time soon, mainly because the workflow would be a nightmare with the iPad Pro (imo). Even an Xcode "Lite" edition could be quite tough to work with because of things like source control (how we manage the code within teams), access to terminal and even just the limitations of the Files app. I'd love to be wrong though!
While I tend to agree that xCode itself isn't coming to the iPad, I could see a companion app coming to the iPad - a sort of code-less prototype app that utilizes drag and drops instead of actual code. This being something a non-developer could use to play around with or a developer could build a template around and bring into XCode to develop into an actual app (a next level beyond Swift Playgrounds).
I think it will be on the iPad Pro in 2-3 years. Might give it a new name? I think they want to make it so easy that you can develop full blown apps on an iPad with an iPhone or other iPad plugged into it. Moving away from needing so many dependencies is a step in that direction.
I've messed around in Xcode patching up an app at work in Objective C but haven't done any full blown development on my own or with Swift. Looking at SwiftUI, it looks like a great time to learn a new language. Looks great for someone like me who is a designer first, and a developer second.
I've messed around in Xcode patching up an app at work in Objective C but haven't done any full blown development on my own or with Swift. Looking at SwiftUI, it looks like a great time to learn a new language. Looks great for someone like me who is a designer first, and a developer second.
XCode is too big - but a lightweight Swift development tool designed specifically for use under iOS might happen. If you could create and deploy new apps entirely on your own iPad that would be a huge step forward.
Remote compiling in certainly an option. There are services provide it for developers that don't own macs. But I agree the current Xcode is best used on a mac platform.
But, swift itself is just a compiled language and resources are connected via text based files. So there is certainly a case for developing having some sort of IDE sitting on an iPad and creating resources and Swift code in that environment and compiling on the iPad. IPad Pros certainly has the horsepower to handle this and the 12.8 screen is big enough So maybe an "Xcode-like" development environment could be created for iPads.
I am guessing here but I think part of Apple's reluctance to put any serious dev environment like Xcode on iOS is that I think it will immediately push iOS into the same category as mac OS and windows. i.e. They could not restrict anyone from making apps for the OS that don't come from the app store.
Right now iOS is in "appliance" or "console" territory. Meaning that the only software meant to run on the machine is by license and distributed by Apple themselves. That makes sense because if it is an appliance you woudn't expect a TV or a washing machine to have to allow third party software so neither does Apple with iOS.
Allowing users to write and compile personal software on iOS kind of makes it a personal computer in every way. I'm not sure Apple want to get into that situation again.
Right now iOS is in "appliance" or "console" territory. Meaning that the only software meant to run on the machine is by license and distributed by Apple themselves. That makes sense because if it is an appliance you woudn't expect a TV or a washing machine to have to allow third party software so neither does Apple with iOS.
Allowing users to write and compile personal software on iOS kind of makes it a personal computer in every way. I'm not sure Apple want to get into that situation again.
First of all, SwiftUI is SwiftUI, not Swift 2.0. Swift is actually up to 5.1.
I am a developer and I think you have things backwards. SwiftUI is amazing and lets you do a lot more with a lot less code. But that doesn't make compiling easier. In fact, it's probably harder now since SwiftUI now needs to figure out a bunch of things that would have been specified by the developer previously. It's not that the overall system got simpler. It's even more complex now than ever before. But much of the complexity is now hidden away behind SwiftUI.
Also note that SwiftUI doesn't replace all your old code. It's purely about the interface. All the other code to actually "do the thing" is the same old Swift code that it's always been. Networking doesn't change. Accessing Health data doesn't change. Writing to the cloud doesn't change. SwiftUI only addresses the User Interface code.
I can't say if XCode will ever make it to the iPad or not. I suspect not. But I wouldn't guess that SwiftUI would be the straw that breaks the camels back.
I am a developer and I think you have things backwards. SwiftUI is amazing and lets you do a lot more with a lot less code. But that doesn't make compiling easier. In fact, it's probably harder now since SwiftUI now needs to figure out a bunch of things that would have been specified by the developer previously. It's not that the overall system got simpler. It's even more complex now than ever before. But much of the complexity is now hidden away behind SwiftUI.
Also note that SwiftUI doesn't replace all your old code. It's purely about the interface. All the other code to actually "do the thing" is the same old Swift code that it's always been. Networking doesn't change. Accessing Health data doesn't change. Writing to the cloud doesn't change. SwiftUI only addresses the User Interface code.
I can't say if XCode will ever make it to the iPad or not. I suspect not. But I wouldn't guess that SwiftUI would be the straw that breaks the camels back.
