“Xcode’s powerful, it’s great, but it’s very complicated.”
But the biggest news is: not only can you create apps in Swift Playgrounds 4, but when the update is available later this year, you’ll be able to submit them to the App Store directly from within Swift Playgrounds. You can run the app full-screen to test it as well. Notably, you can view a live preview of the app you’re building on the side of your screen as you’re working on it, which changes when you change your code. There are some new features that will make the process of building apps easier. Image: Appleīut Swift Playgrounds 4 is the first iteration of Swift Playgrounds that could function as a standalone developer tool. It hasn’t, in the past, been seen as a tool to develop real apps. It introduces new coders to Swift through a friendly and colorful series of puzzles. In the past, though, it’s largely been an educational program targeted at children. It’s been available on the iPad for years, and it recently came to macOS as well. But developers say it will drastically lower the barrier to entry for new iOS developers - and may gesture at more exciting iPad features to come. We didn’t get many of those dream features, but we did get something of a surprise: Apple announced Swift Playgrounds 4, the newest version of its Swift Playgrounds sandbox, a program Apple SVP Craig Federighi claimed will bring “a whole new dimension of productivity to iPad.” It was a quick announcement that was easy to miss in the flurry of new tools that crossed the stage. And going into WWDC 2021, many viewers (myself included) had long wishlists of features we were hoping we might finally get to see - multiuser support, a more advanced Files app, native support for Final Cut and Photoshop, better compatibility with external displays.
Apple’s latest iPad Pro is its most powerful tablet yet.