Can Swift Playgrounds create Apps on Apple Ipads?

[StephenG1CMZ]

I have seen many Apple websites stating No, you need to use Xcode on a Mac (many £000's*).
I have seen a couple of Apple websites saying it is possible using Swift Playgrounds on an iPad (£400's*).
I have seen brief videos giving a taste of what the Swift language is like, but the many websites saying it is impossible are worrying.
Confusingly, both websites seem to be Apple's - but large corporations do struggle to present consistent information (in the past many HP sites overlooked the HP Prime, for example).

I wonder if anyone with experience of Apple's walled garden has tried this?
*for the hardware, add ~£100 for an Apple account

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello,

(04-25-2024 12:11 PM)StephenG1CMZ Wrote:  I wonder if anyone with experience of Apple's walled garden has tried this?
*for the hardware, add ~£100 for an Apple account

I have not tried it myself yet but according to Apple’s support site, anybody with one of those 100$/£/€ per year developer accounts can publish Apps created with Swift Playgrounds.
Myself I am in the lucky position to own a MacBook with Xcode and keyboard and mouse which I prefer over writing code using a tablet.

Regards
Max

[KeithB]

I have posted this question on a private area of the Apple User Community.
If I get any answers I will report back.
I know that one user there will comment to the effect that Playgrounds are aptly named and just toys.

[BruceH]

(04-25-2024 12:11 PM)StephenG1CMZ Wrote:  I have seen many Apple websites stating No, you need to use Xcode on a Mac (many £000's*).
I have seen a couple of Apple websites saying it is possible using Swift Playgrounds on an iPad (£400's*).
I have seen brief videos giving a taste of what the Swift language is like, but the many websites saying it is impossible are worrying.
Confusingly, both websites seem to be Apple's - but large corporations do struggle to present consistent information (in the past many HP sites overlooked the HP Prime, for example).

I wonder if anyone with experience of Apple's walled garden has tried this?
*for the hardware, add ~£100 for an Apple account

Yes, you need to pay for a developer account at £99pa. But no, using Xcode on a Mac is not "many thousands". Xcode is free so it's the cost of the hardware only. A second-hand Mac Mini 2012 model onwards is able to run the latest OS version (Sonoma) and therefore build binaries for the latest versions of Mac and iPad. Current eBay prices for such a machine in the UK are between £50 and £100.

[Thomas Okken]

(04-26-2024 11:31 PM)BruceH Wrote:  A second-hand Mac Mini 2012 model onwards is able to run the latest OS version (Sonoma)

Only the Mac Mini 2018 and later are officially supported to run Sonoma. In order to run it on older models, you'll need the OpenCore Legacy Patcher.

I haven't tried using OpenCore Legacy Patcher myself, so I can't say how well it works or if there are any problems with the unsupported installs it enables. Once my Mac Mini 2018 is out of support and the next Xcode update no longer works in Sonoma (or whatever the last macOS version officially supported on that machine ends up being), I guess I'll give it a shot, before springing for a new machine.

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello,

out of curiosity I installed Swift Playgrounds on my iPad (ca. 2 years old, latest version of iOS installed). I can open the sample projects that come with it, but when I add my own app using the "+" sign, I only get an error message "Unsupported file format." when attempting to edit the newly created app.

This, I'm afraid, answers the original question "Can Swift Playgrounds create Apps on Apple Ipads?" for me in a rather unexpected manner: No, it can't be used to create Apps, it can't actually be used for anything ;-)

Regards
Max

[BruceH]

(04-27-2024 08:16 AM)Thomas Okken Wrote:  

(04-26-2024 11:31 PM)BruceH Wrote:  A second-hand Mac Mini 2012 model onwards is able to run the latest OS version (Sonoma)

Only the Mac Mini 2018 and later are officially supported to run Sonoma. In order to run it on older models, you'll need the OpenCore Legacy Patcher.

Sorry: I did a quick search on eBay and found a listing that claimed to be a 2012 running Sonoma - must have been a faked display. :-(

Prices for the 2018 models range from £250 - £400+ so a good bit more but still not thousands.

[Thomas Okken]

(04-29-2024 01:01 AM)BruceH Wrote:  

(04-27-2024 08:16 AM)Thomas Okken Wrote:  Only the Mac Mini 2018 and later are officially supported to run Sonoma. In order to run it on older models, you'll need the OpenCore Legacy Patcher.

Sorry: I did a quick search on eBay and found a listing that claimed to be a 2012 running Sonoma - must have been a faked display. :-(

Not necessarily. I can see several 2012s advertised as running Sonoma, and the listings I looked at all specifically mention having used OpenCore Legacy Patcher (or abbreviated as OCLP) to install it. So that looks legit.

But before buying one like that in order to run the latest Xcode, I'd ask on the Apple Developer Forum and/or Stack Overflow whether there are any problems with that kind of setup. IDEs and iOS simulators are the kinds of software that are among the most likely to misbehave or fail outright on an unsupported or third-party-patched platform. I'm not saying it won't work, I'd just recommend asking around before potentially wasting time and money on something that might not do what you need.

[StephenG1CMZ]

(04-28-2024 01:50 PM)Maximilian Hohmann Wrote:  Hello,

out of curiosity I installed Swift Playgrounds on my iPad (ca. 2 years old, latest version of iOS installed). I can open the sample projects that come with it, but when I add my own app using the "+" sign, I only get an error message "Unsupported file format." when attempting to edit the newly created app.

This, I'm afraid, answers the original question "Can Swift Playgrounds create Apps on Apple Ipads?" for me in a rather unexpected manner: No, it can't be used to create Apps, it can't actually be used for anything ;-)

Regards
Max

From what I have seen, it should be possible to write code, but I wasn't sure if an app could be created. If it won't even write code, that is unexpected.
Right now, I am glad I didn't buy an ipad yet.

[Maximilian Hohmann]

Hello!

(04-29-2024 07:52 AM)StephenG1CMZ Wrote:  From what I have seen, it should be possible to write code, but I wasn't sure if an app could be created. If it won't even write code, that is unexpected.

I am pretty certain that the problem I encountered is a bug that will be fixed any time soon. I didn't report the bug but with millions and millions of users, someone else has for sure.

(04-29-2024 07:52 AM)StephenG1CMZ Wrote:  Right now, I am glad I didn't buy an ipad yet.

The iPad (or maybe any similar tablet from another manufacturer) is one of the devices that I wouldn't want to miss. I have had an iPad since 13 years, my first one still works and the battery holds a good charge, but it can't run any recent email protocols or apps from the last maybe five years. But I still use it, there are lots of reference documents and books on it and of course many emulated calculators and some games. At work we have been using iPads as electronic flight bags (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_flight_bag) for many years and I will never ever go back to paper charts, flight documentation, weather charts and so on. It is just so much better on a tablet!

Regards
Max

[DGM]

I have also used iPads for many years (now I have four of them). I was on vacation a week or so ago, and left all but one at home, powered off. I had deliberately refused to update my iPad mini because I had some essential (free) 32-bit apps on it, including Electronic Arts Boggle, which I have been playing for a long time. When I returned, I powered on my mini and somehow it updated the operating system (I wondered why it took so long to power up), and now Boggle (no longer in the App Store) is no longer working. Those sneaky people! Oh well, time to move on, I suppose.

I had reported in the past about a great calculator program called ND1 that I bought for my iPod Touch. It was like an HP48 or HP50 and allowed you to write programs RPL+ (extended RPL) and JavaScript, with another language (Golf) hinted at but not delivered. Unfortunately it is gone from the App store, and the website and forum was also gone for a while Naive Design - it went to another company - but I just found out that the website is back! Maybe (I hope) the work will continue on a very interesting calculator app.

Sometimes you find something you like, buy it and it later is no longer supported.

I still like my HP devices, though. For all the iOS and iPadOS devices I have, I never got into Apple Macs.