It would be very useful to be able to work on apps with just an iPad though, even if it was just parts of an app that got synced to a code repo and the work was continued on a Mac at home. It would be faster to develop the UI of an iOS app on iOS itself as the touch capability is there and you can tell how the layout works on the display. It can simulate the smaller iOS screen sizes with scaling.
How exactly would Xcode for iOS be useful? I assume you've used the app on a Mac so I assume you've used it on a laptop display and wished you had a bigger display because it's such a complex app with so many features that need to accessed. How exactly would all that be useful with your fingertip as the primary input?
XCode has a lot of options but I wouldn't say a lot of features.
All those active settings you have to manipulate constantly on the all panels that you slide in and out of constantly and click on a subcategory of that panel with a button a fraction the size of your finger tip are features to the app.
If you mean the panels on the right in the following image, the UI has been designed for the space available on the Mac, it would be done differently on iOS:
That's my point! It would have to be done differently, but you can't just remove everything that doesn't work with the UI and assume it's not needed.
Do you own an Apple Watch? If you do, you may understand that you can't have all the features of the iPhone app on the watch, and you've probably found that even with apps on the Watch you still go to your iPhone because the Watch is far too limited for detailed input.
It would be very useful to be able to work on apps with just an iPad though, even if it was just parts of an app that got synced to a code repo and the work was continued on a Mac at home. It would be faster to develop the UI of an iOS app on iOS itself as the touch capability is there and you can tell how the layout works on the display. It can simulate the smaller iOS screen sizes with scaling.
How exactly would Xcode for iOS be useful? I assume you've used the app on a Mac so I assume you've used it on a laptop display and wished you had a bigger display because it's such a complex app with so many features that need to accessed. How exactly would all that be useful with your fingertip as the primary input?
XCode has a lot of options but I wouldn't say a lot of features.
All those active settings you have to manipulate constantly on the all panels that you slide in and out of constantly and click on a subcategory of that panel with a button a fraction the size of your finger tip are features to the app.
If you mean the panels on the right in the following image, the UI has been designed for the space available on the Mac, it would be done differently on iOS:
That's my point! It would have to be done differently, but you can't just remove everything that doesn't work with the UI and assume it's not needed.
Do you own an Apple Watch? If you do, you may understand that you can't have all the features of the iPhone app on the watch, and you've probably found that even with apps on the Watch you still go to your iPhone because the Watch is far too limited for detailed input.
There are some things that aren't possible on significantly smaller displays like you wouldn't expect to edit video on the Watch where you can on the iPhone. The iPads have large enough displays to do anything a laptop can do. Pages, Word, iMovie are examples of this. The UI scale just changes to suit touch input.
Playgrounds as a teaching tool for controlling drones and robots makes it a tool for creators and producers rather than consumers. Productive tools need to give the producers enough control or they will run into a barrier at some point and have to switch their entire device out. Kids are growing up with iOS, they shouldn't have to eventually migrate to a Mac because the iPad doesn't have the tools to let them stay there. They might migrate anyway because it's better having an even bigger display but there's no reason to hold back functionality from the iPad when it can handle it. iPad sales have been falling (33% in just 2 years), the more reasons for people to go and buy new ones and keep buying them, the better.
It would be very useful to be able to work on apps with just an iPad though, even if it was just parts of an app that got synced to a code repo and the work was continued on a Mac at home. It would be faster to develop the UI of an iOS app on iOS itself as the touch capability is there and you can tell how the layout works on the display. It can simulate the smaller iOS screen sizes with scaling.
How exactly would Xcode for iOS be useful? I assume you've used the app on a Mac so I assume you've used it on a laptop display and wished you had a bigger display because it's such a complex app with so many features that need to accessed. How exactly would all that be useful with your fingertip as the primary input?
XCode has a lot of options but I wouldn't say a lot of features.
All those active settings you have to manipulate constantly on the all panels that you slide in and out of constantly and click on a subcategory of that panel with a button a fraction the size of your finger tip are features to the app.
If you mean the panels on the right in the following image, the UI has been designed for the space available on the Mac, it would be done differently on iOS:
That's my point! It would have to be done differently, but you can't just remove everything that doesn't work with the UI and assume it's not needed.
Do you own an Apple Watch? If you do, you may understand that you can't have all the features of the iPhone app on the watch, and you've probably found that even with apps on the Watch you still go to your iPhone because the Watch is far too limited for detailed input.
There are some things that aren't possible on significantly smaller displays like you wouldn't expect to edit video on the Watch where you can on the iPhone. The iPads have large enough displays to do anything a laptop can do. Pages, Word, iMovie are examples of this. The UI scale just changes to suit touch input.
Playgrounds as a teaching tool for controlling drones and robots makes it a tool for creators and producers rather than consumers. Productive tools need to give the producers enough control or they will run into a barrier at some point and have to switch their entire device out. Kids are growing up with iOS, they shouldn't have to eventually migrate to a Mac because the iPad doesn't have the tools to let them stay there. They might migrate anyway because it's better having an even bigger display but there's no reason to hold back functionality from the iPad when it can handle it. iPad sales have been falling (33% in just 2 years), the more reasons for people to go and buy new ones and keep buying them, the better.
Anything? You want to hold your arm out so you can poke at the display with Pencil?
Anything? You want to hold your arm out so you can poke at the display with Pencil?
I don't think people want to do that with all the apps that are currently on the iPad like Word, Pages and Safari but for the most part people would be typing and you can lay it flat for heavy UI parts. A touchpad would help here (the material can be like a more elastic low friction neoprene):
On iOS, if you go into Settings > General > Accessibility > AssistiveTouch then customise menu, hit plus and add gestures and turn AssistiveTouch on, it will show a floating button. Tapping this then gestures and choosing one will show finger overlays. Wherever you touch on the display, the overlays move to where you touch. This is how an external input device can work and the overlays just disappear when not touching the device.
External input wouldn't be essential just like with other text-heavy apps it would just improve it, there can also be keyboard shortcuts. Say you want to adjust an element's properties in a Storyboard, you can just arrow key through the elements in the Storyboard, hit command-i and then arrow/tab through the properties. If the properties by default only show the most adjusted options, it would be efficient enough.
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Do you own an Apple Watch? If you do, you may understand that you can't have all the features of the iPhone app on the watch, and you've probably found that even with apps on the Watch you still go to your iPhone because the Watch is far too limited for detailed input.
There are some things that aren't possible on significantly smaller displays like you wouldn't expect to edit video on the Watch where you can on the iPhone. The iPads have large enough displays to do anything a laptop can do. Pages, Word, iMovie are examples of this. The UI scale just changes to suit touch input.
Playgrounds as a teaching tool for controlling drones and robots makes it a tool for creators and producers rather than consumers. Productive tools need to give the producers enough control or they will run into a barrier at some point and have to switch their entire device out. Kids are growing up with iOS, they shouldn't have to eventually migrate to a Mac because the iPad doesn't have the tools to let them stay there. They might migrate anyway because it's better having an even bigger display but there's no reason to hold back functionality from the iPad when it can handle it. iPad sales have been falling (33% in just 2 years), the more reasons for people to go and buy new ones and keep buying them, the better.
On iOS, if you go into Settings > General > Accessibility > AssistiveTouch then customise menu, hit plus and add gestures and turn AssistiveTouch on, it will show a floating button. Tapping this then gestures and choosing one will show finger overlays. Wherever you touch on the display, the overlays move to where you touch. This is how an external input device can work and the overlays just disappear when not touching the device.
External input wouldn't be essential just like with other text-heavy apps it would just improve it, there can also be keyboard shortcuts. Say you want to adjust an element's properties in a Storyboard, you can just arrow key through the elements in the Storyboard, hit command-i and then arrow/tab through the properties. If the properties by default only show the most adjusted options, it would be efficient enough.