It happened: Apple made a Swift playgrounds app for iPad.
The concept is to engage new learners, and get them used to using Swift. The playgrounds app is specifically for Swift.
When you launch playgrounds, it’s not the same experience as you find in Xcode; it’s a lot flashier, and is geared toward those who have no experience in Swift.
It’s also meant for kids, so adults may find it a bit simplistic. Still, as you learn to code, it’ll be handy.
Rather than run actual code, playgrounds walks you through exercises to learn the concepts of coding in Swift. Apple’s demonstration has us walking a character around a maze, where you type in things like moveForward() rather than tap an arrow.
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It also teaches concepts like for loops, which is something a Swift developer will need to master early on.
As you learn coding concepts, playgrounds has advanced lessons you can migrate through.
Playgrounds also has a new keyboard specifically meant for coding. Things like brackets and parentheses are easily accessible so you’re not diving in and out of keyboards all day.
It’s something developers had been hoping for, but perhaps not exactly what they wanted. Still, for new learners, it’s a huge step forward.
It will be available on iOS this Fall.
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