Is Swift Playgrounds the Future of Apple App Development?

Spoiler: I honestly don’t know what I am talking about. If you came here before WWDC 2022 searching for some clues as to what Apple may be showing this year, I’m sorry to disappoint you. What I’m going to discuss here are my personal wishes and speculations.

Just a toy? #

When Swift Playgrounds appeared on the App Store a few years ago, it made no promises of ever becoming more than an interactive way of teaching Swift to beginners. I remembered talking to iOS developer colleagues at the time, most of whom dismissed Playgrounds as a nuisance - something to tinker with, but nothing even remotely close to Xcode.

Well, fast forward to last year’s WWDC, when Playgrounds 4 was given some superpowers - at least, on the iPad front. Since iPad OS 15.2, anyone with an Apple developer account could now publish apps to the App Store directly from an iPad. Naturally, a few (not many) folks have decided to try and do precisely that (with some mixed results):

Developer experience aside, it was exciting to even give the iPad a try as a developer platform. But what about the Mac? Well, I was happy to notice that a few weeks ago, Playgrounds 4.1 arrived for macOS with the ability to build and publish native desktop apps without Xcode whatsoever!

I was skeptical, and decided to give it a try. Indeed, for my limited Swift knowledge, it worked like a charm!

What am I getting at? #

Here is the thing. While I may not be right, I know one thing - it’s 2022, and if Apple wants to reach out to the next tier of developers, Xcode is not the answer. It’s monstrous, slow, and has tons of its 90’s legacy still in there. Worst of all, it hardly abides by decades of established developer practices. I have the right to say it because Xcode was the number one reason I ditched the idea of ever becoming a prolific iOS developer. And I have been programming since 1999, so I have seen one or two things throughout the years.

While Playgrounds may not be the ultimate answer, I am happy to see Apple diversify its tools portfolio. Playgrounds will likely become the first choice for many developers who want a way to develop a small app and publish it on the App Store. Most apps are not that complex anyway to require the installation of Xcode.

For those that do, Xcode will always remain an option. I hope to see a chunked-down installation process on that front. Rather than installing a single blob worth tens of GB on your machine, you should be able to select the devices and Swift (or Objective-C) versions you need, necessary frameworks, and off you go. This is how VS Code wins the masses - it comes as this tiny editor that can do little, but after adding a few extensions, it starts getting superpowers. The end effect is the same - after a few months, my VS Code setup started looking like an Xcode installation. However, I got there voluntarily, carefully choosing what I wanted in my setup and whatnot.

So, what are your biggest expectations from this year’s WWDC? Write a comment below or on Twitter.