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Will Developers Finally Start Coding On the iPad?
An anonymous reader writes "It's not so long since Apple silently dropped the restriction about iOS apps for programming — iPad owners can now code in Lua with Codea or with Python for iOS. Yesterday, a new app called Kodiak PHP brought another IDE to the iPad, this time for PHP coders. Pandodaily's Nathaniel Mott describes it as a full-blooded software development tool with comparison to other iOS apps. Cult of Mac reports that the demise of the Mac might be closer than we think, but are developers really ready to use the on-screen keyboard to do some serious work?"
or when the rest of you see one of these stories predicting about the demise of desktops, laptops and every other device with a precise user interface and non-negligible computing capacity, do you just want to shoot yourself?
* It fits in my purse.
Oh they will. As soon as Tim Cook does this.
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
This.
If you don't have a real keyboard you don't have a real development tool - regardless of the IDE. Sure you can do some programing and you can even use a real keyboard with an ipad - but if your going that far then why not just use a laptop? If portability is an issue then try an ultrabook. The conclusion I have come to though is that most of my development time does not happen while being "mobile" - I'm at a desk somewhere.
Tablets are a media consumption device. Using them for developing software is like pounding a screw into wood with a hammer.
If you don't have a real keyboard you don't have a real development tool - regardless of the IDE.
Someone else pointed out a more fundamental problem: you cannot write iPad software using your iPad. Even if it had a keyboard, that problem would kill the iPad as a software development platform.
Palm trees and 8
A couple of years ago I finally got an external monitor for my work PC that had more pixels than the Sun 3 I'd used back in the 1980s. (We mainly worked with laptops, and our IT department always thought that having more color depth was more important than more pixels, even though most of us work with text and simple graphics and 16-bit color was plenty. Some years they also thought portability was important, which was nice of them, but had the price of only getting 1024x768.)
Back when I was younger, 1280x1024 pixels was annoyingly small to do development work in, because it limits how much text you could fit on a screen. Now that I need reading glasses, I not only want more pixels than that, but I want a bigger screen to put them on, and holding the latest generation iPad/MacBook close to my face just means typing is awkward.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
my iconia tablet + bluetooth keyboard is all I carry around these days. Plenty of good ide's, can host a webserver on the tablet, and so on and so on.
Whatever, ipads. . lol
than again, on an android tablet you can(cumbersomely) develop a real android app.
on an ipad not, unless you use it essentially as just as a dumb terminal to some full mac somewhere.
it's essentially apples rules about not having a second app store that keep the whole developing fully on an ipad idea at bay for foreseeable future for non-jailbreakers. so it's a matter of politics, not practicalities.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
But this is Apple. They don't care about developers. They don't care about users. It's their way, or San Jose's courthouse.
There. Fixed that for you.
Not until there is an Emacs version available from the App Store.
Computer simulation made easy -- LibGeoDecomp
There's no reason apple couldn't write an iOS IDE for the iPad
Except that it would violate their own terms of service, and that it would be a complete 180 for them in terms of their recent behavior. There is also no reason that Apple couldn't remove the restrictions on iOS and allow anyone to write software for it -- but no sane person can think that is going to happen.
You seem to think Apple has some kind of nonsensical vendetta agains developers
No, they just want developers to pay them for the privilege of writing software for Apple products. See, for example, the $99/year fee for permission to write iOS applications.
they only charge $100 per year to be a part of their developer program
If you do not pay, nobody can run your iOS software. You make it seem like developers are paying Apple because they like the service; in reality, they are paying Apple because the only other way to distribute iOS software is in a legal grey area.
which allows you to submit apps for approval
Or to have your application rejected because it might offend some people:
http://www.juggleware.com/blog/2008/09/steve-jobs-writes-back/
You seem to be taking that and extrapolating it to a world where Apple actively works to prevent software development on their platform
No, I said that Apple would require people to buy a high-end laptop or workstation, and that they would charge a yearly fee to develop software using that system. Which is only one or two steps away from the situation we have today: the development tools are only available for Mac OS X, you have to pay Apple to sign your software or nobody can run it, and Apple is creating more laptops that are not user serviceable. It makes sense for them, because this model for iOS has basically turned them into the most valuable company in the entire world. Why would they even stop doing something so profitable?
the apps are such a large part of their product's appeal.
Apps created by professional developers who use expensive workstations and have little problem paying Apple are part of the appeal. It is rare for an individual developer to make a popular iOS app; we are not talking about the Ubuntu repositories, we are talking about a store designed by and for corporate developers.
At no point did I say people would be forbidden from writing software for Apple devices, all I said is that users will not have such freedom; you will need to pay for the privilege.
Palm trees and 8
pitifully small development registration fee
Which is enough to keep people away. If I had an iPad in high school, and no other computer access, I would not have been to afford that fee.
Apple has never required the purchase of a high-end desktop or workstation.
No, they have only required a system running Mac OS X, and now it is starting to look like Mac OS X is going to be locked down as well, or that Apple is going to start installing iOS on their consumer laptop / desktop lines.
Wrong. Outside of games it is in fact common.
Hm...what are the most popular apps in the App Store...
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/311311/20120308/apple-time-popular-ios-apps.htm
Well, if we delete the games from that list, what do we see? Google, Facebook, Skype, Microsoft, and a smaller company called TapTapTap. Where are these popular apps from individual developers? I guess maybe they are just not popular enough to make it into the top ten, but here is the top 100 for free apps, and I am not seeing too many individuals even when games are excluded:
https://www.apple.com/itunes/charts/free-apps/
So, let me reiterate my question for you: where are those individuals who supposedly write all of this popular software?
Users have that freedom if they want it.
If they want to be in the App store they must pay the App Store owner, one way or another.
You are envisioning some odd world were Apple is making tons of money on DEVELOPERS.
No, I am envisioning a world where Apple makes tons of money by controlling their products long after those products were purchased. That would be called "the world as it exists today."
Palm trees and 8
"Programming in PHP is not full blooded software development"
Whether that sentence is factually correct is not a matter for discussion though.
FTFY.
Plenty of people develop on a Mac mini.
Which still increases the price by requiring the purchase of either a second (otherwise unnecessary) computer for $650 or the purchase of a $200 second operating system to run in Boot Camp if you instead decide to make the Mac your primary machine. And you have to replace this computer every four years; otherwise you risk not being able to run the latest Mac OS X. And if you're not on a recent Mac OS X, forget about being able to run the latest Xcode needed to target devices running the latest iOS.
The iPad is irrelevant, soon to be eclipsed (no pun intended) by all things Android. Arguably, this has already happened.
Arguably, you are quite disconnected from reality. :-)
Galileo: "The Earth revolves around the Sun!"
Score: -1 100% Flamebait