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Comment by npunt | Hacker News Reader

It looks like Xcode on iPad is probably happening based on some hires they've been doing. iOS 13 is also going to be a big update for iPad. Seems they're on an every other year release cycle for big iOS iPad updates - 9 introduced multitasking, 11 introduced big UI changes, and now lots of 13 rumors. I'd look at this year's new iPad hardware as a sign that they're serious about iPad as the next computing paradigm and are putting a lot of effort behind making the platform suitable for a variety of professionals.

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Can they really build an Xcode for iOS while sandboxing apps and refusing to expose the underlying file system?

(Would your app icons, for example, be forced to live in your iOS photo stream, as it’s the only way to share images between apps? What about non-image data files?)

Even if those issues can be addressed, iOS native UI is completely and utterly touch-centric, designed for fat fingers on small screens - and so far, nobody has really succeeded in building feature-rich professional software with high-complexity UIs within that paradigm.

Also, most developers demand multiple monitors as well as the precision of a keyboard and mouse... who would be the audience for XCode-on-iOS?

> Can they really build an Xcode for iOS while sandboxing apps and refusing to expose the underlying file system?

I think that's kind of the point. Apple is going to eventually have to give certain classes of users more freedom if they want to see the iPad Pro adopted as a Pro platform.

Consistently, every single major review I read or watched for the iPad Pro berated Apple about this. The Verge, Engadget, MKBHD, and many others. Reviewers are not just letting Apple get away with this. Apple is going to have to open this up, even though some people like to believe they're never going to do that for some reason.

> most developers demand multiple monitors as well as the precision of a keyboard and mouse

iOS already has great keyboard support, and with the USB-C port on the iPad Pro, you can literally plug it into a USB-C dock and instantly have an external monitor, keyboard, and more connected, and yes, the monitor can show different content, it doesn't have to mirror the internal iPad display.

The iPad Pro's keyboard folio case is really great. I think it's actually a slightly more pleasant typing experience than what Apple's current generation Butterfly keyboards offer on their laptops.

Mouse support is another thing that reviewers have harped on Apple for. Whether they will support that at an OS-level or not is honestly more questionable than whether they're going to open up the underlying file system to advanced users, in my opinion.

> who would be the audience for XCode-on-iOS?

- Developers who like portability.

- Developers who like powerful hardware. (considering the iPad Pro is easily more powerful than the new MacBook Air and many of the MacBook Pros)

- Developers who like a great display... that 120Hz Liquid Retina display is really fantastic.

- Developers who enjoy long battery life.

- iOS Developers who want to save money. (an iPad Pro is cheaper than a MacBook, although not by as much as it should be)

Which developers wouldn't be interested in a professional-grade iPad Pro, given the list above? Unfortunately, Apple hasn't released such an iPad Pro yet, due to software limitations.

Apple don’t really seem to care much about ‘Pro’ users. Look at the state of the latest MBP (especially in real-world use, with dongles and USB hubs trailing out of it), and the silly pricing and infrequent updates of other Pro-branded Macs.

Pro users are a very small and demanding market compared to the massive and hugely profitable market for shiny ‘content consumption + communication devices’

I have heard argument that MacOS is great for development because it is Unix-like so you have proper shell but it is much more polished than Linux.

Wouldn't iOS without shell be much less suitable for development especially for anything that not apple specific for example web development?

iOS is also based on NeXTSTEP(which itself is a derivative of BSD Unix). Also previous jailbreaks could gain root access along with some kind of shell. iOS, in its current form, seems to be a very locked down, sandboxed version of Unix. So I think iOS might prove as good as macOS.

Quoting myself from the top of this comment chain:

> the least they could do is bring Xcode, Terminal, and external storage support to iPad Pro

I think a virtual terminal is a necessary piece here, which implies a Unix shell.

Do you think they give ability to install necessary tools? If not what the point of terminal? Or provided minimum of basic tools will be good enough for most developers?

If you're going to have a full IDE where you can write and compile code that Apple has never seen, it makes sense that developers would be able to download and run unsigned binaries inside the terminal for development purposes.

Attempting to arbitrarily differentiate between unreviewed code that you're writing and running versus unreviewed code someone else wrote that you're running would be a strange line to draw in the sand.

If they somehow decide to provide Xcode but don't provide a terminal at all, that would obviously be very limiting.

In some ways I’m glad in other ways it’s sad to see many considering a locked down device as an option for software development. Maybe it’s a good learning solution.

Hopefully it never takes off as more than that.

Developers love Apple. The fact that its locked down means everyone has to go through the official store. Follow the money: billions are being made on Apple devices. Apple users spend more money than Android users.

Also Xcode and iPad related development would be nice testbed for ARM macs.

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