25 ms·

We’ll stop selling our Code Editor app for iOS soon

353 points by krzyzanowskim 5y ago

mysterydip 5y ago
I tried editing code on a mobile, even tablet, before, thinking "I have all this downtime where I'm mindlessly browsing on my phone, think of how productive I could be if I could code during that time!" The reality becomes that those places are usually too distracting for me to be in a coding mindset, and even when not, typing code using a non-physical keyboard is tiring and cumbersome. Even just the occasional mistype stops my flow as I have to back up and fix the letter or number now that I'm several characters past it.
- swiley 5y ago
  I've been working on a browser on and off for a few years, I just started adding js support via Fabrice Bellard's Quickjs project and did this on my Pinephone while taking the train. I use FVWM as the DE with xvkbd as the keyboard (Originally I was expecting to have to change that but it turns out typing fast isn't needed to stay focused as long as you're decent at vim.) I've tried coding on iOS before but the whole thing is really built to push you toward chatting and scrolling. Everything is miserable down to switching between your editor and browser, copying files, and running your build tools. Not to mention the feeling that you can't build your own tools to fix problems you have. It's totally possible to be productive on a phone but you need to not be fighting against the OS vendor to do it.
  - 1_player 5y ago
    > did this on my Pinephone while taking the train That sounds to me like the definition of living hell. Writing prose on a touchscreen is bad already, I can't imagine how bad it must be to write actual code on one. It's not an iPad(OS) problem, it's a form factor/peripheral problem.
    - swiley 5y ago
      I've found prose is much more painful (by orders of magnitude really) than code (provided the keyboard has symbol/modifier keys and works well with your editor.) that's why I thought it wouldn't work.
- danohuiginn 5y ago
  A bluetooth keyboard makes a massive difference. Working in a jupyter notebook (hosted elswhere) on Android is a smooth experience for me
saagarjha 5y ago
> The biggest technical hurdle is the inability to run external processes on iOS and iPadOS. > Apps on iOS and iPadOS must use Apple’s Javascript interpreter, JavaScriptCore. Both of these really suck because they are policy, not technical, decisions. Even setting aside the arguments of whether JIT code is a security concern (it is not unless your security model is one where codesigning exists to prevent the addition of new native code) that you cannot spawn a new process, nor can you ship another JavaScript interpreter, is really unfortunate. Allowing apps to spawn new processes is easy (I mean, just inherit sandboxing rules and resource limits…) and allows for a lot of new usecases, like robust crash reporting, web servers, privilege separation, and more. That Apple allows this on macOS and even uses it for its own apps on iOS just shows how useful this can be and how little it affects the security model of iOS. Likewise, not allowing other JavaScript interpreters is just…annoying. Regardless of your opinions of JavaScriptCore, this is an unfair limitation on an already slanted playing field. Coupled with the fact that the JavaScriptCore interpreter (which the framework uses for anything you run in-process) is literally designed for low resource consumption instead of than performance makes this even more infuriating.
- w0utert 5y ago
  >> The biggest technical hurdle is the inability to run external processes on iOS and iPadOS. >> Apps on iOS and iPadOS must use Apple’s Javascript interpreter, JavaScriptCore. > Both of these really suck because they are policy, not technical, decisions. They are policy decisions that kind of make sense for a device like a tablet or phone though. Even though you could technically allow installing a complete development toolchain on an iPad, I can't imagine what the process would look like in practice. Download and install a complete *nix userland through the app store? Plus a compiler toolchain and each and every tool used in the build phase for your product? Who is going to maintain and distribute all these parts if the whole ecosystem is designed around the idea that apps are sandboxed and distributed through a curated app store? Imagine the customer support burden if you are the maintainer of some app that depends on external tools that can be used in a zillion different build/deploy configurations. You could of course argue that the iOS ecosystem should not be based around a curated app store and sandboxed applications, but that would make it a MacBook... Maybe we should put the whole idea of having one device that does everything to rest and accept that there are advantages to have a split between 'real computers' and tablets/phones. That's just my opionion though... Edit: ah great, an immediate -3 because apparently people here think it is absolutely required to downvote straight away because they disagree with some opinion that is not their own. Goodbye Hacker News, after ~10 years I'm finally done with the comment sections here and will deactivate my account and ask for it to be deleted
stblack 5y ago
I love iPad but for many things. But as a software developer, creating on iPad scores pretty close to zero. Thank you, Panic Software, for hanging in for as long as you did.
- coldcode 5y ago
  I prefer to code on a 27in display, the iPad it still too small. I know people who just use the MBP display but I never found Xcode usable on a small screen.
- monkin 5y ago
  How so? You can still use remote/local machines to develop. People use(including myself) great success apps like Blink Shell(https://blink.sh https://blink.sh), Inspect Browser(https://apps.pdyn.net/inspect/ https://apps.pdyn.net/inspect/) or code-server(https://github.com/cdr/code-server https://github.com/cdr/code-server) to work full time on iPad. By full time I mean #iPadOnly way. I do JS front-ends, back-ends in Go, I design in Figma(https://figurative.design/ https://figurative.design/) and Affinity Designer/Photo. For coding my daily driver is Blink Shell(They released a free community edition if you want to try: https://community.blink.sh https://community.blink.sh) with Mosh. I never had a feeling that my terminal is just connected to VPS. Whenever I open Blink, everything is still there as I left it. Slow connection? No problem with Mosh. Constantly changing networks or IP addresses? You will not lose a connection even for a minute. After a long year after the switch to my only device at home, I can tell you that I never looked back nor needed any other machine. Maybe it doesn’t cover everyone’s needs, but you can’t say it’s close to zero. Most of current development can be done on it. :-)
  - brigandish 5y ago
    I was curious so went to the Blink website and I am very confused. The initial strapline is enticing, "Connect to your cloud on the go, or code all day from the beach." so I read more: > With Mosh and SSH, Blink is rock-solid, fast, and your all-day-long companion. Okay, it's starting to get crowded but I want to know more so I scroll down to get some details: > Mosh was built for constant mobile connectivity. Isn't this the Blink site? Or is it also called Mosh? Why am I getting the history of an app/service/Lord-knows-what before being told what it is? > You can flawlessly jump from home, to the train, and then to the office thanks to Mosh. Still on about Mosh and not only is there not a peep about what it is, I still don't know what Blink is. > Blink is rock-solid connected all the way. Now we're back to Blink. What is it? Doesn't matter, it's good! Trust us, the people who won't tell you what it is. What is Mosh? Who knows! If I guess that Blink is a shell and Mosh is some kind of networking facility will I a) be correct, and b) have guessed more detail about them in a few words than their home page tells me? Disappointing.
warpspin 5y ago
Only remotely related: How good is their Nova editor by now compared to Sublime Text? Currently wondering if trying it once more is worth the time.
- hutattedonmyarm 5y ago
  They have a trial for Nova, so I suggest checking it out. It’s not quite as fast as ST (on my aging 2013 MBP) and the extension ecosystem is still somewhat lacking. Nonetheless, it feels fantastic to use and I’ve switched completely now
- hokumguru 5y ago
  As someone who daily drives Nova... it depends. Plugin support is vastly better than it was 6 months ago but there are still tons of quirks (from a Typescript-first developer POV). If you're willing to code your own plugins or contribute to open source you'll find yourself a lot happier. Your mileage may vary but overall I'd give it a 9/10 in speed and UX but a 6-7/10 in usability compared to Webstorm or VSCode with the right plugins.
- Hamuko 5y ago
  I found it a bit slow when I used the beta. The search was especially bad since I'm used to ripgrep.
mensetmanusman 5y ago
The big question is will the new M1 iPad be allowed to be a real computer if the user wants it to.
- mirthflat83 5y ago
  Since they’re deliberately marketing that the iPad has an M1 chip, I think they have dual booting in mind for the future
  - user-the-name 5y ago
    They definitely do not. macOS is not designed for use with a touch screen, and Apple are not interested in releasing half-arsed, unusable systems.
    - mcphage 5y ago
      iOS has mouse support, and Apple sells a keyboard with a trackpad for it. If they were that concerned about the touch screen being unusable—even though other manufacturers have figured it out—then they could just disable touch input while in Mac mode. Maybe even allow Pencil support.
    - mirthflat83 5y ago
      Obviously they’re going to disable the touch screen if that happens.
    - wayneftw 5y ago
      > Apple are not interested in releasing half-arsed, unusable systems. Is that why on macOS I can open a window like "About this mac" or any window from a menu bar app, switch away from it with the keyboard...and then not be able to switch back to that same window with the same keyboard shortcut? Are you aware that, for over 20 years, Apple sold an OS that only let you resize application windows by the lower right hand corner? I could go on (and on and on) but I'll stop here: Remember when Apple swore by the single button mouse? They said it was the best thing ever. Except the first thing everybody bought for their new Mac was a multi-button mouse... Reminds me of how many dongles you need today because thin is in!
deergomoo 5y ago
It’s a real shame that the otherwise very capable iPad cannot sustain an enormous subcategory of professional grade software, solely because of Apple’s policies. People know this going in of course, but it doesn’t make it any less of a shame, especially now you can spec out an iPad Pro with the exact same specs as the laptop I use for work.
- Siira 5y ago
  It’s not like there is much of an alternative. Android isn’t that much better, and its hardware offerings suck. Apple has an effective monopoly on quality tablet hardware, as far as I know. (I don’t understand why, but then again, I don’t understand how there can be years-long shortages of PS5 either. Why don’t they just increase the fucking price? ...)
  - justinclift 5y ago
    Possibly interestingly, I just bought a 2nd hand MS Surface Pro 3 tablet for about US$300 (8GB RAM, i5 Cpu, 256GB SSD). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Pro_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Pro_3 Specifically because I'm looking for something to run Blender (blender.org) on. The iPad Pro could only run it via Sidecar from a real Mac (eg tethered laptop or similar). Android has an ancient version (circa ~2013), which isn't a real option. Could have spent money on a new Surface Pro, but trying things out on an older model seems to be working so far. :) From my point of view, there are more options than just iOS and Android for tablets. Apparently Linux can be installed on Surface Pro's too, though that's a future "maybe" item for this one.
  - tomp 5y ago
    Microsoft Surface Go is a technological marvel. Full-blown x86 computer in tablet form. I’ve used it for the past year as my only machine (I’m a fulltime + hobby software developer). It’s 100% on par with Apple hardware (including the foldable keyboard & trackpad, and the lack of RAM). Software is a different issue, but for development work it mostly doesn’t matter that much (I use IntellJ, conda, Jupyter & Chrome, and all of those are completely cross platform). I haven’t tried Surface Pro but I imagine it’s equally good, just bigger.
WA 5y ago
> The app should continue to function for a long time, but won’t receive further updates Just a warning for users and devs alike: Nope, it probably won't. Apple's track record for backwards compatibility isn't terrible, but it's also not flawless. I had an app in the store from 2011 until the end of 2017. iOS 14.5 broke this app for some reason (I don't know why). No warning for users and if Apple follows some kind of SemVer, it's weird that a minor version breaks an old app. Note for devs: Find a way how people can export their data from the app even if it's not working anymore (for example, by writing to the Documents folder and exposing it to the Finder) Note for users: Assume that an unsupported app can and will break in an unpredictable way. Backup your data regularly.
- Normille 5y ago
  >Note for devs: Find a way how people can export their data from the app At the risk of meandering off-topic; this is one of my all-time bugbears with software. Or, rather it's half of one of my all-time bugbears. I'd complete it by adding "Find a way how people can import their existing data into the app" It never ceases to amaze me how many developers produce apps which have obviously had a lot of time and thought devoted to their creation and functionality. But which provide no way of importing existing data you might have. Unless your app is creating something completely unique and filling a completely new gap in the market, the chances are that there are other apps out there which serve a similar function. Your app may be ten times more lovely to look at and ten times more pleasing to use. But, without providing import/export facility, you're expecting potential new users to either be completely new to <whatever> your app does. Or to totally abandon all the work they have done previously, in your rivals' apps. In my opinion, this is why the Fediverse has failed so dismally. All these rivals to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram et al. All launched with lots of high-falutin' claims about privacy and respect for users. Yet not one of them provided a way to import your existing data from the services they sought to replace. "All those years and years of 'stuff' you've already written and posted? That's all just worthless junk. Leave it all behind and come empty-handed to our exciting new platform!" It's quite insulting really, when you think about it. And it's not only 'social meeja' apps. One of my particular quirks is that I'm a bit of a compulsive place-marker of where I've been on holidays, camping, or just days out, etc. I have probably a few hundred such place-marks saved on the mapping app on my phone. Every so often, I'll think to try a new mapping app and download and install it. Only to find, on almost every occasion, that it doesn't provide any way for me to import my existing place-marks. So, presumably, the target market of the developers of those apps is someone who's never left the house before. But belatedly feels the urge to travel around, marking places they've been on a map.
ladyanita22 5y ago
I'm probably be gonna laughed at, but I don't understand why these developers don't publish their apps on Android. If you get screwed by Apple, why not go to the other field?
- monkin 5y ago
  One thing I don’t like about Google Play Store is their refund policy that only last 48 hours after that time you need to contact developer for a refund. Which in most cases ends on lack of answer from them. On AppStore you have 90 days to do a refund, and mostly it’s always accepted, no questions asked. Second, differences in prices. Yesterday my friend was scammed into app(one of the top apps there) that gave him 3 day trail but only when choosing 1 year license after that. After 3 days without notification he was billed for $125. The same app cost yearly on iOS $35 and lifetime for $40. And, this is just an example of many scammy tactics that go on on Play Store. :-) No, it doesn’t mean that Apple does not have this problem. It has, but in smaller quantity.
- zapzupnz 5y ago
  Panic is a long time Apple developer house. They don’t want to make the best tools for just any platform; they contribute the best tools they can to Apple’s ecosystem, the one they use and appreciate (and love). Apple power users have different expectations, especially around UX on the Mac; that is Panic’s forte. I’m sure if they wanted to develop for Windows or Android, they could have years ago. But that’s not their thing, that’s not why they make these tools.
- cfn 5y ago
  I suppose, in this case, because there isn't an alternative to the iPad on the Android side. There are many Android tablets (I have a few) but they are not as powerful and the battery always seems to last a lot less than the iPads.
  - gtirloni 5y ago
    I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 and it seems pretty powerful to run anything I want.
perardi 5y ago
Here I go, being skeptical about getting work done on iPads again… …but is there any “pro” software like this that is succeeding on iPad that isn’t part of a larger cloud/subscription service? I believe Office gets some actual use on iPad, and Adobe sure keeps trying, but is there really any notable pro apps that are succeeding on their lonesome?
- Cu3PO42 5y ago
  Procreate is very successful. By all accounts I've heard from personal friends, it's a wonderful tool for drawing and illustrations. It's a one time purchase for an extremely fair price (around 10 USD/EUR). I bought it years ago just to play around and still receive updates.
- bayindirh 5y ago
  Photography, video creation & editing is really good on iOS. I can take my camera, a card reader and iPad Pro and have a complete darkroom with a calibrated screen with minimum weight. Even my iPhone X can post-process files from my 24MP mirrorless camera and create really high quality images. iPad Pro is a multimedia powerhouse both for creation and post-processing. Development is hard, because it needs unfettered access, due to nature of the beast.
  - cfn 5y ago
    What apps do you use for photography?
    - bayindirh 5y ago
      For quick'n'dirty stuff: - VSCO - Priime - RNI films For more advanced post processing: - Polarr - Dark Room - CameraBag Mobile If I don't have my camera with me, I use Halide for taking photos. For timing, occasional astro and other stuff I use Helios and Photo Pills. On the desktop side I use CameraBag Pro and Darktable mainly. I occasionally use Luminar. I started photography with analog in the 90s, so I really dig the atmosphere different emulsions or curves add to the photography and, I use these tools to create the feeling I want to create with my images.
lifty 5y ago
One good thing is that today you can run VS Code on an iPad, in the browser, with all the dev tools running in a remote container. Not a bad experience. Edit: I've always thought that Panic could take a similar approach with Nova. Run locally on the iPad, as a native app, while connecting to a remote machine to compile, debug and run the actual code.
- Siira 5y ago
  Without an external keyboard? Really? PS: The whole web VSCode thing can also have very bad latency in my experience.
  - lifty 5y ago
    No, definitely with a keyboard. I tried it on an iPad Pro with an external keyboard and the experience seemed decent. But it's not my primary workflow so can't say if there are quirks, like the latency you mentioned.
  - atonse 5y ago
    This is a chance even for Microsoft to just release a react-native-sort of VS code where the rendering layer is native, but it's still JS, and it hits the remote services for the actual "horsepower"
- kevingadd 5y ago
  Yeah, they mention your suggestion (remote machine to run the compiler(s) and debugger) in the post, and it sounds like it was too cumbersome to make sense to build a product around. I personally suspect that if they kept at it, it could've eventually built an audience... but I can imagine the cost of developing and maintaining that exceeding any potential profit from selling copies to iOS users.
  - atonse 5y ago
    I would love this and even pay a monthly fee for this. There is a company doing this but they do the container piece. forgot their name. If we could seamlessly pair that with VS code Remote on the iPad (or macOS) I’d try to move our developers to it to keep all sensitive customer data totally off our laptops for good.
huhtenberg 5y ago
> We’re working on a new version of Prompt, though! Ugh-oh. Not again. The last time it happened, they took the old version off the AppStore and ultimately forced everyone to re-purchase their new and shiny remake for the full price. I'm still bitter about it. You want to make a new version - fine, but taking the old one off was a real shitty move (* see EDIT below). So despite of how it sounds, that ^ part is the exact opposite of good news. EDIT - I misremembered, my bad. They refused to rebuild the original prompt for x64 target. That's what it was. They didn't take it off the store, they just claimed that rebuilding for 64-bit platform was such an immense hassle and monstrously complicated task that they just can't. But! Lucky for you we just happened to have this brand new version that is 64-bit. It has few things improved, but largely the same. You'll love it. $15.
- zapzupnz 5y ago
  I mean, you would still be able to access the old version in your Purchases section.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- CJefferson 5y ago
  Once again, I view this as Apple's fault. You can't release pay for upgrades, if you leave both up it confuses people.
  - huhtenberg 5y ago
    Very few Prompt users will be confused by seeing two whole versions of the program.
    - jakeva 5y ago
      You have a lot of confidence in Prompt users. I see so much whining and complaining from otherwise seemingly erudite online communities such as HN, I'm inclined to believe people who know how to use SSH and are in possession of a mobile Apple device are incapable of maintaining a state of calm when confronted with a plurality of versions of the same app in the same app store.
Asmod4n 5y ago
Hm, you can run alpine Linux on iOS. With background tasks. (https://apps.apple.com/de/app/ish-shell/id1436902243 https://apps.apple.com/de/app/ish-shell/id1436902243) I wonder what it would take to make a Code development tool to take advantage of that.
- kevingadd 5y ago
  I can't imagine a company like Panic being able to get away with using that approach to run stuff like tsc, but it would be cool to see someone try who can afford to have Apple shoot their whole product in the head. Maybe it'd be great and Apple would decide to re-evaluate the rules and make it officially OK.
- saagarjha 5y ago
  iSH runs everything in one process as threads.
whywhywhywhy 5y ago
Kinda absurd how much effort Panic has put trying to fit into Apple's vision of the future of computing and operating systems almost to backtrack again at every turn a few years later when the initial investment doesn't translate into money. Definitely feel for their engineering team.
- dariusj18 5y ago
  Yeah, this is how Apple treats their allies. Jut another confirmation that my decision to leave the ecosystem was correct.
solarkraft 5y ago
RIP. Is the source code going to be published so people can keep running it on jailbroken devices?
ctdonath 5y ago
Odds of Xcode for iPad arriving right around then?
- smoldesu 5y ago
  Probably never. If Apple does this, it will the the most brazen permission-hopping Apple has ever done, and developers the world over would probably instantly complain that it renders Apple's entire threat model useless. Furthermore, it could also be illegal for Apple to be the sole distributor of an IDE on a platform where their competitors lack the permissions required to run/debug programs.
taylodl 5y ago
And this is why I'll be buying a MacBook Air over an iPad Pro. I'm not even going to complain - it is what it is and this article simply illustrates some important differences between the two platforms. I'm not even going to say iOS is bad - I love my iPhone and my wife absolutely loves her iPad Pro. Apple has targeted iPadOS to casual computer users who mainly consume content and require light content generation and editing capabilities, and as it turns out there's a HUGE market for that. But it's not for me. I'm a developer by profession and my hobbies are music and photography. All of these push the limits of what iPadOS is capable of delivering - but MacOS delivers with aplomb. And now thanks to Catalyst if there's some must-have iPadOS app I want to run then I can run it. The MacBook Air may be the most versatile machine Apple has ever made for users like me.
- justinclift 5y ago
  Next, they just need to get the Apple pencil working on the MacBook touchscreen... :)
- miralize 5y ago
  If Apple had the appetite to let that M1 on the iPad run macOS I'd buy that in a second, just for the ability to develop. The iPad is already so versatile, adding the ability to do my job or just to update a small side project every now and again (waiting at the airport etc). I understand the hesitation in doing so, but its so frustrating. Given that the iPad now has a keyboard and mouse if you want it & a CPU that we know is fast, just unleash it!
  - fastball 5y ago
    I'd kill for an iPad Pro running macOS that has an attachable magic keyboard + trackpad. So basically my current 13" MBP M1 with a detachable touch screen. Main problem for me would be the iPad's single port.
gameswithgo 5y ago
It really makes me sad. Apple used a lot of free and open technologies like FreeBSD to build their business, and they created these amazing, small computers. The people that developed these amazing small computers and their operating systems, as kids, likely had some desktop pc that shipped with a language like QBasic where they could learn programming and build things and share with friends. Kids who buy these new small computers from Apple, not only does it not ship with such a thing, but its not even possible to download or buy a programming environment! We built computers with brains the size of a planet, they fit in our pocket, and they have been castrated such that they are no good for creating anything, for no good reason.
- dapids 5y ago
  Millions of people build and create things on Mac computers, they have the XCode IDE and multiple natively supported languages, swift, objc, C++, C, Python, JavaScript, it's all built-in. Am I missing something?
  - Steltek 5y ago
    The topic was iOS devices, not macOS.
  - smoldesu 5y ago
    I mean, XCode is not only proprietary, but it's also horribly designed. Installing it is a nightmare that will use more than half of your Macs storage, and updating it takes longer than updating your own OS. What the original commentor is complaining about is how Apple stood on the shoulders of giants without giving back, only to turn around and wow the world with a product that is only 20-30% theirs. It's been a practice for as long as capitalism has existed, but for a company that operates on such blatantly wide profit margins and runs a socially conscious ad campaign, it seems a little stupid to at least not pay homage to the people who helped make your product. It's a bit of tragic irony that you can't even use the tools that Apple used to make MacOS on a Mac.
  - arvinsim 5y ago
    I am pretty sure that the poster was referring to phones, not laptops, when he posted about computers that can fit in the pocket.
TazeTSchnitzel 5y ago
How does Apple's Swift Playgrounds on iOS handle compiling code? Aren't the Swift compiler and linker also separate binaries? I'm wondering whether Apple excepted themselves or whether they actually forced that subset of Xcode to fit into the normal requirements somehow.
- my123 5y ago
  Apple did except themselves. Swift Playgrounds uses private entitlements. No other dev can replicate it with the public entitlements only. (On iOS)
  - hinkley 5y ago
    That sounds like something that needs to be fixed and soon. This is drifting into antitrust trial territory.
  - LeoPanthera 5y ago
    Apple did not except themselves, Apple excepted any app listed in the Education category of the store.
    - my123 5y ago
      Nope, other apps on that category use interpreters and do not have entitlements for running unsigned code at runtime. Swift Playgrounds actually compiles down to native code.
- fuzzy2 5y ago
  Education applications are exempt from this policy. They are allowed to execute code that did not come in the bundle, provided the user can fully edit it. What is an education app? Well, that is up to Apple.
ilovecaching 5y ago
Just want to say that Prompt 2 is the best terminal app on iOS. I love Panic products and am curious about how good Nova has gotten.
- asidiali 5y ago
  Have you tried Blink Mosh shell? I’ve tried them both and blink seems lightyears ahead of prompt. Maybe I didn’t give it enough time when I tried it, but prompt just felt bulkier IMO, which surprised me because Panic makes such great products. Could you elaborate on why you love prompt?
  - joshstrange 5y ago
    Prompt 1 & 2 were the best options for a /long/ time on iOS but both of them suffered from Panic not really going full-in on iOS development in my opinion. They are still old-school app developers who want to write something once and a call it done with minor little fixes after that. Most of the hot/popular ssh/mosh tools on iOS now (along with lots of other types of iOS apps) are constantly improving/being worked on. I'm going to have to add Blink to my list of terminal emulators to try out because I'm actively trying to move off Prompt 2. I have played with Termius but I really don't have a need for an SSH client on macOS, I'm very happy with iTerm, and there are other little things in Termius that annoy me/worked better in Prompt 2.
    - kstrauser 5y ago
      I switched to Blink when Prompt 2 came along. I mean, if I'm going to have to switch apps anyway... I never looked back. Blink's GUI isn't as pretty as Prompt's, but its functionality is outstanding. There's nothing more I would add to it.
    - monkin 5y ago
      If you want to try Blink use https://community.blink.sh/ https://community.blink.sh/ to get your hands on the free community edition with latest features.
jmull 5y ago
I don’t think we need iOS to be able to do everything MacOS does. We already have MacOS! Add touch support to MacOS and let it run on the “pro” iPads. Done.
- sarsway 5y ago
  Done with what? Done dreaming?
- smoldesu 5y ago
  Or just lift arbitrary limitations and let devs write the software they want while allowing users to install the software they want. Or is that too tall of an order for... checks notes ...the highest valued and largest company in the modern history of the first world.
Pulcinella 5y ago
I have a different view of this than most in this topic. I am disappointed, though not surprised, that Panic is abandoning yet another of their iOS apps. They’ve done it several times before and while I am grateful they’ve continued to provide some bug fixes, feature work stopped years ago. In my view, the biggest hurdle does not seem to have been technical, but ideological/business. These old school Mac developers like Panic and Omni have had a very difficult time adapting to (or failing to) the iOS/mobile era. I know we all hate subscriptions, but continued app development and management requires continued labor so subscriptions seem like the only business option that makes any sense to me. Panic and Omni want paid upgrades but Apple has never, ever even hinted at providing that as an option. The option is subscriptions. Even on desktop Sketch, Adobe, and Microsoft are going with subscriptions. (We’ll see how Affinity does. They charge a lot more for their apps and seem to be in a growth phase so I imagine their sales at the moment are fast enough to make up for the fact that each sale is only a one time source of revenue). Honestly, Panic and Omni and other old school Mac developers really, really need to adapt to the modern era. They’ve had years and it feels like the runway is about to end (see Omni’s recent layoffs.) Wishing for paid upgrades and writing “only AppKit apps are real Mac apps” blog posts isn’t going to change anything.
- addicted 5y ago
  Can you point to indie developers that have been successful developing iOS apps, etc? The likes of Microsoft and Adobe, whose strategy isn't to sell products as much as it is to establish and maintain market control, are not good comparisons.
- egeozcan 5y ago
  Many developers just release new apps as "upgrades", or lock new features behind in app purchases to remedy the no-upgrades problem. I think that only cannot be the reason. I think there's just too many free alternatives in code editors and you have to be really amazing (like jetbrains) to be able to make users pay.
- cloogshicer 5y ago
  The problem is that many people, even in developer circles like here on HN, are still very negative when it comes to subscriptions. From a consumer point of view that's understandable: Everyone wants to keep their recurring costs low. But from a developer point of view, this is an antiquated way of thinking about software. Software that is not actively maintained (which is expensive) eventually stops working. Even more so on platforms like iOS, where you're beholden to the whims of the platform OS. So you need recurring revenue to offset that maintenance cost. I wish consumers would understand this better.
javajosh 5y ago
If the front-end build is the key sticking point, then I think there's hope, in at least 2 dimensions: first, people SHOULD mockup their apps using static HTML - is a best practice that has for some reason gone out of favor, but it will come back. Second, native modules are new, but I think they will play a BIG part in eliminating the front-end build nonsense that has saddled the web dev community for too long.
torstenvl 5y ago
Good riddance. Coda for iOS never worked correctly and was a scam app. It's utterly unjustifiable that Panic sold a "full-featured" editor that only works on "Sites" and not files.
- djrogers 5y ago
  > was a scam app That's a horribly irresponsible thing to say.
  - torstenvl 5y ago
    Explain to me how it is not "horribly irresponsible" to charge people money for a product you don't deliver, but it is "horribly irresponsible" to call them out on it. Panic charged me $24.99 for a full-featured code editor. I would like a full-featured code editor or I would like my $24.99 back. It is not "horribly irresponsible" to expect what one pays for.
    - jakeva 5y ago
      Did you ask for a refund? I was a very happy Coda user for many years. You sound irrational and angry over a small subjective thing. I'd buy "horribly irresponsible" about your comment.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
hparadiz 5y ago
> I’d be less happy actually as a consumer if they allowed third party browser engines. I have to ask. Why do you hate freedom? I've seen this opinion all over the internet from techies and I'm just baffled. Why do you like a pocket computer that isn't actually yours to do with as you like? And why do you feel compelled to force others into this philosophy? When the iPhone first launched I never would have imagined how locked down it is now. And the thing is it doesn't even keep you more secure. Seemingly legitimate phishing apps have made it past Apple before.
- arvinsim 5y ago
  > I've seen this opinion all over the internet from techies and I'm just baffled. Why do you like a pocket computer that isn't actually yours to do with as you like? And why do you feel compelled to force others into this philosophy? Sheeps, shills or shareholders?
  - hparadiz 5y ago
    Sheeps and shills I guess cause if anything I'd be more inclined to own an iPhone if it wasn't a locked down corporate dystopian nightmare of an operating system.
- matwood 5y ago
  > Why do you hate freedom? I love my freedom to chose the Apple/iPhone ecosystem and how it works. You wanting to force your ideas of freedom onto Apple and its users is an interesting way to think about freedom, when last I checked no one is compelled to use any of their products. This whole freedom line of reasoning is ridiculous anyway. No one hates freedom. The curated App Store as done today is a certain set of tradeoffs - some good and some bad for the end user. Starting a discussion by assuming the other side hates freedom is not productive.
  - hparadiz 5y ago
    Everyone in the industry is compelled to use Apple. And I fucking hate every moment I have to touch an iOS device because of people like you. Everytime someone gifts me an iOS device I know I'm just chucking it into a drawer cause it's a useless toy that can't run half the things I actually want to run on it. I want the freedom to run what I see fit on my own computers and it's because of people like you who think they know better that I can't. And yea I have to use iOS for work. My industry requires me to know how it works inside and out. People saying it's not a monopoly are just spreading lies. iOS is not a monopoly the day I can safely ignore it and not be penalized for it. From my perspective you're inhibiting my freedom to run what I damn well please on my hardware and yea that's hating freedom. Any real techie would be fighting for more freedom.
zubairq 5y ago
This is why I haven’t release my own dev tool on iPad actually, but OS X does let you run a process and sub processes
- smoldesu 5y ago
  Every operating system lets you run a process and subprocess. Until iOS/iPadOS came along, that is.
navait 5y ago
I really enjoy using Transmit, and feel bad that I don't know about many Mac devs making great products. I also like Many Tricks and Alfred. Anyone have a list of other top mac developer houses?
superkuh 5y ago
iOS is not for doing work. It is for consuming media. Apple has made it very clear what their target demographics and priorities are.
mosselman 5y ago
It says something about a refund when bought in the last 60 days. Does that mean I’d buy it now I’d be able to get my money back and still have access to the app? Seeing as there is a risk it might not work within a few months that isn’t that bad of a deal I guess.
btgeekboy 5y ago
> (For comparison, even Transmit iOS, discontinued in 2018, continues to work fine today for those who purchased it.) This is not true. A recent iOS update broke Transmit; it no longer launches and says it needs an update.
- fuzzy2 5y ago
  Funny thing is, it still works on my iPhone, but stopped working on my iPad. Strange stuff. Either way, it was a great app and I very much disagree with their reasons for discontinuing it.
cjohansson 5y ago
Librem 5 is the way forward for programmers, Apple is not for truck-drivers anymore, only for electric hooverboarders (reference to Steve Jobs talk about post-pc devices)
WesolyKubeczek 5y ago
Does it cost them to keep the final version in the store so that people could, say, restore it after their device was wiped? I remember losing quite a couple apps this way. Can't be downloaded anymore, too bad you didn't have a full backup.
- Me1000 5y ago
  AppStore.app > Tap profile image in the top right > Purchased > Not on this iPhone. Not all apps will be available for example Facebook Paper shows up for me, but can't be downloaded because of an OS incompatibility (at least that is what the message implies), but other apps that otherwise don't show up are still there, like early versions of Tweetbot. It's not clear to me how Apple knows when apps stop working and then makes them un-downloadable, but it does appear many apps that have been taken down from the store can still be accessed if you previously purchased/downloaded them.
intellix 5y ago
I don't understand who would pay for an editor nowadays when free ones have been amazing for years and years. Is this to appeal to those who haven't heard of visual studio code?
noloblo 5y ago
why don't you make it free? transmit ios and diet coda?
karaterobot 5y ago
I have no opinion on the discontinuation of Code Editor, since I didn't use it. I just wanted to say that I wish more companies would handle similar situations like this. This article is comprehensive, articulate, respectful, and not written like a press release.
robertk 5y ago
HN does not seem to have a DM feature, and the OP does not have any contact credentials listed. This is off topic, but OP, do you happen to be White in this game? https://lichess.org/0dv2oS4f https://lichess.org/0dv2oS4f It recently came up while I was prepping the French from Aagard’s book, and if so: cool, and small world!

353 points by krzyzanowskim 5y ago

I tried editing code on a mobile, even tablet, before, thinking "I have all this downtime where I'm mindlessly browsing on my phone, think of how productive I could be if I could code during that time!" The reality becomes that those places are usually too distracting for me to be in a coding mindset, and even when not, typing code using a non-physical keyboard is tiring and cumbersome. Even just the occasional mistype stops my flow as I have to back up and fix the letter or number now that I'm several characters past it.

swiley 5y ago
I've been working on a browser on and off for a few years, I just started adding js support via Fabrice Bellard's Quickjs project and did this on my Pinephone while taking the train. I use FVWM as the DE with xvkbd as the keyboard (Originally I was expecting to have to change that but it turns out typing fast isn't needed to stay focused as long as you're decent at vim.) I've tried coding on iOS before but the whole thing is really built to push you toward chatting and scrolling. Everything is miserable down to switching between your editor and browser, copying files, and running your build tools. Not to mention the feeling that you can't build your own tools to fix problems you have. It's totally possible to be productive on a phone but you need to not be fighting against the OS vendor to do it.
- 1_player 5y ago
  > did this on my Pinephone while taking the train That sounds to me like the definition of living hell. Writing prose on a touchscreen is bad already, I can't imagine how bad it must be to write actual code on one. It's not an iPad(OS) problem, it's a form factor/peripheral problem.
  - swiley 5y ago
    I've found prose is much more painful (by orders of magnitude really) than code (provided the keyboard has symbol/modifier keys and works well with your editor.) that's why I thought it wouldn't work.
danohuiginn 5y ago
A bluetooth keyboard makes a massive difference. Working in a jupyter notebook (hosted elswhere) on Android is a smooth experience for me

saagarjha 5y ago

> The biggest technical hurdle is the inability to run external processes on iOS and iPadOS. > Apps on iOS and iPadOS must use Apple’s Javascript interpreter, JavaScriptCore. Both of these really suck because they are policy, not technical, decisions. Even setting aside the arguments of whether JIT code is a security concern (it is not unless your security model is one where codesigning exists to prevent the addition of new native code) that you cannot spawn a new process, nor can you ship another JavaScript interpreter, is really unfortunate. Allowing apps to spawn new processes is easy (I mean, just inherit sandboxing rules and resource limits…) and allows for a lot of new usecases, like robust crash reporting, web servers, privilege separation, and more. That Apple allows this on macOS and even uses it for its own apps on iOS just shows how useful this can be and how little it affects the security model of iOS. Likewise, not allowing other JavaScript interpreters is just…annoying. Regardless of your opinions of JavaScriptCore, this is an unfair limitation on an already slanted playing field. Coupled with the fact that the JavaScriptCore interpreter (which the framework uses for anything you run in-process) is literally designed for low resource consumption instead of than performance makes this even more infuriating.

w0utert 5y ago
>> The biggest technical hurdle is the inability to run external processes on iOS and iPadOS. >> Apps on iOS and iPadOS must use Apple’s Javascript interpreter, JavaScriptCore. > Both of these really suck because they are policy, not technical, decisions. They are policy decisions that kind of make sense for a device like a tablet or phone though. Even though you could technically allow installing a complete development toolchain on an iPad, I can't imagine what the process would look like in practice. Download and install a complete *nix userland through the app store? Plus a compiler toolchain and each and every tool used in the build phase for your product? Who is going to maintain and distribute all these parts if the whole ecosystem is designed around the idea that apps are sandboxed and distributed through a curated app store? Imagine the customer support burden if you are the maintainer of some app that depends on external tools that can be used in a zillion different build/deploy configurations. You could of course argue that the iOS ecosystem should not be based around a curated app store and sandboxed applications, but that would make it a MacBook... Maybe we should put the whole idea of having one device that does everything to rest and accept that there are advantages to have a split between 'real computers' and tablets/phones. That's just my opionion though... Edit: ah great, an immediate -3 because apparently people here think it is absolutely required to downvote straight away because they disagree with some opinion that is not their own. Goodbye Hacker News, after ~10 years I'm finally done with the comment sections here and will deactivate my account and ask for it to be deleted

stblack 5y ago

I love iPad but for many things. But as a software developer, creating on iPad scores pretty close to zero. Thank you, Panic Software, for hanging in for as long as you did.

coldcode 5y ago
I prefer to code on a 27in display, the iPad it still too small. I know people who just use the MBP display but I never found Xcode usable on a small screen.
monkin 5y ago
How so? You can still use remote/local machines to develop. People use(including myself) great success apps like Blink Shell(https://blink.sh https://blink.sh), Inspect Browser(https://apps.pdyn.net/inspect/ https://apps.pdyn.net/inspect/) or code-server(https://github.com/cdr/code-server https://github.com/cdr/code-server) to work full time on iPad. By full time I mean #iPadOnly way. I do JS front-ends, back-ends in Go, I design in Figma(https://figurative.design/ https://figurative.design/) and Affinity Designer/Photo. For coding my daily driver is Blink Shell(They released a free community edition if you want to try: https://community.blink.sh https://community.blink.sh) with Mosh. I never had a feeling that my terminal is just connected to VPS. Whenever I open Blink, everything is still there as I left it. Slow connection? No problem with Mosh. Constantly changing networks or IP addresses? You will not lose a connection even for a minute. After a long year after the switch to my only device at home, I can tell you that I never looked back nor needed any other machine. Maybe it doesn’t cover everyone’s needs, but you can’t say it’s close to zero. Most of current development can be done on it. :-)
- brigandish 5y ago
  I was curious so went to the Blink website and I am very confused. The initial strapline is enticing, "Connect to your cloud on the go, or code all day from the beach." so I read more: > With Mosh and SSH, Blink is rock-solid, fast, and your all-day-long companion. Okay, it's starting to get crowded but I want to know more so I scroll down to get some details: > Mosh was built for constant mobile connectivity. Isn't this the Blink site? Or is it also called Mosh? Why am I getting the history of an app/service/Lord-knows-what before being told what it is? > You can flawlessly jump from home, to the train, and then to the office thanks to Mosh. Still on about Mosh and not only is there not a peep about what it is, I still don't know what Blink is. > Blink is rock-solid connected all the way. Now we're back to Blink. What is it? Doesn't matter, it's good! Trust us, the people who won't tell you what it is. What is Mosh? Who knows! If I guess that Blink is a shell and Mosh is some kind of networking facility will I a) be correct, and b) have guessed more detail about them in a few words than their home page tells me? Disappointing.

warpspin 5y ago

Only remotely related: How good is their Nova editor by now compared to Sublime Text? Currently wondering if trying it once more is worth the time.

hutattedonmyarm 5y ago
They have a trial for Nova, so I suggest checking it out. It’s not quite as fast as ST (on my aging 2013 MBP) and the extension ecosystem is still somewhat lacking. Nonetheless, it feels fantastic to use and I’ve switched completely now
hokumguru 5y ago
As someone who daily drives Nova... it depends. Plugin support is vastly better than it was 6 months ago but there are still tons of quirks (from a Typescript-first developer POV). If you're willing to code your own plugins or contribute to open source you'll find yourself a lot happier. Your mileage may vary but overall I'd give it a 9/10 in speed and UX but a 6-7/10 in usability compared to Webstorm or VSCode with the right plugins.
Hamuko 5y ago
I found it a bit slow when I used the beta. The search was especially bad since I'm used to ripgrep.

mensetmanusman 5y ago

The big question is will the new M1 iPad be allowed to be a real computer if the user wants it to.

mirthflat83 5y ago
Since they’re deliberately marketing that the iPad has an M1 chip, I think they have dual booting in mind for the future
- user-the-name 5y ago
  They definitely do not. macOS is not designed for use with a touch screen, and Apple are not interested in releasing half-arsed, unusable systems.
  - mcphage 5y ago
    iOS has mouse support, and Apple sells a keyboard with a trackpad for it. If they were that concerned about the touch screen being unusable—even though other manufacturers have figured it out—then they could just disable touch input while in Mac mode. Maybe even allow Pencil support.
  - mirthflat83 5y ago
    Obviously they’re going to disable the touch screen if that happens.
  - wayneftw 5y ago
    > Apple are not interested in releasing half-arsed, unusable systems. Is that why on macOS I can open a window like "About this mac" or any window from a menu bar app, switch away from it with the keyboard...and then not be able to switch back to that same window with the same keyboard shortcut? Are you aware that, for over 20 years, Apple sold an OS that only let you resize application windows by the lower right hand corner? I could go on (and on and on) but I'll stop here: Remember when Apple swore by the single button mouse? They said it was the best thing ever. Except the first thing everybody bought for their new Mac was a multi-button mouse... Reminds me of how many dongles you need today because thin is in!

deergomoo 5y ago

It’s a real shame that the otherwise very capable iPad cannot sustain an enormous subcategory of professional grade software, solely because of Apple’s policies. People know this going in of course, but it doesn’t make it any less of a shame, especially now you can spec out an iPad Pro with the exact same specs as the laptop I use for work.

Siira 5y ago
It’s not like there is much of an alternative. Android isn’t that much better, and its hardware offerings suck. Apple has an effective monopoly on quality tablet hardware, as far as I know. (I don’t understand why, but then again, I don’t understand how there can be years-long shortages of PS5 either. Why don’t they just increase the fucking price? ...)
- justinclift 5y ago
  Possibly interestingly, I just bought a 2nd hand MS Surface Pro 3 tablet for about US$300 (8GB RAM, i5 Cpu, 256GB SSD). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Pro_3 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surface_Pro_3 Specifically because I'm looking for something to run Blender (blender.org) on. The iPad Pro could only run it via Sidecar from a real Mac (eg tethered laptop or similar). Android has an ancient version (circa ~2013), which isn't a real option. Could have spent money on a new Surface Pro, but trying things out on an older model seems to be working so far. :) From my point of view, there are more options than just iOS and Android for tablets. Apparently Linux can be installed on Surface Pro's too, though that's a future "maybe" item for this one.
- tomp 5y ago
  Microsoft Surface Go is a technological marvel. Full-blown x86 computer in tablet form. I’ve used it for the past year as my only machine (I’m a fulltime + hobby software developer). It’s 100% on par with Apple hardware (including the foldable keyboard & trackpad, and the lack of RAM). Software is a different issue, but for development work it mostly doesn’t matter that much (I use IntellJ, conda, Jupyter & Chrome, and all of those are completely cross platform). I haven’t tried Surface Pro but I imagine it’s equally good, just bigger.

WA 5y ago

> The app should continue to function for a long time, but won’t receive further updates Just a warning for users and devs alike: Nope, it probably won't. Apple's track record for backwards compatibility isn't terrible, but it's also not flawless. I had an app in the store from 2011 until the end of 2017. iOS 14.5 broke this app for some reason (I don't know why). No warning for users and if Apple follows some kind of SemVer, it's weird that a minor version breaks an old app. Note for devs: Find a way how people can export their data from the app even if it's not working anymore (for example, by writing to the Documents folder and exposing it to the Finder) Note for users: Assume that an unsupported app can and will break in an unpredictable way. Backup your data regularly.

Normille 5y ago
>Note for devs: Find a way how people can export their data from the app At the risk of meandering off-topic; this is one of my all-time bugbears with software. Or, rather it's half of one of my all-time bugbears. I'd complete it by adding "Find a way how people can import their existing data into the app" It never ceases to amaze me how many developers produce apps which have obviously had a lot of time and thought devoted to their creation and functionality. But which provide no way of importing existing data you might have. Unless your app is creating something completely unique and filling a completely new gap in the market, the chances are that there are other apps out there which serve a similar function. Your app may be ten times more lovely to look at and ten times more pleasing to use. But, without providing import/export facility, you're expecting potential new users to either be completely new to <whatever> your app does. Or to totally abandon all the work they have done previously, in your rivals' apps. In my opinion, this is why the Fediverse has failed so dismally. All these rivals to Twitter, Facebook, Instagram et al. All launched with lots of high-falutin' claims about privacy and respect for users. Yet not one of them provided a way to import your existing data from the services they sought to replace. "All those years and years of 'stuff' you've already written and posted? That's all just worthless junk. Leave it all behind and come empty-handed to our exciting new platform!" It's quite insulting really, when you think about it. And it's not only 'social meeja' apps. One of my particular quirks is that I'm a bit of a compulsive place-marker of where I've been on holidays, camping, or just days out, etc. I have probably a few hundred such place-marks saved on the mapping app on my phone. Every so often, I'll think to try a new mapping app and download and install it. Only to find, on almost every occasion, that it doesn't provide any way for me to import my existing place-marks. So, presumably, the target market of the developers of those apps is someone who's never left the house before. But belatedly feels the urge to travel around, marking places they've been on a map.

ladyanita22 5y ago

I'm probably be gonna laughed at, but I don't understand why these developers don't publish their apps on Android. If you get screwed by Apple, why not go to the other field?

monkin 5y ago
One thing I don’t like about Google Play Store is their refund policy that only last 48 hours after that time you need to contact developer for a refund. Which in most cases ends on lack of answer from them. On AppStore you have 90 days to do a refund, and mostly it’s always accepted, no questions asked. Second, differences in prices. Yesterday my friend was scammed into app(one of the top apps there) that gave him 3 day trail but only when choosing 1 year license after that. After 3 days without notification he was billed for $125. The same app cost yearly on iOS $35 and lifetime for $40. And, this is just an example of many scammy tactics that go on on Play Store. :-) No, it doesn’t mean that Apple does not have this problem. It has, but in smaller quantity.
zapzupnz 5y ago
Panic is a long time Apple developer house. They don’t want to make the best tools for just any platform; they contribute the best tools they can to Apple’s ecosystem, the one they use and appreciate (and love). Apple power users have different expectations, especially around UX on the Mac; that is Panic’s forte. I’m sure if they wanted to develop for Windows or Android, they could have years ago. But that’s not their thing, that’s not why they make these tools.
cfn 5y ago
I suppose, in this case, because there isn't an alternative to the iPad on the Android side. There are many Android tablets (I have a few) but they are not as powerful and the battery always seems to last a lot less than the iPads.
- gtirloni 5y ago
  I have a Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 and it seems pretty powerful to run anything I want.

perardi 5y ago

Here I go, being skeptical about getting work done on iPads again… …but is there any “pro” software like this that is succeeding on iPad that isn’t part of a larger cloud/subscription service? I believe Office gets some actual use on iPad, and Adobe sure keeps trying, but is there really any notable pro apps that are succeeding on their lonesome?

Cu3PO42 5y ago
Procreate is very successful. By all accounts I've heard from personal friends, it's a wonderful tool for drawing and illustrations. It's a one time purchase for an extremely fair price (around 10 USD/EUR). I bought it years ago just to play around and still receive updates.
bayindirh 5y ago
Photography, video creation & editing is really good on iOS. I can take my camera, a card reader and iPad Pro and have a complete darkroom with a calibrated screen with minimum weight. Even my iPhone X can post-process files from my 24MP mirrorless camera and create really high quality images. iPad Pro is a multimedia powerhouse both for creation and post-processing. Development is hard, because it needs unfettered access, due to nature of the beast.
- cfn 5y ago
  What apps do you use for photography?
  - bayindirh 5y ago
    For quick'n'dirty stuff: - VSCO - Priime - RNI films For more advanced post processing: - Polarr - Dark Room - CameraBag Mobile If I don't have my camera with me, I use Halide for taking photos. For timing, occasional astro and other stuff I use Helios and Photo Pills. On the desktop side I use CameraBag Pro and Darktable mainly. I occasionally use Luminar. I started photography with analog in the 90s, so I really dig the atmosphere different emulsions or curves add to the photography and, I use these tools to create the feeling I want to create with my images.

lifty 5y ago

One good thing is that today you can run VS Code on an iPad, in the browser, with all the dev tools running in a remote container. Not a bad experience. Edit: I've always thought that Panic could take a similar approach with Nova. Run locally on the iPad, as a native app, while connecting to a remote machine to compile, debug and run the actual code.

Siira 5y ago
Without an external keyboard? Really? PS: The whole web VSCode thing can also have very bad latency in my experience.
- lifty 5y ago
  No, definitely with a keyboard. I tried it on an iPad Pro with an external keyboard and the experience seemed decent. But it's not my primary workflow so can't say if there are quirks, like the latency you mentioned.
- atonse 5y ago
  This is a chance even for Microsoft to just release a react-native-sort of VS code where the rendering layer is native, but it's still JS, and it hits the remote services for the actual "horsepower"
kevingadd 5y ago
Yeah, they mention your suggestion (remote machine to run the compiler(s) and debugger) in the post, and it sounds like it was too cumbersome to make sense to build a product around. I personally suspect that if they kept at it, it could've eventually built an audience... but I can imagine the cost of developing and maintaining that exceeding any potential profit from selling copies to iOS users.
- atonse 5y ago
  I would love this and even pay a monthly fee for this. There is a company doing this but they do the container piece. forgot their name. If we could seamlessly pair that with VS code Remote on the iPad (or macOS) I’d try to move our developers to it to keep all sensitive customer data totally off our laptops for good.

huhtenberg 5y ago

> We’re working on a new version of Prompt, though! Ugh-oh. Not again. The last time it happened, they took the old version off the AppStore and ultimately forced everyone to re-purchase their new and shiny remake for the full price. I'm still bitter about it. You want to make a new version - fine, but taking the old one off was a real shitty move (* see EDIT below). So despite of how it sounds, that ^ part is the exact opposite of good news. EDIT - I misremembered, my bad. They refused to rebuild the original prompt for x64 target. That's what it was. They didn't take it off the store, they just claimed that rebuilding for 64-bit platform was such an immense hassle and monstrously complicated task that they just can't. But! Lucky for you we just happened to have this brand new version that is 64-bit. It has few things improved, but largely the same. You'll love it. $15.

zapzupnz 5y ago
I mean, you would still be able to access the old version in your Purchases section.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
CJefferson 5y ago
Once again, I view this as Apple's fault. You can't release pay for upgrades, if you leave both up it confuses people.
- huhtenberg 5y ago
  Very few Prompt users will be confused by seeing two whole versions of the program.
  - jakeva 5y ago
    You have a lot of confidence in Prompt users. I see so much whining and complaining from otherwise seemingly erudite online communities such as HN, I'm inclined to believe people who know how to use SSH and are in possession of a mobile Apple device are incapable of maintaining a state of calm when confronted with a plurality of versions of the same app in the same app store.

Asmod4n 5y ago

Hm, you can run alpine Linux on iOS. With background tasks. (https://apps.apple.com/de/app/ish-shell/id1436902243 https://apps.apple.com/de/app/ish-shell/id1436902243) I wonder what it would take to make a Code development tool to take advantage of that.

kevingadd 5y ago
I can't imagine a company like Panic being able to get away with using that approach to run stuff like tsc, but it would be cool to see someone try who can afford to have Apple shoot their whole product in the head. Maybe it'd be great and Apple would decide to re-evaluate the rules and make it officially OK.
saagarjha 5y ago
iSH runs everything in one process as threads.

whywhywhywhy 5y ago

Kinda absurd how much effort Panic has put trying to fit into Apple's vision of the future of computing and operating systems almost to backtrack again at every turn a few years later when the initial investment doesn't translate into money. Definitely feel for their engineering team.

dariusj18 5y ago
Yeah, this is how Apple treats their allies. Jut another confirmation that my decision to leave the ecosystem was correct.

solarkraft 5y ago

RIP. Is the source code going to be published so people can keep running it on jailbroken devices?

ctdonath 5y ago

Odds of Xcode for iPad arriving right around then?

smoldesu 5y ago
Probably never. If Apple does this, it will the the most brazen permission-hopping Apple has ever done, and developers the world over would probably instantly complain that it renders Apple's entire threat model useless. Furthermore, it could also be illegal for Apple to be the sole distributor of an IDE on a platform where their competitors lack the permissions required to run/debug programs.

taylodl 5y ago

And this is why I'll be buying a MacBook Air over an iPad Pro. I'm not even going to complain - it is what it is and this article simply illustrates some important differences between the two platforms. I'm not even going to say iOS is bad - I love my iPhone and my wife absolutely loves her iPad Pro. Apple has targeted iPadOS to casual computer users who mainly consume content and require light content generation and editing capabilities, and as it turns out there's a HUGE market for that. But it's not for me. I'm a developer by profession and my hobbies are music and photography. All of these push the limits of what iPadOS is capable of delivering - but MacOS delivers with aplomb. And now thanks to Catalyst if there's some must-have iPadOS app I want to run then I can run it. The MacBook Air may be the most versatile machine Apple has ever made for users like me.

justinclift 5y ago
Next, they just need to get the Apple pencil working on the MacBook touchscreen... :)
miralize 5y ago
If Apple had the appetite to let that M1 on the iPad run macOS I'd buy that in a second, just for the ability to develop. The iPad is already so versatile, adding the ability to do my job or just to update a small side project every now and again (waiting at the airport etc). I understand the hesitation in doing so, but its so frustrating. Given that the iPad now has a keyboard and mouse if you want it & a CPU that we know is fast, just unleash it!
- fastball 5y ago
  I'd kill for an iPad Pro running macOS that has an attachable magic keyboard + trackpad. So basically my current 13" MBP M1 with a detachable touch screen. Main problem for me would be the iPad's single port.

gameswithgo 5y ago

It really makes me sad. Apple used a lot of free and open technologies like FreeBSD to build their business, and they created these amazing, small computers. The people that developed these amazing small computers and their operating systems, as kids, likely had some desktop pc that shipped with a language like QBasic where they could learn programming and build things and share with friends. Kids who buy these new small computers from Apple, not only does it not ship with such a thing, but its not even possible to download or buy a programming environment! We built computers with brains the size of a planet, they fit in our pocket, and they have been castrated such that they are no good for creating anything, for no good reason.

dapids 5y ago
Millions of people build and create things on Mac computers, they have the XCode IDE and multiple natively supported languages, swift, objc, C++, C, Python, JavaScript, it's all built-in. Am I missing something?
- Steltek 5y ago
  The topic was iOS devices, not macOS.
- smoldesu 5y ago
  I mean, XCode is not only proprietary, but it's also horribly designed. Installing it is a nightmare that will use more than half of your Macs storage, and updating it takes longer than updating your own OS. What the original commentor is complaining about is how Apple stood on the shoulders of giants without giving back, only to turn around and wow the world with a product that is only 20-30% theirs. It's been a practice for as long as capitalism has existed, but for a company that operates on such blatantly wide profit margins and runs a socially conscious ad campaign, it seems a little stupid to at least not pay homage to the people who helped make your product. It's a bit of tragic irony that you can't even use the tools that Apple used to make MacOS on a Mac.
- arvinsim 5y ago
  I am pretty sure that the poster was referring to phones, not laptops, when he posted about computers that can fit in the pocket.

TazeTSchnitzel 5y ago

How does Apple's Swift Playgrounds on iOS handle compiling code? Aren't the Swift compiler and linker also separate binaries? I'm wondering whether Apple excepted themselves or whether they actually forced that subset of Xcode to fit into the normal requirements somehow.

my123 5y ago
Apple did except themselves. Swift Playgrounds uses private entitlements. No other dev can replicate it with the public entitlements only. (On iOS)
- hinkley 5y ago
  That sounds like something that needs to be fixed and soon. This is drifting into antitrust trial territory.
- LeoPanthera 5y ago
  Apple did not except themselves, Apple excepted any app listed in the Education category of the store.
  - my123 5y ago
    Nope, other apps on that category use interpreters and do not have entitlements for running unsigned code at runtime. Swift Playgrounds actually compiles down to native code.
fuzzy2 5y ago
Education applications are exempt from this policy. They are allowed to execute code that did not come in the bundle, provided the user can fully edit it. What is an education app? Well, that is up to Apple.

ilovecaching 5y ago

Just want to say that Prompt 2 is the best terminal app on iOS. I love Panic products and am curious about how good Nova has gotten.

asidiali 5y ago
Have you tried Blink Mosh shell? I’ve tried them both and blink seems lightyears ahead of prompt. Maybe I didn’t give it enough time when I tried it, but prompt just felt bulkier IMO, which surprised me because Panic makes such great products. Could you elaborate on why you love prompt?
- joshstrange 5y ago
  Prompt 1 & 2 were the best options for a /long/ time on iOS but both of them suffered from Panic not really going full-in on iOS development in my opinion. They are still old-school app developers who want to write something once and a call it done with minor little fixes after that. Most of the hot/popular ssh/mosh tools on iOS now (along with lots of other types of iOS apps) are constantly improving/being worked on. I'm going to have to add Blink to my list of terminal emulators to try out because I'm actively trying to move off Prompt 2. I have played with Termius but I really don't have a need for an SSH client on macOS, I'm very happy with iTerm, and there are other little things in Termius that annoy me/worked better in Prompt 2.
  - kstrauser 5y ago
    I switched to Blink when Prompt 2 came along. I mean, if I'm going to have to switch apps anyway... I never looked back. Blink's GUI isn't as pretty as Prompt's, but its functionality is outstanding. There's nothing more I would add to it.
  - monkin 5y ago
    If you want to try Blink use https://community.blink.sh/ https://community.blink.sh/ to get your hands on the free community edition with latest features.

jmull 5y ago

I don’t think we need iOS to be able to do everything MacOS does. We already have MacOS! Add touch support to MacOS and let it run on the “pro” iPads. Done.

sarsway 5y ago
Done with what? Done dreaming?
smoldesu 5y ago
Or just lift arbitrary limitations and let devs write the software they want while allowing users to install the software they want. Or is that too tall of an order for... checks notes ...the highest valued and largest company in the modern history of the first world.

Pulcinella 5y ago

I have a different view of this than most in this topic. I am disappointed, though not surprised, that Panic is abandoning yet another of their iOS apps. They’ve done it several times before and while I am grateful they’ve continued to provide some bug fixes, feature work stopped years ago. In my view, the biggest hurdle does not seem to have been technical, but ideological/business. These old school Mac developers like Panic and Omni have had a very difficult time adapting to (or failing to) the iOS/mobile era. I know we all hate subscriptions, but continued app development and management requires continued labor so subscriptions seem like the only business option that makes any sense to me. Panic and Omni want paid upgrades but Apple has never, ever even hinted at providing that as an option. The option is subscriptions. Even on desktop Sketch, Adobe, and Microsoft are going with subscriptions. (We’ll see how Affinity does. They charge a lot more for their apps and seem to be in a growth phase so I imagine their sales at the moment are fast enough to make up for the fact that each sale is only a one time source of revenue). Honestly, Panic and Omni and other old school Mac developers really, really need to adapt to the modern era. They’ve had years and it feels like the runway is about to end (see Omni’s recent layoffs.) Wishing for paid upgrades and writing “only AppKit apps are real Mac apps” blog posts isn’t going to change anything.

addicted 5y ago
Can you point to indie developers that have been successful developing iOS apps, etc? The likes of Microsoft and Adobe, whose strategy isn't to sell products as much as it is to establish and maintain market control, are not good comparisons.
egeozcan 5y ago
Many developers just release new apps as "upgrades", or lock new features behind in app purchases to remedy the no-upgrades problem. I think that only cannot be the reason. I think there's just too many free alternatives in code editors and you have to be really amazing (like jetbrains) to be able to make users pay.
cloogshicer 5y ago
The problem is that many people, even in developer circles like here on HN, are still very negative when it comes to subscriptions. From a consumer point of view that's understandable: Everyone wants to keep their recurring costs low. But from a developer point of view, this is an antiquated way of thinking about software. Software that is not actively maintained (which is expensive) eventually stops working. Even more so on platforms like iOS, where you're beholden to the whims of the platform OS. So you need recurring revenue to offset that maintenance cost. I wish consumers would understand this better.

javajosh 5y ago

If the front-end build is the key sticking point, then I think there's hope, in at least 2 dimensions: first, people SHOULD mockup their apps using static HTML - is a best practice that has for some reason gone out of favor, but it will come back. Second, native modules are new, but I think they will play a BIG part in eliminating the front-end build nonsense that has saddled the web dev community for too long.

torstenvl 5y ago

Good riddance. Coda for iOS never worked correctly and was a scam app. It's utterly unjustifiable that Panic sold a "full-featured" editor that only works on "Sites" and not files.

djrogers 5y ago
> was a scam app That's a horribly irresponsible thing to say.
- torstenvl 5y ago
  Explain to me how it is not "horribly irresponsible" to charge people money for a product you don't deliver, but it is "horribly irresponsible" to call them out on it. Panic charged me $24.99 for a full-featured code editor. I would like a full-featured code editor or I would like my $24.99 back. It is not "horribly irresponsible" to expect what one pays for.
  - jakeva 5y ago
    Did you ask for a refund? I was a very happy Coda user for many years. You sound irrational and angry over a small subjective thing. I'd buy "horribly irresponsible" about your comment.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

hparadiz 5y ago

> I’d be less happy actually as a consumer if they allowed third party browser engines. I have to ask. Why do you hate freedom? I've seen this opinion all over the internet from techies and I'm just baffled. Why do you like a pocket computer that isn't actually yours to do with as you like? And why do you feel compelled to force others into this philosophy? When the iPhone first launched I never would have imagined how locked down it is now. And the thing is it doesn't even keep you more secure. Seemingly legitimate phishing apps have made it past Apple before.

arvinsim 5y ago
> I've seen this opinion all over the internet from techies and I'm just baffled. Why do you like a pocket computer that isn't actually yours to do with as you like? And why do you feel compelled to force others into this philosophy? Sheeps, shills or shareholders?
- hparadiz 5y ago
  Sheeps and shills I guess cause if anything I'd be more inclined to own an iPhone if it wasn't a locked down corporate dystopian nightmare of an operating system.
matwood 5y ago
> Why do you hate freedom? I love my freedom to chose the Apple/iPhone ecosystem and how it works. You wanting to force your ideas of freedom onto Apple and its users is an interesting way to think about freedom, when last I checked no one is compelled to use any of their products. This whole freedom line of reasoning is ridiculous anyway. No one hates freedom. The curated App Store as done today is a certain set of tradeoffs - some good and some bad for the end user. Starting a discussion by assuming the other side hates freedom is not productive.
- hparadiz 5y ago
  Everyone in the industry is compelled to use Apple. And I fucking hate every moment I have to touch an iOS device because of people like you. Everytime someone gifts me an iOS device I know I'm just chucking it into a drawer cause it's a useless toy that can't run half the things I actually want to run on it. I want the freedom to run what I see fit on my own computers and it's because of people like you who think they know better that I can't. And yea I have to use iOS for work. My industry requires me to know how it works inside and out. People saying it's not a monopoly are just spreading lies. iOS is not a monopoly the day I can safely ignore it and not be penalized for it. From my perspective you're inhibiting my freedom to run what I damn well please on my hardware and yea that's hating freedom. Any real techie would be fighting for more freedom.

zubairq 5y ago

This is why I haven’t release my own dev tool on iPad actually, but OS X does let you run a process and sub processes

smoldesu 5y ago
Every operating system lets you run a process and subprocess. Until iOS/iPadOS came along, that is.

navait 5y ago

I really enjoy using Transmit, and feel bad that I don't know about many Mac devs making great products. I also like Many Tricks and Alfred. Anyone have a list of other top mac developer houses?

superkuh 5y ago

iOS is not for doing work. It is for consuming media. Apple has made it very clear what their target demographics and priorities are.

mosselman 5y ago

It says something about a refund when bought in the last 60 days. Does that mean I’d buy it now I’d be able to get my money back and still have access to the app? Seeing as there is a risk it might not work within a few months that isn’t that bad of a deal I guess.

btgeekboy 5y ago

> (For comparison, even Transmit iOS, discontinued in 2018, continues to work fine today for those who purchased it.) This is not true. A recent iOS update broke Transmit; it no longer launches and says it needs an update.

fuzzy2 5y ago
Funny thing is, it still works on my iPhone, but stopped working on my iPad. Strange stuff. Either way, it was a great app and I very much disagree with their reasons for discontinuing it.

cjohansson 5y ago

Librem 5 is the way forward for programmers, Apple is not for truck-drivers anymore, only for electric hooverboarders (reference to Steve Jobs talk about post-pc devices)

WesolyKubeczek 5y ago

Does it cost them to keep the final version in the store so that people could, say, restore it after their device was wiped? I remember losing quite a couple apps this way. Can't be downloaded anymore, too bad you didn't have a full backup.

Me1000 5y ago
AppStore.app > Tap profile image in the top right > Purchased > Not on this iPhone. Not all apps will be available for example Facebook Paper shows up for me, but can't be downloaded because of an OS incompatibility (at least that is what the message implies), but other apps that otherwise don't show up are still there, like early versions of Tweetbot. It's not clear to me how Apple knows when apps stop working and then makes them un-downloadable, but it does appear many apps that have been taken down from the store can still be accessed if you previously purchased/downloaded them.

intellix 5y ago

I don't understand who would pay for an editor nowadays when free ones have been amazing for years and years. Is this to appeal to those who haven't heard of visual studio code?

noloblo 5y ago

why don't you make it free? transmit ios and diet coda?

karaterobot 5y ago

I have no opinion on the discontinuation of Code Editor, since I didn't use it. I just wanted to say that I wish more companies would handle similar situations like this. This article is comprehensive, articulate, respectful, and not written like a press release.

robertk 5y ago

HN does not seem to have a DM feature, and the OP does not have any contact credentials listed. This is off topic, but OP, do you happen to be White in this game? https://lichess.org/0dv2oS4f https://lichess.org/0dv2oS4f It recently came up while I was prepping the French from Aagard’s book, and if so: cool, and small world!