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When I was younger, my family couldn’t afford a laptop, but I have the distinct memory of wanting to learn to code on the iPads at my school, and being unable t

When I was younger, my family couldn’t afford a laptop, but I have the distinct memory of wanting to learn to code on the iPads at my school, and being unable to find any app which would let me just write and execute programs. Looking around the App Store now, there do seem to be a couple of apps which would allow this, but it’s still really disappointing to see this kind of removal. The majority of kids these days will likely use a phone lots more than they use a laptop. For those who want to learn to code, why doesn’t Apple make it easier?

jeroenhd 5y ago
Because if the iPad can be used as a computer, there's very little reason to buy a Macbook. It makes no financial sense. It'd also allow apps to dynamically load external software, which could be used as a bypass for Apple's stringent app store requirements.
- devwastaken 5y ago
  If macbooks were gone tomorrow, the ipad would not replace it. Very different use cases. Sure, if you took an ipad, put OSX on it, and glued it to the hinges of a macbook as the screen - then maybe it'd be very similiar. Not great performance or battery life, but similiar. But in no way am I getting work done on an ipad touchscreen with a little flimsy foldable keyboard and kickstand.
  - handrous 5y ago
    As an iOS (and Android) user and developer since about the iPad2, iPads interest me less the more iOS shifts toward being a general-purpose OS. I wouldn't buy one with macOS or equivalent on it, even if it'd been modified to work well on touch screens. At that point I'd probably get the cheapest large Android tablet I could find as a PDF reader, and just... not do the other stuff I do with iPads at all, I guess.
  - foxpurple 5y ago
    This is outdated info. The latest iPad Pro has the M1 chip, exactly the same as the MacBook. And it comes in 8/16gb ram. The magic keyboard accessory apple sells for the iPad also turns it in to the same form factor as a laptop. You very realistically could replace a MacBook with an iPad Pro and magic keyboard if apple let people run macOS on it.
    - lostgame 5y ago
      Quite literally if an iPad Pro ran MacOS there is absolutely no reason why this couldn’t be the case.
    - jamespo 5y ago
      Wouldn't be much of a laptop, good luck using it on your lap
      - foxpurple 5y ago
        It works about the same as my actual laptop. That is, uncomfortable but technically possible.
- foxpurple 5y ago
  The iPad Pro and magic keyboard costs more than the MacBook Air. So apple would be doing pretty well if they could get MacBook users to buy an iPad.
  - sigjuice 5y ago
    and also weigh more than the MacBook Air
jdavis703 5y ago
There is Swift Playgrounds, along with a host of web-based tools. Not ideal for sure, but someone like you could still _learn_ coding from an iPad.
anthk 5y ago
Kids can get a Pinebook for $100, and a rpi+power source+keyboard+cheap touch display for less than $50.
- opheliate 5y ago
  Absolutely, this is what we eventually did, and I’m immensely grateful for the current ubiquity of low-cost hardware :) it’s just discouraging to me that Apple takes such a hard line on this
  - anthk 5y ago
    Apple's tablet/phone branch and social media people want customers and "sharers", not producers.
    - handrous 5y ago
      Their iOS and i-thingy announcement videos pretty much always feature "producers" very heavily, and the features and software they release and maintain often focus on making things. What's the deal with that?
  - anthk 5y ago
    In my case, I've got a random 30 eur (~$25?) Chinese netbook over Ali-whatever with Android and 1GB. Totally outdated specs, but with Fdroid (huge repo off libre apps) and Termux (tmux, Perl, clang, lynx...LOTS of CLI libre tools) it makes an amazing machine for the price of two hard-cover books. EDIT: mocp under Termux works, so is not as limited as I tought.
kjaleshire 5y ago
The next update to Swift Playgrounds is supposed to allow full iOS app development and submission to the App Store with no Mac involved. Look also at Pythonista and a-shell for useful, if limited, programming environments. Both work by translating code into JS or wasm.
- mrehler 5y ago
  > The next update to Swift Playgrounds is supposed to allow full iOS app development… May or may not be pedantry, but it’s not allowing the UIKit APIs, only SwiftUI. Still possible to make a full app, but on top of the IDE features that it lacks from Xcode, it’s specifically shutting out important parts of current iOS app development in 2021. That’s not to say there’s not good reasons for it too, but it’s worth pointing out.
  - saagarjha 5y ago
    FWIW, Swift Playgrounds currently allows apps to load any library–I would be surprised to see technical restrictions preventing the use of UIKit. App review might not like it, but other than that it doesn't seem like there would be much stopping it.
southerntofu 5y ago
Apple, like most corporations, is happy to entertain passive consumers. After all, empowering people to learn new things about computers could lead to healthy competition, and that's definitely not something we want, or is it?!
- emsy 5y ago
  I doubt Apple cares about people that need to "work" on their machine anymore. Those people will buy PCs because a lot of industrial software is still Windows only and Apple shows no interest in changing that. Modern Apple products feel more like toys for adults (in a non-lewd way).
- Wowfunhappy 5y ago
  Well, Apple needs a pool of talented developers to build apps on their platform. And to hire from.
  - phist_mcgee 5y ago
    The noughties dream of 'digital natives' has not ever come to fruition. Children growing up around technology has not brought great understanding of computing/creating software, instead it has driven a race to the bottom for passive apps, with predatory attention grabbing mechanics.
    - southerntofu 5y ago
      Well it has to some extent, but that's the minority seeing through the matrix. Just yesterday, i was reading here on HN about someone who learned how to make websites using just a smartphone! I can't say i wasn't impressed. Also worth noting, we can still realize our dreams of digital natives around us. Build academies, hackerspaces and whatever kind of non-profit entity/space will enable you to teach hacking to uninitiated folks.
      - phist_mcgee 5y ago
        I think what you say is true to an extent. The barrier to entry is significantly lowered thanks to the internet, so thankfully it's not just caucasian males at universities who have access (like during the first computing explosion in the 70s and 80s). Sadly though I think that there will always be a significant majority of the population who don't care how their world works, and hope only to consume media and distractions to avoid the unpleasantness of our world.

jeroenhd 5y ago

Because if the iPad can be used as a computer, there's very little reason to buy a Macbook. It makes no financial sense. It'd also allow apps to dynamically load external software, which could be used as a bypass for Apple's stringent app store requirements.

devwastaken 5y ago
If macbooks were gone tomorrow, the ipad would not replace it. Very different use cases. Sure, if you took an ipad, put OSX on it, and glued it to the hinges of a macbook as the screen - then maybe it'd be very similiar. Not great performance or battery life, but similiar. But in no way am I getting work done on an ipad touchscreen with a little flimsy foldable keyboard and kickstand.
- handrous 5y ago
  As an iOS (and Android) user and developer since about the iPad2, iPads interest me less the more iOS shifts toward being a general-purpose OS. I wouldn't buy one with macOS or equivalent on it, even if it'd been modified to work well on touch screens. At that point I'd probably get the cheapest large Android tablet I could find as a PDF reader, and just... not do the other stuff I do with iPads at all, I guess.
- foxpurple 5y ago
  This is outdated info. The latest iPad Pro has the M1 chip, exactly the same as the MacBook. And it comes in 8/16gb ram. The magic keyboard accessory apple sells for the iPad also turns it in to the same form factor as a laptop. You very realistically could replace a MacBook with an iPad Pro and magic keyboard if apple let people run macOS on it.
  - lostgame 5y ago
    Quite literally if an iPad Pro ran MacOS there is absolutely no reason why this couldn’t be the case.
  - jamespo 5y ago
    Wouldn't be much of a laptop, good luck using it on your lap
    - foxpurple 5y ago
      It works about the same as my actual laptop. That is, uncomfortable but technically possible.
foxpurple 5y ago
The iPad Pro and magic keyboard costs more than the MacBook Air. So apple would be doing pretty well if they could get MacBook users to buy an iPad.
- sigjuice 5y ago
  and also weigh more than the MacBook Air

jdavis703 5y ago

There is Swift Playgrounds, along with a host of web-based tools. Not ideal for sure, but someone like you could still _learn_ coding from an iPad.

anthk 5y ago

Kids can get a Pinebook for $100, and a rpi+power source+keyboard+cheap touch display for less than $50.

opheliate 5y ago
Absolutely, this is what we eventually did, and I’m immensely grateful for the current ubiquity of low-cost hardware :) it’s just discouraging to me that Apple takes such a hard line on this
- anthk 5y ago
  Apple's tablet/phone branch and social media people want customers and "sharers", not producers.
  - handrous 5y ago
    Their iOS and i-thingy announcement videos pretty much always feature "producers" very heavily, and the features and software they release and maintain often focus on making things. What's the deal with that?
- anthk 5y ago
  In my case, I've got a random 30 eur (~$25?) Chinese netbook over Ali-whatever with Android and 1GB. Totally outdated specs, but with Fdroid (huge repo off libre apps) and Termux (tmux, Perl, clang, lynx...LOTS of CLI libre tools) it makes an amazing machine for the price of two hard-cover books. EDIT: mocp under Termux works, so is not as limited as I tought.

kjaleshire 5y ago

The next update to Swift Playgrounds is supposed to allow full iOS app development and submission to the App Store with no Mac involved. Look also at Pythonista and a-shell for useful, if limited, programming environments. Both work by translating code into JS or wasm.

mrehler 5y ago
> The next update to Swift Playgrounds is supposed to allow full iOS app development… May or may not be pedantry, but it’s not allowing the UIKit APIs, only SwiftUI. Still possible to make a full app, but on top of the IDE features that it lacks from Xcode, it’s specifically shutting out important parts of current iOS app development in 2021. That’s not to say there’s not good reasons for it too, but it’s worth pointing out.
- saagarjha 5y ago
  FWIW, Swift Playgrounds currently allows apps to load any library–I would be surprised to see technical restrictions preventing the use of UIKit. App review might not like it, but other than that it doesn't seem like there would be much stopping it.

southerntofu 5y ago

Apple, like most corporations, is happy to entertain passive consumers. After all, empowering people to learn new things about computers could lead to healthy competition, and that's definitely not something we want, or is it?!

emsy 5y ago
I doubt Apple cares about people that need to "work" on their machine anymore. Those people will buy PCs because a lot of industrial software is still Windows only and Apple shows no interest in changing that. Modern Apple products feel more like toys for adults (in a non-lewd way).
Wowfunhappy 5y ago
Well, Apple needs a pool of talented developers to build apps on their platform. And to hire from.
- phist_mcgee 5y ago
  The noughties dream of 'digital natives' has not ever come to fruition. Children growing up around technology has not brought great understanding of computing/creating software, instead it has driven a race to the bottom for passive apps, with predatory attention grabbing mechanics.
  - southerntofu 5y ago
    Well it has to some extent, but that's the minority seeing through the matrix. Just yesterday, i was reading here on HN about someone who learned how to make websites using just a smartphone! I can't say i wasn't impressed. Also worth noting, we can still realize our dreams of digital natives around us. Build academies, hackerspaces and whatever kind of non-profit entity/space will enable you to teach hacking to uninitiated folks.
    - phist_mcgee 5y ago
      I think what you say is true to an extent. The barrier to entry is significantly lowered thanks to the internet, so thankfully it's not just caucasian males at universities who have access (like during the first computing explosion in the 70s and 80s). Sadly though I think that there will always be a significant majority of the population who don't care how their world works, and hope only to consume media and distractions to avoid the unpleasantness of our world.