Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
iOS What is the difference between Xcode and playgrounds ?
- Thread starter Gamercraft567a
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
There's almost more differences than there are similarities, so allow me to flip it on its head. I will tell you in what ways they are similar:
You can use both to write Swift code.
That's it.
Xcode is a fully blown IDE for development for Apple platforms. It has feature rich tools not just for code editing, but for debugging, testing and asset wrangling. It also works with Objective-C, C++, C and Storyboard based systems with Storyboards editing.
Playgrounds is more of an experimentation and learning environment. Mostly for new programmers but also for experienced ones who want to try out a quick idea without firing up the heavy Xcode.
While the ability to submit apps to the App Store from Swift Playgrounds on iPad was introduced it is still not really a proper development environment and it really doesn't scale beyond tiny simple apps.
Xcode also has a section called Playgrounds within Xcode intended for experimentation. This is distinct and separate from the Swift Playgrounds app, but conceptually similar in that it's an environment for quicker experimentation.
If you're new, Playgrounds has some decent learning material but aside from that it's not that serious a tool
You can use both to write Swift code.
That's it.
Xcode is a fully blown IDE for development for Apple platforms. It has feature rich tools not just for code editing, but for debugging, testing and asset wrangling. It also works with Objective-C, C++, C and Storyboard based systems with Storyboards editing.
Playgrounds is more of an experimentation and learning environment. Mostly for new programmers but also for experienced ones who want to try out a quick idea without firing up the heavy Xcode.
While the ability to submit apps to the App Store from Swift Playgrounds on iPad was introduced it is still not really a proper development environment and it really doesn't scale beyond tiny simple apps.
Xcode also has a section called Playgrounds within Xcode intended for experimentation. This is distinct and separate from the Swift Playgrounds app, but conceptually similar in that it's an environment for quicker experimentation.
If you're new, Playgrounds has some decent learning material but aside from that it's not that serious a tool
so playgrounds is for beginners to help them learn the Swift language expected to make small apps and Xcode is for more expert developers and to make decent size apps or huge apps but playgrounds is available on almost every apple OS and device unlike Xcode which is At the moment Mac only (I see Apple bring Xcode to iPad in the future because Apple brought Final Cut and logic pro to ipad)
More or less. Experienced developers can also make use of Playgrounds for quick experiments or on the go editing or something, but yes, on the whole yeah you're about right in the above.
Apple may bring Xcode to iPad in the future but it's worth keeping in mind that most professionals do not see Final Cut on iPad as a replacement for Final Cut on the Mac but as an addition and they do not have feature parity, editing on a Mac is more pleasant and feature rich still, pencil drawing support aside.
Macs are also always going to deliver more power than a tablet can and for that reason Xcode on a Mac will always have its place even if the iPad becomes significantly more capable. IMO at least
I also wouldn't say Playgrounds is available on nearly every Apple OS. It's just macOS and iPadOS. iOS, tvOS, watchOS do not have Playgrounds. VisionOS sort of does in that it can run iPad apps but you can also link it to a Mac to use it with Xcode anyway