The iPad has come a long way since its initial debut in 2010. Nowadays there's almost an app for everything including some nice programming apps. I'll be going over some of my favorite apps that I use for coding on my iPad.
Writing python apps
Juno is a complete Jupyter development environment for your iOS device. It's super powerful and can leverage NumPy, Matplotlib, and Pandas out of the box. It's also super flexible since you can install Python packages
An alternative IDE for coding in Python is
Pythonista.
Making a Web app
play.js is by far the BEST Javascript IDE on IOS if you're a fan of using React.js or Vue.js. The best part is you can even install npm packages on this IDE! It sets up a Node.JS server out of the box as well, so you can also create a backend service to go along with the frontend.
Making a React Native app
Guess what?
play.js even supports creating React Native apps! I haven't delve too deep with making a React Native app via play.js, but it's nice to have this option.
SSH into a machine in the cloud
Sometimes your device isn't powerful enough and you need a bigger and badder machine in the cloud. That's where
Blink comes in. I use Blink to SSH into my Mac Mini which is my main development machine. This will require a bit of setup on your personal machine to
open up a port to SSH and
configure a static IP address. If you don't own a machine to SSH into, you can use some Cloud offerings like
AWS.
Other useful tools
Dash is an API documentation browser which is super useful when you're coding without internet. Unfortunately, the developer has stopped further development of this app, but it's still useful.
I used to use the Smart Keyboard Folio for typing on the iPad, but I never enjoyed it since the keys were super mushy and didn't feel like a true laptop replacement. The iPad Magic Keyboard has completely changed my perspective of typing on an iPad. Alternatively, if the iPad Magic Keyboard is too expensive, I would recommend buying Apple Magic Keyboard which is only $81 as today!
Links
