Xcode said to baked into iPadOS 14, big implications for developers and pro-class apps for iPad

Apple tipster Jon Prosser can’t stop getting a hold of juicy tips at the moment. His latest one is not about hardware this time, but rather software. In particular, the next version of iPadOS, which will be version 14. According to Prosser, iPadOS 14 will include Apple’s developer environment Xcode which is big news if you are a developer in the first instance, particularly if you develop for both iOS/iPadOS and macOS.

Secondly, the introduction of Xcode into iPadOS 14 also opens the door to the possibility of pro-class applications that would properly tap into the processing horsepower of the iPad Pro. Apple is fond of highlighting that the A12Z in the new iPad Pro (although only marginally different to the A12X found in the 2018 iteration) is still more powerful than most PC laptops. Xcode could result in bringing across more powerful apps to the iPad line, as Prosser suggests.

This is not without its caveats, however. Pro Mac apps typically require at least 8 GB of RAM and even though the new iPad Pro has seen RAM increased to 6 GB across the range, that is still short of Apple’s own Mac requirements. That doesn’t mean, however, that Apple can’t strip back some of the RAM hogging features in those apps while tweaking them to support a touch-first interface. However, now that the iPad also supports trackpad input, Apple has now made it more Mac-like than ever and this seems the next logical step. 

I’m not gonna say that Final Cut is coming to iPad...

But XCode is present on iOS / iPad OS 14. The implications there are HUGE. Opens the door for “Pro” applications to come to iPad. I mentioned this last week on a live stream, but figured it was worth the tweet.

 - @JonProsser