As promised, Apple has started making the first beta version of Swift Playgrounds 2 into the hands of developers. The update was originally announced at WWDC earlier this month.
Apple says the Swift Playgrounds 2 beta offers Swift 4 support, iOS 11 support, and more:
What’s new in Swift Playgrounds 2 beta
- Support for Swift 4 beta has been added
- Swift 3.1 compatibility lets you run existing Swift code without modification
- Swift Playgrounds 2 beta supports the iOS 11 beta SDK
Note: Swift Playgrounds 2 beta users Swift 4 beta (900.0.42). Code written using other versions of Swift may not work in Swift Playgrounds 2 beta.
The Swift Playgrounds 2 beta release come son the heels of the public release of Swift Playgrounds 1.5, which hit the App Store last week. 1.5 allows young developers to control drones, robots and more using Swift Playgrounds.
With Swift Playgrounds, anyone can program and control these popular devices from within the app:
- LEGO MINDSTORMS Education EV3 are incredibly popular in schools around the world and give students the power to explore coding through real-life problem solving as they create and command their own robotic LEGO creatures, vehicles, machines and inventions. With Swift Playgrounds kids can code and interact with their creations’ motors and sensors.
- Sphero SPRK+, a popular robotic ball, rolls, turns, accelerates and changes colors. Sensors provide feedback when Sphero hits an obstacle, and all of it can be controlled with Swift code.
- Parrot’s Mambo, Airborne and Rolling Spider drones can take off, land, turn and perform aerial figures like flips, all under the control of code users create.
- UBTECH’s Jimu Robot MeeBot Kit lets kids program their buildable robot to walk, wave and dance.
- Dash by Wonder Workshop is an exciting, hands-on learning robot for students, designed to teach the fundamentals of coding, creative problem solving and computational thinking.
- Skoog is a tactile cube that enables children of all abilities to have fun exploring, creating and playing music with Swift code.
Swift Playgrounds 1.5 is currently available to the public, in the App Store. Developers can test Swift Playgrounds 2 via Testflight.
