I picked up a new 11" iPad Pro this week, to replace my original 9.7" Pro. I’ve been using it for a couple of days now, so here are some of my initial thoughts in no particular order:

• The screen feels much bigger (and it is!). iOS and its apps have more room to breathe. Although it would’ve been nice if it were a tiny bit wider to keep closer to the original 4:3 aspect ratio.
• This thing is a fingerprint magnet! Seems to show up way more fingerprints than my original Pro.
• I’ve not had a device with ProMotion before, and wow – animations feel super slick. Scrolls like butter.
• I’m still getting used to how to hold the iPad now that it has thinner bezels. In one hand, you end up with your thumb resting on the edge between the front and side of the device, as the bezel isn’t wide enough to place your thumb there without touching the screen.
• The majority of the third party apps I’ve tried so far haven’t been updated for the new screen size, which means black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. In landscape, this makes the new aspect ratio (no longer 4:3 on the 11") even more obvious, and I’m still getting used to it.
• Face ID works very well, but can be a little awkward in practice due to the camera being situated along just one edge of a device that can be (and is) used in any orientation. Now that the home button is gone, it’s not always immediately obvious where the front camera is when you pick up the iPad – particularly if you’re using it in a dimly lit room. For example, if I’m reading in bed I’ll often hold the iPad in portrait orientation and rest the bottom of it on the bed covers. But half the time it turns out that the iPad is ‘upside down’, so the Face ID cameras get blocked by the bedding. The iPhones X don’t have this issue because the notch helps you know which way is up.
• This is an incredible, futuristic, fast device. It feels fantastic to hold, looks amazing, and is a joy to use. I’d love to use it for all my computing needs. Xcode for iPad, please!

And a few thoughts on the new Smart Keyboard Folio:

• The new Smart Keyboard Folio is much sturdier than the old Smart Keyboard Cover, and is certainly much more stable when typing on your lap. The iPad can also now be positioned in at a shallower viewing angle, which is much nicer than the very steep angle of the old cover.
• I was worried that it’d be difficult to put the iPad into / take the iPad out of the folio, but it’s actually very simple thanks to the magical array of magnets present in the new Pro.
• The magnets are so strong, it’s now more difficult to collapse the iPad when it’s propped up in the folio. I haven’t yet worked out the right places to grab it without either touching on the screen or mashing on the keyboard.
• Because the new folio wraps around the front and back of the iPad it does increase the bulk, and it’s even heavier than the Smart Keyboard, which already added quite a lot of weight to the device. Laid flat, the new Pro in the folio is about the same thickness as the thickest part of the old keyboard cover:

Enter Codify. Codify is a new iPad app that lets you create simple games, prototypes and simulations directly on an iPad. You write code in the Lua language using a fantastic code editor (more on that later), with an API that’s very similar to Processing. You can then run that code straight away; play your game, experiment with your prototype, tweak your simulation. It’s fast, easy, impressive, and fun.

Running and debugging

When running your game, you can specify parameters (for example, a character’s speed or size) which show up as sliders in a debugging pane on the left hand side of the screen. You can then tweak those parameters as you play, and observe in real time the effect they have on the game. It’s very neat. You can also watch variables and print information out to a console. Games themselves run very smoothly (unless you write them badly, of course!) and look great. You can pause, resume, or reset your game state whenever you like. You can also flip back to your code with just one tap.

Help and examples

The app comes with a whole heap of examples, from the basics of using the provided graphics functions to clones of games like Doodle Jump, Snake, and Pong (the latter I wrote myself). The code editor also comes with a nicely presented documentation viewer which provides excellent help on graphics functions, the Lua language itself, parameters, multitouch, sounds, using the iPad’s accelerometer, and more.

To see some of the Codify examples in action, check out the following YouTube videos:

• Bit Invader
• Lua Jump (Doodle Jump clone)
• Dungeon Roller
• Ping (Pong clone)

The code editor

The code editor has clearly had a lot of thought and polish put into it. It has a lot of things you’d expect from an editor: syntax highlighting, line numbers, multiple files (with tabs to switch between them), and a function browser. But it also has a slew of features designed to ease the task of programming on a touchscreen device:

• For methods that take a colour as a parameter (RGBA values, for example (255, 150, 99, 255)), you can simply tap on the parameter and a colour wheel appears in a popover allowing you to choose a colour with touch alone.
• You can tap and hold on any number and slide your finger from left to right (or vice versa) to increment / decrement the number without typing.
• A row of custom keys above the onscreen keyboard provides shortcuts for common tasks: tabbing, access to documentation, inserting symbols / punctuation, and more.
• Codify includes support for displaying sprites (images) and comes bundled with a number of high quality sprite packs from Lost Garden. Similarly to selecting colour parameters, you can tap a sprite parameter and select your sprite from a nice popover without the need for any typing.

Check out my Flickr photo set for a couple more photos showing the Codify interface. I’ve also put together a quick YouTube video showing some of its functionality in action (embedded at the bottom of this post).

The Lua language was deliberately chosen for Codify because it has a rather ‘wordy’ syntax, which fits nicely with the iPad’s onscreen keyboard. It means less switching to the ‘symbols’ keyboard, and less frustration for the user. The Lua runtime is also extremely light, which helps keep things snappy.

An introduction to programming? - a brief aside

I think that Codify could shine as a tool for teaching programming. I’ve long lamented the apparent increase in difficulty for kids (and adults alike, I guess) to get started with programming these days. I began coding on a BBC B in BASIC. Back then, you turned your computer on and you were presented with a flashing prompt, into which you could just start typing your code. Commercial games weren’t too advanced, so it was entirely possible you could get at least close to making the sorts of things you played yourself.

These days, where do you start? If you have a Mac or Linux machine, chances are you have something like Ruby or Python built in, so that’s fairly easy to get going with. If you’re on Windows, you’re left to install something yourself. You’ll also likely have to install some kind of text editor and work out how to use a command prompt (not a bad thing to do at all, of course, but it’s another barrier to entry). And then you’ll have to find some kind of games or graphics libraries and learn how those work. And then you might be able to have a go at learning a language and making a simple game. It’s a lot to get through and a lot of opportunities for a newcomer to lose their enthusiasm.

We’re now finally starting to see some potential solutions emerging on the web. For example, Processing.js (a JavaScript port of Processing) and Sketchpad.cc (which lets you just start coding with Processing.js in your browser). Codify is very much like these solutions, but built specifically for iPad and a touch interface. From now on, somebody who wants to get started with simple programming and games may just be able to search the App Store for ‘programming’, install Codify, and have a go; perhaps starting off modifying some of the examples and observing the effects their changes have in real time. It may not be as easy to a newcomer as I’m imagining, but it sure seems a lot simpler to me than what we’ve had in recent years.

Wrap up

Codify was created by Simeon Nasilowski of Two Lives Left and will be launching on the App Store on Wednesday 26th October for £5.49 ($7.99), which I think is great value for everything it offers. It’s a high quality package that finally lets you code on the iPad, and it does so with style. I highly recommend checking it out if you enjoy programming or think you’d like to give it a go. I’d be really interested in seeing what you create with it!

I’ve also posted a video to YouTube showing some of Codify’s features in action:

• It’s smaller than you probably think it is
• It’s exactly as big as you thought it was if you were sad enough to make an actual-size cardboard model of it months ago
• The screen is gorgeous. Really bright, the colours just jump out at you, and the viewing angles are unreal. Photos look brilliant on it, but you see a slight lack of resolution in text when you’re zoomed some way out of a web page.
• That said, because the screen is a piece of glass, it seemed as though glare could definitely be an issue depending on where you’re sat. I was trying to read Winnie-the-Pooh, and I could just see my face reflected in the screen because I was in the wrong position.
• It feels really nice in your hand. It’s a good weight (although lighter would be nicer) and it feels reassuringly solid.
• It’s fast. I’d read all the reviews saying how quick it was, but I didn’t expect it to be quite that quick. Everything just feels so slick and fluid, and I think this is a very big part of why I found it so nice to use.
• Web browsing and Google maps are just brilliant. Again, there was a lot of hyperbole about how browsing the web on this thing is a totally new experience and you have to try it to understand it - and whilst that’s a little OTT, I kind of get where they’re coming from. It feels very different (in a good way) from anything I’ve used before. For casual web surfing, lay back on the sofa or in a comfy chair, and for actually reading web pages, I think it’ll be brilliant.
• The Instapaper app was probably the nicest reading experience I came across while trying out the iPad. With the default font settings, it’s totally gorgeous. I could spend hours and hours working my way through my Instapaper reading list on this thing.
• Reading PDFs is also a pretty great experience. It’s so nice to be able to flick through a PDF, and hold it like a book. A vastly better experience than reading them on a laptop or on my Sony Reader (which is far too slow for PDFs, and they don’t work well with that screen size).
• Photos look great, and the slideshows work really well. The iPad would make a brilliant digital photo frame whilst not in use.
• The keyboard surprised me by being much more usable than I was expecting. Portrait mode’s a little cramped, but landscape seems nearly full size. Straight away, I was typing very quickly with very few mistakes. I could see myself inputting a lot of text without the need for an external keyboard. NaNoWriMo 2010, perhaps?
• It seems a very social device. Sure, we were all interested in trying it out and so it got passed around a lot - but it’s just so easy to spin it round or hold it up to show other people something cool. Or to load up an app and hand it over to someone to play with. It’s very unlike a laptop in that respect.
• The ‘just a big iPod Touch’ comment that people have made is total crap. iPhone OS on a device this size is a very different experience. The extra screen space adds a lot. Web browsing in particular feels completely different to browsing on an iPhone.
• My iPhone now seems very small, cramped, and slow.

I liked it, and can’t wait to get one. I think my primary use would be reading - Instapaper, websites, feeds, and PDFs. And I think I would use it a lot for all of those things. In fact, other than coding and managing my photos, I could see it replacing my laptop for a lot of things I do with my computer - namely, using the web, email, etc. And for me, that’d be a good thing - I hate being stuck behind a laptop when all I want to do is read. It’d be a nice distinction, because laptop would be for getting something done (coding, etc), and iPad would be for leisure. The iPad would also come in very hand whilst coding, for reference books, etc.