Apple Swift Playgrounds 2.0 Released, Comes With Playground Subscription and New Robots

Apple on Wednesday released Swift Playground 2.0 app alongside the preview of iOS 11.3. The Swift Playground 2.0 app now comes with new features like third-party subscriptions, new robots, new content gallery, and more. Apple announced the updated app on its developer site and the App Store. The key highlight of the new version is enabling users to subscribe to third-party creators.

In the new Subscribe to Playgrounds feature, users can browse a developer's playground options, and then download selected content to receive alerts when new iterations are available. Also, the iPad app has added new robots that can be accessed by tapping on the Add Subscriptions option. The new robots include IBM's TJBot and Mekamon. Also, the third-party robot playgrounds previously included in the app are now available directly from their respective authors upon browsing subscriptions.

Another new feature in Swift Playgrounds 2.0 is a new content gallery that shows all playgrounds including third-party subscriptions in a single view. It de-clutters the app and focuses on the new subscriptions option. Also added, is a Locations button that enables users to open playgrounds from the Files app on the iPad. Another addition is Documentation for iOS features and commands, which is now available from the Help button and the tools menu.

Swift Playgrounds is an iPad app that helps kids learn how to code in Swift, Apple's programming language, through simple tools, 3D animations, and interactive games. Apple had unveiled the Swift Playgrounds app for its iPad users, at WWDC in 2016. It was later rolled out in September 2016. The app features interactive puzzles to master the basics of coding, along with challenges that let kids explore codes and create programs.

The last big update to Swift Playgrounds was announced in September 2016 when Apple launched AR challenges using ARKit, iOS 11 integration, accessibility to iPad camera, and more.

Users can download the Swift Playgrounds 2.0 from the App Store. It is a free 234.5MB download. Notably, Swift Playgrounds 2.0 uses Swift 4.0.2, which means code written using other versions of Swift may not work in the updated app.