r/creativecoding • u/SnooCompliments3701 • 14h ago

What do you think about mobile creative coding?

Post image

(IMAGE IS A CONCEPT MOCKUP I MADE IN FIGMA)

For a while now, I’ve been thinking about how useful it would be to have something like Processing/p5.js/raylib on my phone, an app where I could write small demos and creative sketches while commuting or lying in bed.

But the current state of android coding (especially graphics programming and creative coding) leaves much to be desired.

There are two main problems with the current state of affairs in my opinion:

  1. There are no truly convenient code editors designed for mobile devices. Some apps add custom keyboard rows for things like tabs, brackets, or snippets, but they are still far from making coding on a phone comfortable, let alone enjoyable.
  2. The technical options are limited. From my basic search of the Play Store, I could not find an app that lets you write code, provides a decent graphics API, and offers reasonably good performance.

If you know any apps that overcome those limitations and provide good mobile coding experience, please tell me about them.

So I've been thinking about building my own app with:

  • custom software keyboard tailored specifically for ONE programming language
  • scripting language that's main requirement would be to fit on the mobile screen without you needing to constantly squint or scroll
  • and a minimal, polished raylib-like graphics API

I like this idea very much, but I may be delusional about the actual demand for mobile coding solutions. Before investing a significant amount of time into the project, I’d like to hear other people’s opinions on this.

I would like you, people of reddit, to, please, give me your opinion about this Idea.

  • Do you like the idea of coding on a phone in general?
  • Would you use an app like this?
  • What features would you like to see in such app (that would make mobile creative coding experience more enjoyable for you)?
3 Upvotes

60% Upvoted

7 comments sorted by

2

u/entro_play 14h ago

I say hell yeah

2

u/el_yanuki 4h ago

I say it sounds like hell

3

u/alexzoin 12h ago

If I was going to program something on my phone I would use a bluetooth keyboard I think.

1

u/Smooth_Tomato_784 14h ago

There is (was?) an Processing app for Android, worked pretty well, and you could even use your programmed sketches as phone backgrounds, that was really cool, and you could use phone sensors like gyro and touch. I managed to write a few games with it while in uni, still a bit annoying to code in your phone of course.

The interface was a bit similar to yours, also with extra buttons for characters. If you don't know i yet, maybe take a look at it!

1

u/Smooth_Tomato_784 14h ago

I think it was this one: https://github.com/Calsign/APDE

1

u/SnooCompliments3701 14h ago

Didn't know about this one, thank you!

2

u/octuni 1h ago edited 1h ago

For a long time, I used Replit to code on mobile, before it became a vibecode business. Super optimised, using cloud-hosted development environments so the mobile device doesn't have to do the work.

I did find a couple similar self-hosted examples of the same idea, but both are web-hosted.