Play—the first native iOS design tool—is now available on iPad.
Design, prototype, and share mobile products. All from your iPad with real-time sync to Play iOS.
Play iPad is the second product launch of Play’s product suite, giving you more flexibility and speed when designing mobile products.
Install Play for iOS & iPad on the App Store.
Since our focus at Play is to create the best possible tools for teams designing mobile products, Play for iPad will be a complementary experience to Play iOS—both of which can be used to design mobile apps. This was one of the most requested features from our early users and we’re excited to finally deliver on it!
What makes Play iPad unique?
This first version of Play iPad is a universal app, sharing the same code base as Play for iOS. This means the UI and controls look, feel and function similarily to Play iOS. You still have full access to all the native elements and sophisticated interactions Play is known for, however, there are a couple of things that make Play for iPad unique.
Increased Screen Real Estate & Exposed Controls
First, all of your controls are exposed on Play iPad—the Layers Panel and Editor Panel are both visible on your screen at all times.
With the increased real estate of the iPad, it means instead of swiping left or right to reveal these panels like in iOS, they are always in full view. This additional real estate and exposed panels lets you view your layers and product hierarchy at all times and edit even faster.
Using Native iPad Controls
While the core UI of Play has stayed the same to create consistency across both platforms, there have been some updates to Play iPad that are worth noting—namely the use of popovers.
Popovers are an iPad specific feature that let us show more content and controls at one time. Instead of opening panels on top of the Editor, which stays docked on the right side of your screen, additional panels are centered in a larger popover, which can also be nested.
Adapting pieces of the UI to the iPad specific popovers was a lot of fun and lays the ground work for future plans we have for editing values on iPad.
Real time Sync Across Platforms
Play for iPad has real time sync with both Play Web and Play iOS. This means when you make edits to your design on your iPad, the changes are reflcted live in on your iPhone and vice versa.
You can upload images, SVGs, and custom fonts to Play Web, which syncs automatically to both iOS and iPad, are are ready to use in your projects.
Similar to iOS, you can create a Share Link from Play iPad to share your project in Play Mode with anyone you wish. Anyone can install Play without needing full access or even an account.
Viewing Your Designs on Different Device Sizes
Another useful feature on Play for iPad is that you have the ability to see how your designs look across every single iPhone device size. If you’re designing in Play with scalability in mind, by default anything you share will be viewable and optimized for any device size.
With Play iPad you will be able to view your designs at different iPhone sizes, helping you optimize as you design, cutting down on QA time in the future.
What’s Coming Next for Play iPad
We just rolled out Play for iPad in April of 2022 and we’re excited to get your feedback as we continue to refine and add to it. There are a few things that exist in Play for iOS that are not yet available for iPad that we will be rolling out in the weeks ahead, namely, editing data in Collections and having full access to Variables.
We’ll be releasing features like the ability to swap the location of Layers and Editor panels (for the lefties out there!), adding even more keyboard shortcuts, creating ways to edit multiple pages at a time and other exciting features only possible on iPad.
How can I try Play for iPad?
If you already have full access to Play on iOS, click here or go to the App Store on your iPad, and search for “Create with Play” and install Play for iPad!
If you don’t yet have full access, go to the App Store on your iPhone or iPad, install Play and register for full access.
A big thank you to all our early users who have been eagerly awaiting this release. We appreciate all your feedback and support!
—The Play Team
