The argument that fingers are not a good tool to draw type is out now. But it would still be (probably) a year of work. And it needs a lot rethinking of the workflow and UI.
Apple allows to (relatively easy) port iPad apps to the mac, now. If they do the other way around, too.
Understood. I would mainly want to use the hypothetical app for sketching and drawing script fonts in one app instead of multiple, but that would add much more complexity I know.
Hey I just saw this reddit post and remembered there is a related discussion here, so I came to share the info. It seems to be just what some of us are looking for. Btw I have been a long time lurker here, and nice to meet you all.
I just wanted to chime in as well and say that I would be really interested in a Glyphs Version for the iPad. Mainly so i could make the iPad my only travel companion.
I wouldnāt be bothered if the UI wasnt changed, and it only worked with mouse and keyboard.
I know it is kind of niche and might never happen, but I for one would be really happy about that.
To have a Glyphs āLightā app on iPad would be awesome. I wouldnāt rely on fingers though, but the apple pencil in this case.
Guessing, it would be very useful for handwritten fonts and perhaps for classic ones as well. Of course the final export would have to be done on desktop.
wouldnāt mind paying for additional license/subscription.
The other day I was thinking that it would be a really good idea to have an iPad version of Glyphs, or something compatible with the desktop version. Maybe not for the āprofessional fontā crowd (bezier curves and all that), but for us, the handwritten/display font people it would be great! I am just bumping this topic, as it was over a year ago that someone asked about it.
Personally I would love an iPad version!
Noted.
Seconding this.
Iām using my iPad as a primary device for vector art at this point. Amadine, Vectornator, and Affinity Designer are all fantastic vector creation apps. Thereās actually a small type creation tool called iFontMaker that boasts a functional, albeit slow workflow between Vectornator.
I really enjoy the meditative process of typography creation and the user experience on the iPad would pair so well with it.
Itās truly fascinating that this thread existed along the years of how the iPad evolved in both power and functionality. We now have the 12.9 inch iPad Pro with crazy processing power produced by the M2 chip with crazy RAM that goes up to 24GB, mouse and keyboard support, and evolved pencil technology that allows for hovering cursors for an added level of precision.
Right now, I think there is no excuse for the guys at Glyphs to not make an iPad Pro version 
not when there are already professional-grade apps that can produce professional vector graphics like Illustrator/Designer, 3D modeling like Shapr3Dā¦etc. So I think a Glyphs app for the iPad Pro would sit pretty right between all these professional desktop-grade apps. Right now, there are graphic designers that involve using the iPad Pro in their line of work. And with the rumors of an upcoming 16 inch iPad Ultra powered by a potential M3 chipset (Possibly a desktop version of it) and potentially running MacOS, I think the time is now for you guys to get to work on producing the first professional iPad Pro app for typeface creation. Iām 1000% the professionals will flock to it. Keep it simple and highly functional at first, then slowly add more features and tools.
For accurate drawing lines, of course, use Apple pencils.Draw a line of graphic formats in an apple pencil to convert to a vector line at the end.This will be the best way.Why not use iPad as a digital board before Apple did not allow transplants from Mac to iPad?Donāt have to wait for a year.Can this idea be considered?
The apple pencil will double the number of glyphs users.
It will be Glyphs 4.0, and this upgrade will match this name.
I would love to have a iPad version. The problem is that that not much code can be reused from the Mac version. And we are a very small company, so our recourses are limited.
Decided to show up here to register my interest also.
I personally donāt have access to a Mac, so despite wanting to purchase, I couldnāt use it. But I do own an iPad with Pencil.
I learned about Glyphs a while ago and it seemed like an amazing app, and like something Iād love playing around with on the couch more often than on a desktop (even if there were a windows version).
It might be interesting to point out that, at least in my country, people who have macs are pretty rare, but artists and designers often have iPads as their main creative device.
I understand porting it would be a really big task; trying to accommodate for smaller screens, and even with the pencil as the main way to design, thereās still the issue of the interface itself being mostly touch based and users wanting gestures for easier workflow and everything, so a lot of things would have to be rethought to work seamlessly. And Iām aware the team already stated that it canāt afford developing a Windows version as it is.
Regardless, I figured it was important to at least make it known there is interest out there for it, since if we all stayed silent about it, I guess no one would really know how many of us there are, hahah. I feel like thereās an opportunity given thereās no ideal competitors on the iPad currently as well. Can only hope maybe an investor might see the value in it eventually, or maybe even a crowdfunding initiative.
I would love to have a Glyphs for iPad. But we are a really small team and are fully occupied with the Mac version.
I am not a designer, so this may be an uncommon use case, but given the enthusiasm Iāve seen for Glyphs, I thought I might mention it.
My kid is pretty creative and is developing a world that sheās writing fiction within. As part of her world, sheās started creating constructed languages and has notebooks full of symbols and rules around phonemes, diacriticals, and all of that.
She gets chromebooks through her school which get turned in at the end of the year. Weāve gotten her an ipad for creative work but arenāt planning on setting her up with a personal computer any time soon.
I came on this forum looking for options for her to use something like FontForge to create her fonts digitally. Fontself seems popular and iFontMaker seems OK within a more limited range, but neither seems particularly well suited for someone who hasnāt yet learned the boxes to think within.
I realize āsoftware for a parent to buy their ācreativeā kid who only has an ipadā is a pretty weird little niche, but I thought it worth dropping a penny in the slot.
If you are serious (or just half-serious) about type design, you can buy a decent, but old Macbook Pro from Ebay at $200-300. I think itās cheaper than a used Ipad. Performance-wise the latest and greatest Glyphs 3.2 runs without issues on it (I know from experience, I use one too).
And for special needs and edge cases on a Mac you can use a ton of plugins and scrips, or you can write your own, or modify an existing one.
You see, even so a miracle happens and some investor blesses the core Glyphsapp team with money for an Ipad version, what about all the independently developed plugins that are essential for certain workflows? And not even mentioning the technological barriers.
And frankly, Iām scared of investors. There are very few who take a professional standpoint and, say, settle for a small-ish investment so that Georg and his colleagues can hire 1-2-3 more developers to get the planned nice things done sooner, but donāt expect crazy profits in the end
Given that the M-chip-compatible builds for Macs use the same architecture as iPad this would theoretically be a lot easier to port than before. I could imagine the biggest hurdles may be window management (although everything is in tabs) and plugins. If plug-in support was ignored for an iPad version I wouldnāt mind.
Iām curious how DaVinci Resolve managed to port their entire software over to iPad. Even though itās limited you can keyboard shortcut into hidden parts of the software that are fully built!
The main work of porting Glyphs to iPad would be the user interface, handling user input, and file management. All of those are significantly different on iPad than on the Mac, and they also constitute a large part of the Glyphs code.
And another aspect: why invest development time (which in this case =money) to an other platform, instead of perfecting and extending the software for the existing one?
I think the core value proposition of Glyphs is to be the most agile, user-friendly, text-context-driven, the less cluttered but technologically most advanced font editor for the Mac. And supporting new technologies, techniques, standards, for example non-linear interpolation ā so enhancing the core value of Glyphs ā is far more important than porting the whole thing to Ipad (Iām using deliberately the grammatically correct spelling, not the brand name).
It makes more sense to develop in parallel a desktop and an Ipad version in case of drawing-painting-photoediting apps, for example the Affinity suite, because in their case the core value is the ease of drawing and manipulating images. But font editing is much more than drawing, I think.