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Xcode 26.3 – Developers can leverage coding agents directly in Xcode

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Re: Xcode 26.3 – Developers can leverage coding agents directly in Xcode

#321

Post by AJRF »

sandoze wrote: post #313
AJRF wrote: post #283

(Context: I was an iOS dev for 10 years on well known, large iOS apps - I can't explain how much I dislike Xcode). I recently started working for a startup, and they wanted an app. What I shipped was a react native app (so I don't need to go in to Xcode to build), that renders a full screen web browser that points to our website. I've sprinkled in bits of injected JS to capture our cookies and local/session storage -…

That startup is going to LOVE you when they need to backfill your position and every potential iOS developer hire runs in the other direction. * This is coming from someone doing iOS since the store opened in 2008. I've pretty much seen ALL the bad decisions at some point. There are projects I will not take no matter what the pay is.

Do you think the pool of devs who can write rn + ts is bigger or smaller than native devs?

Re: Xcode 26.3 – Developers can leverage coding agents directly in Xcode

#322

Post by jlokier »

Aloisius wrote: post #174
lynndotpy wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I come from Linux land so I'm used to things being lightning fast, so using software on a Mac requires a thousand workarounds. A terminal integrated into the IDE is one of those necessary workarounds. MacOS has very very slow slow window- and desktop- switching (over one FULL second to switch from one desktop to another - this is not a joke!) so having a terminal integrated into the same application is very useful fo…

It shouldn't take over a second to switch desktops. I just checked with a screen recording. Switching desktops takes 15 frames (250 ms). If you turn reduce motion on, it takes 13 frames (216 ms).

It depends which key combination or trackpad gesture is used to trigger the desktop switch, because they use different animation curvdes. It looks like they have different application focus or redraw behaviour too.

- Control-Left/Right takes about 1 second.

- Four-finger swipe left/right takes about 1 second.

- Alt-Tab to an app on another desktop takes about 0.25 seconds.

I'm using Sonoma 14.8.3, but from the comments it sounds like the timing distinction is similar on other versions.

Re: Xcode 26.3 – Developers can leverage coding agents directly in Xcode

#323

Post by sandoze »

AJRF wrote: post #321
sandoze wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That startup is going to LOVE you when they need to backfill your position and every potential iOS developer hire runs in the other direction. * This is coming from someone doing iOS since the store opened in 2008. I've pretty much seen ALL the bad decisions at some point. There are projects I will not take no matter what the pay is.

Do you think the pool of devs who can write rn + ts is bigger or smaller than native devs?

Keep in mind, you’re claiming to be an experienced mobile (iOS) dev. Your fallback when things don’t work (let’s say, auth) are your years of doing iOS. Fastlane is handy (I don’t use it anymore re: Xcode Cloud) but in the past it still fell victim to Apple Store changes and updates.

Worse is going to be the job listing, no native iOS developer is going to touch it. It’s possible a rn + ts developer might find it an interesting challenge and maybe even have some iOS experience. I guess it all comes down to what the job qualifications are in said listing. But is your startup going to know this when/if they need to do a backfill?

But here’s the caveat to what I said. If the rest of the team you’re working in is also using the same language and maybe has some familiarity in react native it’s probably not so bad and someone can step into your shoes if necessary. Also, if your implementation is fully transparent and this is what the startup paid for, then I’m going to say more power to you, you built them what they needed and you did it your way.

Re: Xcode 26.3 – Developers can leverage coding agents directly in Xcode

#324

Post by anonutah »

OsamaJaber wrote: post #11

MCP support is the real story here Means you're not locked into Claude or Codex Can plug in whatever agent you want

Took some digging but finally found the docs on setting up MCP for external agents like Codex and Claude Code.

https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode/giving-agent...

Re: Xcode 26.3 – Developers can leverage coding agents directly in Xcode

#325

Post by bjustin »

billynomates wrote: post #266
mads_quist wrote: post #265

What else is there to say than that xCode is a f... nightmare. Android studio is not really better though. Native app development is an evil necessity.

As someone who use Eclipse and transitioned to Android Studio over the course of my career, Android Studio is actually pretty great. These days I use Cursor almost exclusively for Flutter, but Android Studio is great for building native Android apps.

Having used Android Studio for work for a few years and used Xcode quite a lot for longer, I find the praise for Android Studio to be puzzling. I would give it "fine" but no way I'd say it is "good". I haven't used it enough compared to Xcode to say if one is better than the other.

Re: Xcode 26.3 – Developers can leverage coding agents directly in Xcode

#326

Post by ASalazarMX »

marxisttemp wrote: post #293
ASalazarMX wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've been using XCode for 10 years. For me, it's only improved and I don't have any real pain points. This means you've learned to work around its shortcomings. A decade ago I used to develop in PyCharm for websites, and Visual Studio .Net for desktop apps. Then I had to learn XCode for a mobile app. It was a surreal experience, like going back ten years in UX, while at the same time dealing with a myriad of modern…

> Google is undeniably more developer-friendly than Apple IMO, though Yeah, I love editing XML files to build my app

I meant the companies.

For example, Apple Developer costs 99 USD a year, and you are forced to develop on a physical Mac. Google Developer has a free tier, and lets you develop on Windows/Linux/MacOS/VM.

This is just one of the little ways where Google products prioritize developers, while Apple products prioritize market share and consumers. Both companies have abusive practices, can't argue that, but Apple has more needless friction for developers.

Re: Xcode 26.3 – Developers can leverage coding agents directly in Xcode

#327

Post by lynndotpy »

spacedcowboy wrote: post #267
lynndotpy wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As you said, it's the set up. I'm almost exclusively using a single monitor, which works well when there's zero cost to switching desktops. For your use case, imagine if the Window switcher, instead of being instantaneous, was a ~1200ms animation which blocked all key presses during the animation.

Mm. On the Studio, my desktop switching is pretty quick - 17 frames from tapping the ctrl/arrow. I have an M4 Max which is actually 1 frame faster at 16 frames (though measurement-error probably accounts for that). In either case that's less than 1/3 of a second. It's nowhere near what you're seeing. I'd be tempted to take the machine to an Apple Store and say "this is broken, please fix it".

What frame rate are you using on those monitors? I ask because this is faster at lower frame rates. This is surprising and I very much want what you have.

Are you using software like Rectangle, Better Touch Tool, etc?

Re: Xcode 26.3 – Developers can leverage coding agents directly in Xcode

#328

Post by spacedcowboy »

9dev wrote: post #296
spacedcowboy wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No. It. Doesn't. The whole conversation came from someone claiming the most basic feature of an IDE is to include a terminal - that's why people are discussing terminals. Don't get me wrong, I live in the terminal when using the computer, but I don't see a need for one when using Xcode.

Call it a task runner shell, if you like. What makes a development environment integrated, if not the ability to launch and manage external processes?

To me, integrated means it integrates a bunch of tasks that used to be separate. I used to have a text-editor, a Makefile to use with 'make', a command line debugger, a static-analyser, and a profile target in that Makefile that I could use to figure out where my code was slow, using another command line tool.

All of that is in Xcode (and a hell of a lot more besides). That makes it integrated, at least IMHO.

You commented above, and I replied, about some of the tasks you use an integrated terminal for, and I'm not trying to say you shouldn't or that that's not useful to you - you obviously know your own workflows and what works best for you :) I just don't see it as "the most basic feature you could integrate into an IDE" (which was the original claim).

I'd probably put 'text editor' up as the most basic, closely followed by compiler integration and then debugger. Static analysis would probably come next, then unit-testing support, doc-comments, and tools like refactoring, good multi-file search/replace etc.

A terminal app is way, way down the list. For me. I realise everyone is different and YMMV :)

Re: Xcode 26.3 – Developers can leverage coding agents directly in Xcode

#329

Post by ardit33 »

Aaargh20318 wrote: post #295
AJRF wrote: post #283

(Context: I was an iOS dev for 10 years on well known, large iOS apps - I can't explain how much I dislike Xcode). I recently started working for a startup, and they wanted an app. What I shipped was a react native app (so I don't need to go in to Xcode to build), that renders a full screen web browser that points to our website. I've sprinkled in bits of injected JS to capture our cookies and local/session storage -…

> (Context: I was an iOS dev for 10 years on well known, large iOS apps - I can't explain how much I dislike Xcode). Since you’re pretty new to mobile dev, count yourself lucky with the amazing dev tools you have today. Nothing like doing a bit of J2ME, Symbian S60 or BlackBerry development to learn to appreciate how far we’ve come.

lol... people that complain about XCode don't know how well they have compare to what it was before.

I started my work on the J2ME era as well. Had to use textpad for development, and maybe eclipse at some point (which was pretty decent). Tools and simulators were all over the place.

Re: Xcode 26.3 – Developers can leverage coding agents directly in Xcode

#330

Post by Aloisius »

lynndotpy wrote: post #218
Aloisius wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm also on a M1 Macbook Pro, running Tahoe 26.2. Not sure why yours is so much slower than mine. Mine is definitely 250 ms long or 15 frames from the time I hit the shortcut. I used the onscreen keyboard viewer to get visual feedback when the shortcut was pressed and recorded audio so I could hear it being pressed. I even recorded it a second time using OBS to ensure I was at 60 fps and trimmed the whole segment dow…

You might not be aware of this, but you are in possession of a secret treasure that many MacOS users desperately want! There is some input display on Macbook Pros, but that'd account for easily I tried changing screen resolution, quitting apps like Rectangle, etc. No dice. In digging more deeply than I had before, I did find some things which were rumored to speed it up. Disabling multi-color preview, and disabling "…

I am hitting ⌃1 or ⌃2 to switch between desktops, not ctrl-arrow.

When reduce motion is turned on in the control panel though, the ctrl-arrow and ctrl-# animations take the same time on my machine (216.6 ms)

I'm doing the same thing you are, holding control and measuring from when I tap the next key.

No ProMotion and only using the internal display. I was running other Macs before this, so there is a chance some configuration crossed over.

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