- Workspace
- Projects and files
- Intelligence
- Device Hub
- Updates to post development workflow
Workspace
The workspace got a brand new toolbar.
Build Activity has moved below the project title.
There is a new entry point for the coding agent right from the toolbar, and the scheme and destination selectors are now middle-aligned.
The Git branch picker moved to the bottom so it can show the full branch name.
There are new themes, and they can now be set differently for each project or workspace. One handy use case is distinguishing between two worktrees of the same project.
Warnings and errors are now surfaced more subtly while editing.
Projects and files
There is a new project creation flow — the previous template picker is no longer the default window, though you can still access it.
When you create an app from the new entry point, it starts as Untitled and asks for a name when you exit or close the project, just like other document-based apps. It also starts your app without a team ID or bundle ID, and by default targets iPhone, iPad, and Mac.
Opening a Swift file now opens it as a workspace you can build — imagine some SwiftUI code that you can preview on simulator or device and run a playground view for.
One thing I noticed while trying this out is that Xcode adds a comment to the Swift file — I'm guessing to remember the last selected SDK.
Intelligence
The focus this year was on improving the integration to be able to handle parallel agent tasks and conversations.
The AI sidebar has become a complete editor view.
Agent Q&A prompts now render as a structured native popup with hierarchical nesting.
The markdown files generated by agents are now rendered side by side with the conversation, making it easier to review the plans.
That same side-by-side view shows the changes — or any other artifacts the AI generates as part of the conversation — being made to your files.
There is a new conversation list that helps manage multiple agents running in parallel, and you can group conversations into groups.
For more on AI in Xcode, watch Xcode, agents, and you.
Device Hub
An all-new Device Hub replaces the Simulator app. It handles both simulators and connected physical devices, and silently adds the ability to not only control iPhone and iPad but, to some extent, control tvOS, watchOS, and visionOS devices.
The Device Hub also lets us test for resizability on iPhone (by this point we already know the foldables are coming…).
One unique thing I noticed is that it makes it much easier to add and check certs and profiles for both devices and simulators.
There is an entire session on the Device Hub — watch Get the most out of Device Hub.
Updates to the post-development workflow
The post-development cycle got a lot of attention this year — so much so that this session reserved half its time for showcasing the capabilities of Xcode AI Localization, Instruments, and Organizer.
Localization
AI-based localization that uses Xcode tools to create localization dictionaries.
There are more sessions on AI Localization worth watching:
Updates to Organizer
There is a new overview page in Organizer, surfacing issues from both reports and metrics.
New metrics tracking for storage and hitches. If only the storage metric had been here earlier, I wouldn't have had to build StorageAnalyser (which I never got a chance to open source).
Scroll Hitches is now replaced by a more general Hitches metric that tracks animation hitches, which includes scroll animations.
Last year, Organizer started showing recommendations for launch time. This year, Organizer rebranded it to metric goals, which includes more metrics — hang rate, disk writes, battery, storage, and hitches, alongside launch time from before.
There is AI-guided analysis of performance reports like launch time and hitches, as well as for crashes.
By clicking Generate Analysis, it explores the codebase, goes through the crash backtrace, pinpoints the code that resulted in the crash, and suggests a fix — which you can ask it to apply as well.
Updates to Instruments
Top Functions helps the probable function calls causing a degradation jump out fast.
There are more updates and features discussed in these sessions:
- Debug and profile agentic app experiences with Instruments
- Profile, fix, and verify: Improve app responsiveness with Instruments
Updates to Xcode Cloud
There is new, easier onboarding to Xcode Cloud.
For a deeper dive, watch Build, deliver, and automate with Xcode Cloud.