What’s new in Xcode

Key Takeaways

• 📌 “Start Page” tab & pinned tabs

• 🔍 “Search engine”-like search mode

• 🎤 Swift Mode for Voice Control

• 🤖 AI assistance in sidebar & context menu

• 🐛 Improved SwiftUI debugging

• 📹 Improved UI test recording

Optimizations

• Xcode is 24% smaller thanks to getting rid of Intel runtime and Metal (downloaded if needed)

• Faster text input (up to 50% less latency in complex expressions)

• Workspaces laod up to 40% faster

Workspace and editing

Intuitive editor tabs

• New “Start Page” with built-in “Open Quickly” dialog

• Tabs can now be pinned for more control over which & how many tabs are opened

Multiple word search

• New search mode that works like search engines (finds clusters of words)

• Can be used by selecting “Find > Multiple Words” above the search bar

• Matched clusters can span multiple lines and words may appear in any order

Coding by voice

• Use voice control to write Swift code in a natural way

• Automatically figures out spacing, camel-casing, etc.

• Called “Swift mode for Voice Control”

• Say “start listening” and “Swift mode” to turn it on

#Playground macro

• Works like the #Preview macro designed for SwiftUI, but for non-UI code

• Basically the dedicated “Swift Playgrounds” now usable right in your app

• You need to import Playgrounds in order to use the macro

• Data shown in assistant editor is updated live as you make changes to code

• The #Playground macro has been open-sourced for support on other platforms

Icon Composer

• New app bundled with Xcode 26

• Necessary due to the differences in platforms and tinting modes

• All variants in a single .icon file with Icon Composer

• Full range of material effects available (“Liquid Glass”)

• Apply dynamic properties to layers, such as blur, translucency, or shadow

• Can also export flat icons for compatibility or marketing material

Learn more in Say hello to the new look of app icons and Create icons with Icon Composer.

String Catalogs

• New type-safe string symbols with auto-completion for manually defined Strings

• Automatically generated comments using on-device model based on usage context

Learn more: Codealong Explore localization with Xcode

Intelligence

• Xcode can now use models like ChatGPT in a left sidebar for assitance

• Works with both general questions or requested changes done on your behalf

• Takes your code into consideration to answer specific to your project

• For selected code, there’s a “Coding Tools” menu to get assistance for that code

• Model can ask Xcode for additional files while it’s coming up with an answer

• Info button shows context sent to the Model (for transparency)

• Mentioned files in the answer can be clicked to directly navigate to

• Use the @ character to reference symbols/files/issues to focus on

• Attaching files also possible (such as for a UI sketch image)

• Toggle the 􀠎 binoculars icon to turn on/off sharing of project context

• Toggle off the 􀋨 bolt icon if you want to review each change before applying

• You can rewing back to any code state of a conversation step by step

• For compiler errors, there’s a “Generate fix” button that starts the assistant

• Limited number of free ChatGPT requests, sign in for more

• You can add other models with an API URL and API Key (Anthropic supported)

• Local models also supported by specifying port (like Ollama/LM Studio)

• Model chooser with button to mark models as favorites available

Debugging and performance

• Debugger can now follow concurrent logic across threads and show task IDs

• Variables view now also lists details about tasks, task groups, and actors

• When app crashes due to missing privacy usage description, Xcode helps fix it

• Capabilities like “camera usage” now editable directly in “Signing & Capabilities”

• Instruments has higher-fidelity visualization of CPU flow on recent Apple Silicon (M4+/iPhone 16+)

• “Processor Trace” reveals every branch taken and function call for more accurate debugging

• Use updated “CPU Counters” for micro-architecture optimizations (start with “CPU bottlenecks”)

• Updated “SwiftUI” instruments for debugging UI performance issues

• Use timeline to see what’s going on on the main thread

• Use “cause and effect” graph to understand why view updates too often

Learn more in Optimize CPU performance with Instruments and Profile and optimize power usage in your app.

• New 􀙬 “Trending Insights” in the Hangs and Launches diagnostics in the organizer

• Diagnostic reports can shared with collegues using URL sharing

• New “Recommendations” feature inside Metrics compares with other apps & your history

Building

• Explicitly-built modules now active for Swift modules by default

• Faster builds, more reliable, more precise, faster debugging

Learn more: Demystify explicitly built modules

• New open-source “Swift Build” tool available, previewable for packages

• New “Enhanced Security” capability adds additional compile & runtime security protections

Testing

• Significantly improved automatic UI test recording

• Generated code has better match names and allows selecting alternatives

Learn more: Record replay and review UI automation with Xcode

• New XCTHitchmetric to catch hitches, e.g. to test scrolling performance

• More runtime API checks available in tests (configurable as off/warning/failure)