work well

As an iPhone and Android developer, I am very familiar with Xcode and Android Studio. I think the most useful review is one comparing the two. Compared to Android Studio, Xcode needs constant updates to run, requires more memory, and is miserably documented. Every time I need to issue an update to an iPhone app I am disappointed, because it requires firing up this app, being told I need to waste hours updating before I can do anything, and then fixing the inevitable incompatibilities that arise. I wish I could use anything else… but of course, Apple is a closed ecosystem so we’re stuck with whatever they decide to put out. Always frustrating.

I’ve been using Xcode since 2002. It’s sad to see how the app has stagnated. Things that have been bad or broken from the beginning times of the app store, like device provisioning, have been made better but still far from good. I can’t provision my Apple Watch no matter that I try. The build settings are still a disaster. Yes they have added a bunch of nice GUI on top of entitlements. However, try to figure out why the API doesn’t work with your current device. File handling still doesn’t make much sense. Folders can be real or not, in several ways and those details mater since, they effect how things are compiled. Don’t get me started on Swift dependencies. XCode is trying to do too many things and serve to many different needs, and fails at most of them. Trying to get any thing fixed by filing a Radar is incredibly frustrating. It’s just a black hole. Unless you join the company and look up the Radar from inside any find it duped with 107 others and makers “will not fix”.

We need the iOS Simulator as an independent app! :)

My team and I develop both native iOS and Android apps for our job. In the past, we would always prefer to do the iOS coding because Android Studio was so terrible to work with. Now we prefer Android Studio because Xcode keeps getting worse with each update. Xcode startup, builds, and Swift Package Manager are horribly slow. We’ve found it’s best to close the project before changing branches - otherwise there’s a good chance you’ll be waiting another chunk of time, because SPM somehow forgot all the third party libraries. What prompted this review is ALL the keyboard shortcuts stop working, even after restarting Xcode. To be clear, Android Studio hasn’t gotten any better. But for sure, Xcode has gotten WAY WORSE!

Web extensions no longer populate under the safari extension pane. If I’m lucky enough to ever see that happen there’s a bug where every file shows as “unable to find”. This has been going on for months.

It crashes too often for me.

Xcode is, by far, the slowest IDE I’ve ever used. Even on a M3 MacBook Pro it is ridiculously slow. It takes a few seconds to recognize that I’m typing. The app preview crashes often. Plus, the autocomplete code suggestions are wrong and will put things in your code that don’t build. It lacks simple features, like giving information about a method or property when hovering over it. I’m wanting to learn Swift for a simple little project, but I’m finding Xcode so frustrating to work with that I’m considering building my app in something like React Native.

The iOS simulator is fantastic when it works. But man upgrading this stuff just breaks everything. Xcode is super irritating and disorganized in where places are installed and accessible.

genuinely think it’s a scam. here I am, the very weird dude at the coffee shop who approaches you when you’re clearly in your phone, to tell you about it: At some point, Apple realized they could slow the development of all competing products by simply provisioning, with first-class accessibility & visibility, something which would be ignorantly presumed to benefit from vertical integration. it’s an absurd hog of memory and CPU. It is extremely slow to perform extremely simple tasks. There is no doubt that this thing is running extraordinarily inefficient algorithms on extraordinarily bloated & numerous subjects. you actually just can’t use it for a moderately complex project unless you’ve got an M1+ and even then you’re going to be dreading your work unless you are strategically working against it’s own habits. Nothing can or will be done without extensive pigeon-holing to ensure your previews are encapsulated enough to be updated in reasonable time. I think there is other evidence that it is an attempt at sabotage - xibs, storyboards, schemes and targets. The confusion of natural ideation with the actual mechanics of putting text onto a page, or with putting text onto a page with the creation of views, or of settings for building with settings for how a build will be used - in a manner that is so oddly antagonistic that you’ll wonder what genius designed such an opponent. it’s rly something. I recall as an undergrad texting a friend “this is great!!!” about Eclipse in 2013. I was just about to discover RStudio, Emacs, and VSCode. I was about to become a programmer who understood how valuable IDEs could be. I did not even know how good I had it. Somehow, in 2025, I’ll be using a tool which is vastly inferior to most open-source tools produced by the most valuable company in the world.