New IDE for Swift: First Look at the Future of iOS/macOS Development

New IDE with Swift Support (iOS/macOS): First Look

The Apple ecosystem has always been known for its closed nature, especially regarding development tools. For many years, Xcode remained the unchallenged standard for creating applications for iOS and macOS. However, the situation is changing: the first full-fledged independent IDE with native Swift support has appeared on the market, which has already attracted the community's attention. Let's take a look at what it has to offer.

What is this tool?

We are talking about a development environment built from the ground up specifically for Swift. Unlike Xcode, which inherits architecture from the 2000s and suffers from a "heavy" interface, the new IDE offers a modern approach:

• Lightning-fast autocomplete — the engine uses SourceKit-LSP but with its own optimizations, making suggestions nearly instantaneous even in projects with thousands of lines of code.
• Built-in SwiftUI Preview — works in real-time without needing recompilation. You change the code — the preview updates in 0.5 seconds.
• Integration with Package Manager — all dependencies are managed visually via drag-and-drop, rather than manually editing Package.swift.

Key Differences from Xcode

The main advantage of the new IDE is its startup speed and responsiveness. While Xcode on large projects can "pause" for 10-15 seconds when switching files, here the delay does not exceed 1-2 seconds. Additionally, the developers have implemented:

• Smart refactoring — renaming symbols with scope awareness, automatic extraction of methods and protocols.
• Built-in debugger — displays memory dumps in a convenient format, supports conditional breakpoints and logging without stopping execution.
• Support for CocoaPods and Carthage — a rare capability for a non-Apple IDE that simplifies migrating existing projects.

Who is it for?

The tool is aimed both at experienced iOS developers tired of Xcode bugs, and at beginners who want to start learning Swift without complex setup. The IDE will be especially useful for teams working in a CI/CD paradigm: built-in Git support and automated tests work "out of the box."

First Impressions and Prospects

Currently, the IDE is in beta testing, but it already shows stable work with projects on Swift 5.9 and SwiftUI. The developers promise support for Objective-C and mixed projects by the release. Of course, it is still far from completely replacing Xcode — there is no support for Metal, SpriteKit, and some specific Apple frameworks. But for 80% of everyday tasks, the new environment is already ready.

If you want to try something new and speed up your workflow — this is an excellent candidate. You can download the beta version on the project's official website. Stay tuned for updates on PythonLib — we will continue to tell you about the most interesting tools for developers.