Xcode 4+
Developer Tools
Apple
-
- Free
Screenshots
Description
Xcode offers the tools you need to develop, test, and distribute apps for Apple platforms, including predictive code completion, generative intelligence powered by the best coding models, advanced profiling and debugging tools, and simulators for Apple devices. It enables a unified workflow that spans from the earliest stages of app development to testing, debugging, optimization, and app distribution to testers and users. And with the Swift programming language, Xcode makes developing apps easy and fun.
Simulator enables rapid prototyping and testing of your app in a simulated environment when a real device isn't available. Instruments helps you profile and analyze your app, improve performance, and investigate system resource usage. And you can use Icon Composer to design stunning layered icons out of Liquid Glass, Reality Composer Pro to create spatial content, train custom machine learning models with Create ML, and identify potential accessibility issues with Accessibility Inspector.
To test or run applications on an Apple device, all you need is a free Apple ID. To submit your apps to the App Store, you must be a member of the Apple Developer Program. Some features may require internet access and may not be available in all regions or on all Apple devices.
What’s New
Version 26.0
Xcode 26 includes Swift 6.2 and SDKs for iOS 26, iPadOS 26, tvOS 26, watchOS 26, visionOS 26, and macOS 26.
Enhance your development workflow with coding intelligence features that help you write code, generate tests and documentation, fix errors, refactor existing implementations, and navigate codebases. Xcode has integrated support for ChatGPT and Claude user accounts. You can also use your API key for any model provider that supports the Chat Completions API, or download and run a local model on Macs with Apple silicon.
• Interact with code using natural language in the coding assistant, with automatic context gathering, conversation history, and file attachment support.
• Coding Tools provide contextual actions to quickly generate documentation, explain highlighted code, generate previews and playgrounds, and make inline changes.
• Predictive code completion is faster and uses more context from your code, all running locally.
Also in Xcode 26:
• The #Playground macro enables interactive debugging and code exploration in the preview panel.
• Icon Composer streamlines icon creation from a single design with adjustable depth properties and dynamic lighting effects, and offers customization across Default, Dark, and Mono rendering modes.
• A redesigned tab experience simplifies navigation with features like in-tab navigation and pinning to keep files in focus.
• Compilation Caching accelerates build times with performance improvements when switching between branches or performing clean builds.
• New instruments enhance app analysis with Processor Trace capturing every function call, SwiftUI for view profiling, Power Profiler for battery and thermal analysis, and CPU Counters for identifying performance bottlenecks.
• Swift concurrency debugging follows execution across asynchronous functions and threads with readable concurrency type representations and enhanced visibility for task properties and relationships.
• String Catalogs simplify localization with type-safe Swift symbols for direct string access, autocomplete support, and AI-generated contextual comments using on-device intelligence.
• Voice Control now supports code dictation in Swift with syntax-aware recognition and automatic formatting.
Ratings and Reviews
Great product, but suggestions...
I've been using Xcode for the past several years, I want to leave a comment that this is a great product. Although I am not sayting that the IDE itself and the graphical whatever editing tricks are great. I focus more on the frameworks, libraries, supprt, tools and the integrated package that tranforms a mac to a development machine, and Apple has consistently been great at supporting the development on OS X (macOS). The suggestion might be to provide an integrated end-to-end pakcage that becomes the ultimate development environment so I won't have to install 3rd party packaging systems, library systems, extra-IDEs for different languages, and dozens of emulation, environment, and differnet packages and dependencies for differnet tasks. Putting everything in Xocde seems a bad idea to increase the size (and responsiveness) of the software but it is much better than the overhead of doing fancy stuff and launching dozens of programs just to start working (which takes up lots of concurrency resources which a dual-core laptop I am using might not be the best choice).
Not perfect, but close enough
There are a few things I don't like about Xcode, but as a whole, it is the best totally free option for iOS development. Better yet, it is totally native. I am an amateur developer, and I have really enjoyed working on Xcode. I recommend giving it a try. The documentation is great and there are a lot of really helpful support videos from non-Apple supported persons, just trying to lend a hand.
I started, knowing nothing about Xcode or Swift, and punched out my first iOS app in less than a month. I was extremely nervous, having all my programmer friends telling me that apple was really strict when reviewing applications. I took the precautions of reading through the Apple documentation before hand, shockingly, my first application went through without a hitch and was on the App Store within 48 hours of submission.
I will admit to using an online class to learn the basics, it was very helpful in getting me familiar with the Xcode environment. I can't provide specifics since I don't know how Apple will feel about promoting someone else's work on a review.
Everything is great, except very large package
If you have 128GB of internal storage it can be very difficult to manage all of that space. There is no way to only install the features you need, as it comes with absolutely everything except iOS simulator images (those download separately). As a result, you either have to store Xcode on an external storage device or live life on the edge. Otherwise this is a truly delightful and complete IDE. Easily worth 5 stars despite its hardware requirements.
UPDATE:
It's gotten even better since Apple Silicon came out. If you're the impatient type you'll love the new Xcode because everything compiles instantly. It takes milliseconds to compile just about anything. We already know their new desktop processors have groundbreaking performance, but it really shows in Xcode. SwiftUI previews take mere milliseconds to build your whole project and produce a preview. And when you run the simulator it instantly loads your app. It's totally surreal how fast it is to develop software with Xcode.
App Privacy
The developer, Apple, indicated that the app’s privacy practices may include handling of data as described below. For more information, see the developer’s privacy policy.
Data Not Linked to You
The following data may be collected but it is not linked to your identity:
- Identifiers
- Usage Data
- Diagnostics
Privacy practices may vary, for example, based on the features you use or your age. Learn More
Information
- Seller
- Apple Inc.
- Size
- 2.9 GB
- Category
- Developer Tools
- Compatibility
-
- Mac
- Requires macOS 15.6 or later.
- Languages
-
English
- Age Rating
- Learn More
- Copyright
- Copyright © 2025 Apple Inc. All rights reserved.
- Price
- Free