Apple previews Xcode 27 with AI coding agents, Device Hub, and SwiftUI improvements

Apple has unveiled Xcode 27, introducing a range of new developer tools designed to speed up app development, testing, localization, and performance optimization. The update places a major focus on AI-powered coding agents, alongside new device management features and improvements across Swift, SwiftUI, and Instruments.

One of the biggest additions is support for coding agents directly within Xcode. Developers can use agents throughout the development process, whether creating an early prototype, implementing features, or refining a finished app. Apple says the coding assistant can handle repetitive tasks while allowing developers to focus on architecture, design, and user experience.

Apple has also expanded localization tools in Xcode 27. Coding agents can now help add new languages, update string catalogs, translate content, and even generate language-specific plural variations, helping developers bring their apps to more users around the world.

A new Device Hub brings physical devices and simulators together in a single location within Xcode. Developers can inspect device states, reproduce issues more easily, and streamline testing workflows without leaving their development environment.

Apple has also improved Instruments, making it easier to diagnose app responsiveness and performance issues. Updates to the Swift Concurrency instrument provide greater visibility into async task scheduling, actor contention, and thread usage. New enhancements to Time Profiler, System Trace, and comparison tools help developers identify bottlenecks and measure the impact of changes before shipping updates.

Alongside Xcode 27, Apple previewed Swift 6.4. The update includes simplified availability syntax with any Apple OS, a new attribute for warning control, support for asynchronous code in defer statements, improved iteration support for noncopyable types, and Foundation performance gains, including URL parsing speeds up to four times faster. Swift Testing also gains interoperability with XCTest to make migrations easier.

Apple is also bringing significant improvements to SwiftUI. Xcode 27 includes new AI agent skills designed to help developers adopt the latest SwiftUI APIs and best practices automatically.

New SwiftUI features include expanded toolbar customization controls, allowing developers to prioritise important actions, create permanent overflow menus, and automatically minimise navigation bars during scrolling. Apple has also introduced a more powerful Document API, offering asynchronous document reading and writing, progress reporting, and multiple document creation workflows.

Additional SwiftUI enhancements include drag-and-drop reordering support across more container types, swipe actions for any ScrollView, simplified presentation APIs for alerts and dialogs, and performance improvements. AsyncImage now supports HTTP caching by default, while changes to ViewBuilder and data flow management help reduce build times and improve app performance.

Xcode 27 is available now in beta for developers, with a public release expected later this year alongside Apple’s latest software updates.