whats new in xcode

At WWDC 2024, Apple introduced several new features and improvements in Xcode 16. Here are some of the highlights:

1. Code Completion: Xcode 16 features an innovative new engine for code completion, powered by a model specifically trained for Swift and Apple SDKs. This engine uses your project symbols to customize suggestions and runs locally on your Mac, ensuring privacy and fast results. This is part of a broader effort to infuse Xcode with generative models, enhancing productivity and creativity in app development.

2. Swift 6: A new language mode in Swift 6 provides concurrency safety guarantees, turning data races into compile-time issues, which improves the correctness and safety of your code.

3. Previews and Builds: Xcode Previews now use a dynamic linking architecture, which avoids rebuilding your project when switching between previews and builds. This results in a smoother workflow. Additionally, explicit modules are introduced to improve parallelism, diagnostics, and debugging without changing code.

4. Debugging and Performance: The thread performance checker now surfaces runtime issues, and the organizer provides diagnostics for excessive disk writes and slow app launches. A new flame graph in Instruments offers deeper insights into app performance.

5. Swiftassist: This new feature acts as a coding companion, providing assistance with coding tasks while ensuring privacy and security, as your code is not stored on servers.

For more detailed information, you can refer to the session "What’s new in Xcode 16" and the "Platforms State of the Union" session.