What’s new in Xcode 26?

Xcode 26 introduces several new features and improvements to enhance developer productivity and app performance. Here are some of the highlights:

Predictive Code Completion: Xcode 26 continues to improve its Predictive Code Completion, which uses a local model on Apple Silicon to provide intelligent suggestions based on your project and coding style. This feature helps developers write code more efficiently by offering context-aware suggestions.
Debugging Enhancements: Debugging Swift concurrency code is now easier with improvements that allow Xcode to follow execution into asynchronous functions, even if it requires switching threads. The debugger UI now shows task IDs and provides easy-to-read representations of concurrency types like tasks, task groups, and actors.
UI Testing Upgrades: Xcode's UI testing has been significantly upgraded with a new code generation system for UI Automation Recording. This makes it easier to implement UI tests by recording interactions and generating test code automatically.
Build System Improvements: Xcode 26 enables explicitly built modules for Swift code by default, improving build efficiency and reliability. This feature optimizes the build pipeline by separating the processing of each compilation unit into distinct phases.
Voice Control and Accessibility: Xcode 26 improves support for voice control, allowing developers to dictate Swift code and navigate the interface entirely by voice. This makes Xcode more accessible to developers with limited use of the keyboard.
Localization Tools: To aid in app localization, Xcode 26 can automatically generate usage description comments in the string catalog, providing the right context for accurate translation.
Smaller Download Size: Xcode 26 is 24% smaller than previous versions, with optimizations that reduce the download size and improve loading performance.

For more detailed information, you can watch the session What’s new in Xcode (00:00:00).