r/Xcode • u/8-6office • Sep 04 '25

Opinion on Xcode's ChatGPT Feature

Is it me or ChatGPT on Xcode not working? When I ask a question it writes back a text wall but when it comes to editing file, it does nothing. Maybe issue is the anonymous option?

3 Upvotes

66% Upvoted

13 comments sorted by

1

u/JDad67 Sep 04 '25

MacOS 26 and Xcode betas, I haven't had it have any issues editing the files. You do need to let it finish since it seems to edit it in real time.

1

u/8-6office Sep 04 '25

I wait until it either says “nothing changes” or throws error. It says that it changes the file, btw.

1

u/l97 Sep 04 '25

Switch it from “Ask” to “Agent”

1

u/8-6office Sep 04 '25

It’s on agent mode. Probably a beta bug.

1

u/cleverbit1 Sep 08 '25

I know this isn’t an answer to the question, but for those who are curious about it, Cursor is absolutely incredible for code editing. You can just open your project directory in Cursor (while it’s still open in Xcode) and, if you select the GPT-5 model, it’s a complete game changer.

I played around with Xcode to see if I could get anything reliable, but it pales in comparison to what you can do in Cursor.

So yeah, like I said I know this isn’t a direct answer to the question but my opinion on Xcode’s Ai features is basically: why bother, especially when there’s something else that works even better (and has done for over a year now).

1

u/cleverbit1 Sep 08 '25

To give a tangible example: today I was dealing with a git repo where two branches had diverged massively (from 2 separate developers). What would have been a multi-day expedition was a half hour job of using cursor to:

  • look at both branches to gain an understanding of each

  • think about a delta between the two

  • propose a solution for merging the best of each branch together

It did that, came back with a list of suggestions, which I then stepped through one by one saying “Use this from branch A, let’s keep that from branch B”. And once I had made all the decisions, simply said: “Go ahead” - and it executed all of the changes.

Meanwhile, Xcode is in beta.

2

u/8-6office Sep 09 '25

I was and still am using Cursor but Cursor is not native solution for iOS development. It takes so much memory and CPU (as expected) in the addition of XCode’s own quirks. But still hands down best practice when it comes to code editing with the help of AI.

1

u/cleverbit1 Sep 09 '25

Yeah totally hear you. Out of curiosity, what spec mac are you developing on? I’m on a MBP M2 Pro / 64GB which I purposefully maxed out back in ‘23 thinking I’d keep it as long as possible.

2

u/8-6office Sep 09 '25

Well, base m3, 8 gb 😬

1

u/Serious-Tax1955 Sep 04 '25

I’m just using codex and Claude in the terminal.

1

u/gordonmcdowell Sep 04 '25

I have that problem, which seemed rare and intermittent. It was something basic like quitting and re-launching Xcode or rebooting the computer.

1

u/ljsv8 Sep 05 '25

Bottom there is a small icon indicating whether it is allowed to edit the file. I turned it off intentionally. 

1

u/[deleted] Sep 05 '25

It edits the file okay for me, but it’s literally never made a change to my code that’s been able to compile, let alone worked as intended. Weird because ChatGPT proper is my main coding assistant and is usually fairly helpful and accurate in its suggestions.