Xcode For Mac

Xcode is the go-to IDE for anyone looking to develop applications for Apple devices, and it is available free of charge to all Mac users. It is the easiest way to start programming on a Mac, and pretty much the only sensible choice if you're planning on working with Swift.

While alternatives for Swift development exist, none of them are really superior, and in many cases, Xcode is still your only option. Unless you already have some experience and know for certain that another option would be more suitable, you should probably stick to Xcode.

It offers everything you need to create applications for macOS, iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, and tvOS. Of course, the IDE also supports many other programming languages that are often used together with Swift in app development, and third-party support can be added for more.

SwiftUI makes it much easier than before to create a user interface for your app, with code that can be shared across Apple's entire ecosystem. This makes it simple to, for instance, turn an iPhone app into a macOS app, and the other way around.

Simply designing UIs is a lot more straightforward as well. The declarative syntax takes away much of the difficult work involved, as it usually takes only a few lines of code to add something, and the system makes sure everything runs smoothly.

With the release of Xcode 12, every new and updated application is automatically compiled as a universal binary. You can then test it on both architectures to see if everything is running well and if additional changes need to be made.

For most applications, virtually no effort goes into porting your software to Apple Silicon, though there is a good chance you will see a few new bugs, depending on the project's complexity and purpose.

If you're coding on a Mac, for Macs or other Apple devices, Xcode is by far the best choice. It streamlines app development to an exceptional degree, from the first line of code to publishing on the App Store. It is packed with features and is expertly integrated with Apple's ecosystem.