Claude in Xcode: A Developer’s First Impressions

Today I spent some time exploring Anthropic’s Claude integration directly inside Xcode. After writing about the pain points of developing mobile apps with AI, I was hoping a tighter IDE integration would solve a lot of those issues. The idea is compelling: an AI coding assistant that lives in your IDE, understands your codebase, and helps you write and debug code without context-switching. Here’s where it shines and where it falls short.

What Works Well

When I was building a personal iOS app (a focus timer with gamification elements), Claude could read my current file, search across my project, make precise edits, and suggest idiomatic Swift. When I had a scope error referencing EnhancedFocusTimerView, Claude found the actual view was named FocusTimerView and fixed it instantly.

The Swift-first mentality is solid. It consistently recommends modern Swift Concurrency, SwiftUI patterns, and Apple frameworks. For a pure Swift/SwiftUI project with everything in the Xcode workspace, this integration is genuinely excellent.

Where It Falls Short

The core limitation: Claude can only access files within the Xcode workspace. This creates problems at every level.

Cross-Platform Is a No-Go

For React Native, Flutter, or any cross-platform project, most of your code lives outside the .xcworkspace. Claude only sees the ios/ directory. Your TypeScript source, business logic, package config, and build setup are all invisible. This extends to monorepos, hybrid architectures, and anything with shared code in parent directories.

Even Pure Native Projects Have Gaps

  • No build output or console access. Can’t see compiler errors or runtime logs without copy-pasting
  • No simulator interaction. Zero visibility into what’s actually rendering on device
  • No SwiftUI Preview awareness. Can’t see if previews are rendering or crashing
  • Build scripts, server-side code, and documentation outside Xcode are all inaccessible

The Verdict

For pure Apple platform development: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (4/5). Genuinely useful. Solid Swift knowledge, tight integration, speeds up native development.

For React Native / Cross-platform: ⭐ (1/5). Essentially unusable. Can’t access the code that matters.

For hybrid/complex projects: ⭐⭐ (2/5). You’ll constantly hit walls.

Final Thoughts

This feels like a v1 product built for Apple’s ideal customer, pure Swift/SwiftUI developers, that hasn’t figured out the messy reality of modern app development. Most iOS developers I know are also integrating backends, managing React Native bridges, and working in monorepos.

If you are building pure native Apple apps, give it a shot. It’s genuinely good at what it does. It just doesn’t do enough yet.

This post was written on February 5, 2026. The irony of using Claude to help write a critique of Claude is not lost on me. 😄