Whither Swift Assist?
Apple (June 2024):
Swift Assist serves as a companion for all of a developer’s coding tasks, so they can focus on higher-level problems and solutions. It’s seamlessly integrated into Xcode, and knows the latest software development kits (SDKs) and Swift language features, so developers will always get the latest code features that blend perfectly into their projects. With Swift Assist, tasks like exploring new frameworks and experimenting with new ideas are just one request away.
Xcode 16.3 and still no Swift Assist. WWDC25 is around the corner....
Swift Assist was supposed to arrive in 2024, but it never even appeared in a beta. Apple hasn’t announced that it’s postponed or cancelled. It’s not even mentioned in the release notes.
Previously:
- ChatGPT Now Integrates Directly With Xcode
- Apple Delays “More Personalized Siri” Apple Intelligence Features
- Xcode 16.2
- Xcode 16 Announced
Update (2025-03-13): John Gruber (Mastodon):
If anyone else who was in those WWDC briefings remembers whether Swift Assist was actually demoed, please let me know. I’m genuinely curious if Swift Assist was another thing — like all of “more personalized Siri” — that wasn’t even in demonstratable shape at WWDC.
Anyone besides John Voorhees?
See also: Tim Hardwick and John Voorhees.
Update (2025-03-24): Thomas Ricouard:
Swift Assist was teased as the most basic AI feature we could wish for Xcode. Give me some Swift code from a prompt. Everyone and their grandmother is doing that now. Maybe it was still in the “impressive” bucket last year; now, it’s just basic. Now we have Cursor Agent, Windsurf, and the MCP (Model Context Protocol) to make interoperability possible between LLM and tools.
[…]
Sorry, we do have some local auto-completion Xcode model, but it’s not that great. Sure, it runs locally, privacy, yada yada. I personally find the GitHub Xcode extension better. And it’s from MICROSOFT. Do you see the irony?
[…]
Also, we’ll be forever checking isswiftassistavailable.com.
Previously:
2 Comments RSS · Twitter · Mastodon
I was thinking about this the other day when the scam that is 'Apple Intelligence enhanced Siri' was unsurprisingly delayed. I was under the impression that Swift Assist had shipped in Xcode and it was just so inconsequential that I hadn't noticed it.
Reading through the announcement PR again, as Swift Assist is run in the cloud it's likely to be a paid service as I doubt Apple would let you use unlimited cloud resources without some $ paid.
Have actually found the latest Xcode Predictive code completion very helpful when working with lesser touched APIs so perhaps Swift Assist may end up useful too?
I don't think Swift Assist would need to be a paid feature. They could just cap the usage so that it reduces abuse.
