Xcode 27: What's Actually New

Xcode 27 is out, and Apple finally leaned into AI. First-class support for third-party agents, a standalone Device Hub, MCP servers, and a theme overhaul.

Here's what's new.

First-class support for third-party agents

Open Settings and you'll find a new Intelligence tab. Under Agents, you get three options out of the box:

• Claude by Anthropic, featured at the top
• Codex by OpenAI
• Gemini by Google

These aren't watered-down versions. You get planning, sub-agents, everything you'd do with the agent today, now running inside Xcode. Prefer to stay local? Apple Intelligence is built in too.

Pick your agent and you're talking to it without leaving the editor.

New themes (yes, this one's useful)

Themes got a full revamp with a lot more customization, and inline issues now get a subtler look while you edit.

Start from a preset or build your own. The best part: themes aren't global. Set a different one per workspace and Xcode saves it separately, so each project gets its own look and you know at a glance which one you're in.

Device Hub

Turns out I wasn't the only one wishing for a dedicated app to manage simulators. Apple built it. Device Hub is a standalone Mac app for running your physical devices from your computer and managing every simulator in one place.

It even has a resizable view where you can preview your app across different screen sizes, which, honestly, screams that a foldable iPhone is coming.

MCP servers

MCP lets external agents use Xcode's own tools. Out of the box, Xcode ships with the xcode-tools MCP server, which lets your agent control and act on the simulator directly.

That's the big one: the agent can now verify a feature actually works instead of guessing.

(Video is at 4x speed.)

Where this is all heading

Apple putting Claude, planning, sub-agents, and MCP into Xcode isn't a one-off feature drop. It's the clearest signal yet: knowing how to guide a coding agent through the full lifecycle of an app, from idea to the App Store, is the skill that matters now.

That's the entire reason I wrote my book.

BookFrom Idea to App Store with Claude Code

Build and ship real mobile apps with Claude Code. The mental model you need, from idea to deployment. No coding required.

It's the mental model I wish I had when I started building apps with AI: planning, prompting, saving progress, deploying, and maintaining. Written for anyone who wants to ship a real app without learning to code from scratch.