The State of Agentic iOS Engineering in 2026 | by Thomas Ricouard | Medium

[Sitemap](https://dimillian.medium.com/sitemap/sitemap.xml) [Open in app](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.medium.reader&referrer=utm_source%3DmobileNavBar&source=post_page---top_nav_layout_nav-----------------------------------------) Sign up [Sign in](https://medium.com/m/signin?operation=login&redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fdimillian.medium.com%2Fthe-state-of-agentic-ios-engineering-in-2026-c5f0cbaa7b34&source=post_page---top_nav_layout_nav-----------------------global_nav------------------) [Medium Logo](https://medium.com/?source=post_page---top_nav_layout_nav-----------------------------------------) Get app [Write](https://medium.com/m/signin?operation=register&redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fmedium.com%2Fnew-story&source=---top_nav_layout_nav-----------------------new_post_topnav------------------) [Search](https://medium.com/search?source=post_page---top_nav_layout_nav-----------------------------------------) Sign up [Sign in](https://medium.com/m/signin?operation=login&redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fdimillian.medium.com%2Fthe-state-of-agentic-ios-engineering-in-2026-c5f0cbaa7b34&source=post_page---top_nav_layout_nav-----------------------global_nav------------------)  [Mastodon](https://mastodon.social/@dimillian) You're reading for free via [Thomas Ricouard's](https://dimillian.medium.com/?source=post_page-----c5f0cbaa7b34---------------------------------------) Friend Link. [Become a member](https://medium.com/m/signin?operation=register&redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fdimillian.medium.com%2Fthe-state-of-agentic-ios-engineering-in-2026-c5f0cbaa7b34&source=-----c5f0cbaa7b34---------------------post_friend_link_meter------------------) to access the best of Medium. Member-only story # The State of Agentic iOS Engineering in 2026 ## My perspective on AI-driven programming, workflows, and tooling [](https://dimillian.medium.com/?source=post_page---byline--c5f0cbaa7b34---------------------------------------) [Thomas Ricouard](https://dimillian.medium.com/?source=post_page---byline--c5f0cbaa7b34---------------------------------------) Follow 22 min read · Jan 1, 2026 1K 11 [Listen](https://medium.com/m/signin?actionUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fmedium.com%2Fplans%3Fdimension%3Dpost_audio_button%26postId%3Dc5f0cbaa7b34&operation=register&redirect=https%3A%2F%2Fdimillian.medium.com%2Fthe-state-of-agentic-ios-engineering-in-2026-c5f0cbaa7b34&source=---header_actions--c5f0cbaa7b34---------------------post_audio_button------------------) Share Press enter or click to view image in full size  2025 was an AI-packed year, at least in my case. I don’t recall precisely how many times I changed my workflow, but I did experiment extensively. All in all, I can say that I’ve never worked so much and yet so little at the same time. You’ll understand what it means a bit later on. Keeping up with AI trends is a full-time job, and I’m happy doing it. I’ve been motivated every day to improve my workflow, learn about new tooling, and overall improve my efficiency. It’s improving so fast, and as Andrej Karpathy [said](https://x.com/karpathy/status/2004621825180139522?s=20), “People who aren’t keeping up even over the last 30 days already have a deprecated worldview on this topic.” I agree with this statement. I’m not saying you have to, but I love being busy and learning, so keeping up with all this is just one of the things that bring me joy. This article serves as a comprehensive 2025 debrief; the order of the sections doesn’t matter much, and I hope you’ll find a wealth of information about my workflow, agentic iOS programming, opinions, and much more, extending beyond our iOS world. ## The Deprecation of Xcode as a Text Editor As iOS developers, we’re used to Xcode, but let me get this straight: I probably spent only 2% of my time actually in Xcode last year. The only savior was the [GitHub Copilot extension](https://github.com/github/CopilotForXcode). It allows you to get a Cursor-like experience, with fast and relevant AI completion on tab press within Xcode. _When I say I’m not using Xcode extensively, I mean the Xcode text editor; iOS agentic workflow depends on many Xcode components accessed outside of Xcode, such as Swift LSP for Cursor Swift code highlighting and navigation to work, Xcodebuild for building, etc…_  However, recent updates have cluttered it with weird and broken UI choices, and you must disable most of the features to achieve a satisfactory experience. However, I invite you to try it; it’s probably the most comfortable setup if you want or need to stay within Xcode and enjoy this new AI-assisted programming world