[instagary]

I tried Zed, and it felt similar to VSCode. I know there are multiplayer features that are better than live share, but on the surface, I needed convincing to switch.

I would be more inclined to use Zed if it could displace XCode. It pains me to use it from deleting derived data or cleaning the build folder to random crashes.

Contrasting the DX to Android Studio, it's night and day. I always wanted an Android studio-like experience for iOS development.

[mitemte]

AppCode was more or less Android Studio for iOS. Both are based on IntelliJ. It’s a shame AppCode was recently discontinued.

[pm]

Xcode and Android Studio have plenty of warts. What is it about Android Studio's experience that you find lacking in Xcode?

[instagary]

Part of me thinks it could be related to our project using CocoaPods. I've always appreciated how nicely Gradle worked to install dependencies, and the DX always lacked in Xcode. SPM works similarly, but I have yet to try it on a medium-sized codebase. So, my frustration could be related to CocoaPods.

Apart from package managers, I like the auto-import features for frameworks in Android Studio. As well as the "fix it" UX, which is similar to VSCodes. Having an integrated terminal is something Xcode still lacks, and maybe a better UX than a Plist to configure projects; I know XcodeGen/Tuist and other tools exist, but something built-in would be nice for fast project config.

[jwells89]

From personal experience, SPM is much smoother in moderately complex projects. Gradle (and to a lesser extent, Android Studio) drives me a special kind of crazy, especially when a project has sat for a while and Gradle updates have accumulated and Gradle version compatibility of dependencies has diverged.

This is somewhat exacerbated by the need to import so many libraries in Android projects. My Mac/iOS projects have between a fourth and sixth as many dependencies as their Android counterparts.

CocoaPods though… ugh. Horrible. Was thrilled to part ways with it several years ago.