I actually continue to use Xcode (in vim mode now that they have that) purely because of the way tabs work… in Vim and Xcode I’m able to have the same file open across multiple tabs and window-tabs, allowing me to arrange sets of files for particular tasks. But in VS Code it sends me to another window when I want to view a file next to another one, just because it’s already open elsewhere. I can’t stand this behavior as it slows me down and breaks my ability to see the files I want to see next to each other without many extra steps to rearrange things over and over. A ticket requesting this behavior change has been open for years with no progress.

I mean you can stay in VSCode for most activities if you hate Xcode that much (I can relate btw). Plugins like Sweetpad make this possible. My approach now is to develop all logic in small Swift packages and run swift test in VSCode (or Claude Code), so I only absolutely need Xcode for debugging and building releases. Every once in a while I try SwiftUI previews, but those are usually broken anyways.

What is special about it besides the IDE integration? It is a bunch of markdown files with a search tool. It has no agentic capability so it is far behind state of the art dev tooling. Apple devs internally use Claude Code.