Copilot and iOS Development

Jon Vogel
2 min readApr 16, 2023

Simple tricks I have picked up from actual use.

I wanted to use an AI Code generation tool for my iOS development. After some reading, I settled on Git Hub Copilot. There were options to install an Xcode extension from several git hub repositories, but the process appeared a little involved. It was reasonably easy to set up Git Hub Copilot, especially since the start-up I work for was willing to pay for it. I encountered a minor issue getting Visual Studio Code to see the active enterprise subscription.

My first tip is to keep both IDEs open simultaneously. I’m doing this on a Mac, so I use Mission Control to assign Visual Studio Code and Xcode to two virtual desktops. I then can four-finger swipe between them to change my IDE quickly.

I use Visual Studio Code for AI-augmented coding and Xcode to check for buildability. I want to work the code generation into my process without slowing down my daily coding output. Having the two tools open and quickly switching accomplishes this. Copilot has sped me up in some places and slowed me down in others. Of course, the more I use it, the better I get at prompts and the more valuable the tool becomes.

When I initially opened my project with Visual Studio Code, VS Code needed some time to develop suggestions.

--

--

Jon Vogel
Jon Vogel

Written by Jon Vogel

I contribute to the start-up grind in Seattle as an iOS Engineer. I also used to fly airplanes.

No responses yet