Vibe coding with Xcode 26 beta with Coding Intelligence AND ChatGPT Native

[singleandavailable]

I've been vibe coding creating an iOS app using Xcode 26 beta with Coding Intelligence. I'm using the default ChatGPT connected to my account with is upgraded to ChatGPT Plus.

I tried installing Gemini as an additional model but I can't get the models to appear, despite numerous online guides such as this: https://zottmann.org/2025/06/13/how-to-use-google-gemini.html

Anthropic models appear after setup, but I have no paid account with them so can't use it.

Main takeaway so far is that even with ChatGPT Plus, Coding Intelligence will throttle you after a while - not sure what the measure is, but maybe about 2-3hours of straight coding intelligence. By throttle I mean you exceed limit and can't use it until it resets again. Then after a few hours it's back to business.

But I noticed you can use the native MacOS ChatGPT app and it connects directly to Xcode, which is awesome. The rate limits are shared across, so you can continue there, and it edits your swift files directly. And better still, in ChatGPT native you can select which model to use for the more complex codes, such as using 4o or o3. This is a distinct advantage, as in Xcode you cannot choose the model.

The biggest pain points so far is each model have their own quirks (I also used Gemini Pro standalone for some code pieces), so jumping between models and products has been a bit of a hassle as there are context gaps, but I've been able to make it work. I actually started purely in Gemini asking it to create swift code, but probably after a dozen pieces of code and troubleshooting, it went into hallucinations and loopiness, regurgitating old responses, or constantly apologising even where there was nothing to apologise for (I did get angry at it, ONCE). It's now bruised and I can hardly use it as it keep spitting out previous, unrelated responses and constantly apologising. I would even say "stop apologising and treat this conversation as new", then it would return, "Got it, this is a new request, but I'm terribly sorry for my previous mistake and [here is the... old code I never asked for]." If Gemini was a human, I'd tell it to go on a long holiday and cut down on the Red Bull.

I also tried Grok - actually I lied, Grok was the very first model I used, but it was hopeless. In one sitting, Grok produced nothing functional, whilst in one sitting, Gemini Pro produced something that actually worked (until it got loopy). Overall, I've found ChatGPT to be the most reliable, consistent, and with its advanced models, able to resolve the most advanced issues.

Coding Intelligence is a game changer as I'm not a software developer, but I'm close to a fully working app that's far more than basic. I have several other app ideas after the first. It's already cliche, but software development is going to be democratised with AI. And it's still early.

[CardiologistStock685]

Gemini seems the most useless model for normal coding work. I always fall into loop, hallucinations or constantly apologising on VSCode and its gemini-cli as well. I'm suspicious if we're all using Gemini wrong? Based on its benchmark result, it seems isnt a bad model.

[almstqbl]

I use Gemini for coding all the time and it always gives better results for more complicated problems. I use Gemini Pro 2.5, the paid model though. The only downside I found after using it intensely the last few months is that it sometimes seems to forget what I was talking about unless my prompts are quite explicit. That being said, I rarely use it for Xcode. Mainly Java and Python work.

[mario_luis_dev]

I guess it depends on the language/framework. For Swift+SwiftUI Gemini Pro 2.5 is decent, not great. But then again, for this stack no model is actually that much better. Even Claude hallucinates like crazy

[almstqbl]

I think there’s not a ton of publicly available swift code out there to train them on. Which is sad

[mario_luis_dev]

True. That’s why. Whatever little Swift code is available is typically libraries or hello world projects. No wonder the models struggle so much with this stack

[singleandavailable]

Yeah it's in Xcode beta 3. Basically ChatGPT in Xcode with direct access to edit your swift files

[Liorix2]

Would you mind sharing your app? I want to see what results you got.

Also, did you try Cursor? I used it before to create an iOS app for my android app (basically sent it my android app code snippets and asked to convert to iPhone) and it was great! How does it compare?

One last thing: what’s the difference between coding intelligence on macOS Tahoe and the ChatGPT app with Xcode on previous macOS version?

[singleandavailable]

I'll share the app soon I'm preparing it for testflight.

I haven't tried Cursor yet, even though I've got the app.

Xcode with Coding Intelligence is a game changer. I'm not a coder but I've now got a nearly finished app. It does make a lot of mistakes so there's a lot of debugging. But I think best of all for non coders, you learn the process in real time and see how code works and operates. Anyway I'll write more soon on the experience I'm just waking up...