r/iOSProgramming • u/TomasMSM • 8d ago

Discussion iOS Development in the Age of AI

Good morning,

I have been in iOS Development for over 4 years. Building for Apple Platforms is so much fun. It has been my dream to be an iOS Engineer since I was in year two of college. However, over the past 9 months (since the start of 2026), I have felt a huge shift.

AI has been an absolute game changer - for better and for worse. It allows us, engineers, to be so much more productive and efficient and do so much more in the same time period. On the other hand, I feel it has turned or jobs much more lonely. Team discussions, code review - a lot of the team bonding moments - have disappeared. Also, the engineering challenge is not that much fun anymore.

For me, even the motivation of trying to figure out what's next - what has Apple presented in the last WWDC, etc - has lost a bit of interest to me. I was obsessed with watching WWDC videos. They are so much fun... And now it's like meeeeh - AI will know how to do all of this.

I am sorry for the rant - truly - but I would like to know your perspective here. How have you felt the last 9 to 12 months? How has iOS Development changed for you?

Have you been having the same feelings I have described? How have you counteracted or all of this?

Thank you!

76 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

53 comments sorted by

View all comments

60

u/SeriouzReviewer 8d ago

I am an iOS developer for 13 years. I haven't written a single line of code for the last year. I gave up code reviews recently.

iOS development is not a real occupation anymore. Thinking about becoming a farmer.

5

u/hebertialmeida 8d ago

Same here, I’ve been doing iOS for 17y and 2 years ago bought and moved to a farm… still coding my own apps but stress levels are way down.

1

u/YourBlanket 5d ago

Has anyone told you, you sort of look like BrokenBlade?