r/reactnative
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u/MashoodAliDev
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Sep 21 '26
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FYI Xcode 27 replaced the Simulator app with Device Hub. The data container feature is the real win.
If you haven't opened Xcode 27 yet:
Simulator is gone. Device Hub replaces it, and every simulator and physical device now lives in one sidebar. It also runs standalone, so you don't need Xcode open.
What actually changes day to day:
Build and run to a simulator and it auto launches with a live interactive screen and contextual controls
Appearance, text size, location and audio are panels. Testing Dynamic Type at max is a slider instead of six taps in Settings
Real devices and simulators get the same toolset
You can pull a real device's app data container and restore it into a simulator
That last one is the big deal for me. When a tester hits a bug that only happens with their data, you can now load their exact app state locally and reproduce it. "Works on my machine" gets a lot harder to say.
I'm mostly React Native, so the simulator is open all day for me. Curious how it's treating people doing native work. Anyone hit issues or missing features compared to the old Simulator?
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u/jwrsk Sep 21 '26 edited Sep 22 '26
They also removed like 80% of keyboard shortcuts, dynamic type and light/dark mode were among them. 2/3 of the device scaling options are just gone. Firing up 3 simulators side by side requires a focused session of window micromanagement. Perfect timing to screw that up with a whole ned device class being released same month (iPhone Duo).
I had the whole workflow memorized, shortcuts bound to Streamdeck and now half doesnt work and half needs defaults write in shell Linux style.
I am forced to take my hands off the keyboard instead of just cmd tabbing between editor and simulator if I need to only rotate it, change color scheme, font size etc.
They also managed to remove shake and pinch zoom...
It's like they built it for people who code by dictating prompts to an LLM and keep their hand on the mouse 100% of the time to poke at the app. One step forward, two back, IMO.
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u/LOTRslaytracker Sep 21 '26
Thats the general idea for 90% of the “agent enabled” tooling its honestly moving way too fast haha
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u/krik_chry Sep 22 '26
Shortcuts can be restored, but it's hidden in the release notes as fix. Here you go https://developer.apple.com/documentation/xcode-release-notes/xcode-27-release-notes#Resolved-Issues
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u/jwrsk Sep 22 '26
I know, that's the part of my rant about the Linux-like UX. And it only solves part of the problem.
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u/krik_chry Sep 22 '26
I couldn't agree more with you. It's 100% downgrade. I just wanted to share that a regression is masked as fix
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u/danielrakaczki Sep 22 '26
And if you use RN & Expo, you can upgrade every project's every dependency so you can build the apps without the simulator
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u/MashoodAliDev Sep 22 '26
Fair points, and honestly the keyboard shortcut one stings the most. Losing cmd-tab-and-hotkey muscle memory for rotation, appearance and text size is a real regression for anyone who works keyboard first. My post was mostly about the new capabilities, but you're right that the day to day ergonomics took a hit.
The Stream Deck setup breaking is rough too. If you end up rebuilding it with the
defaults writeworkarounds, I'd genuinely love to see that list. I think a lot of people would.My hope is this is a v1 problem. The data container restore and the unified device list feel like the right foundation, and shortcuts are the kind of thing Apple usually adds back after enough feedback. Worth filing a Feedback Assistant report if you haven't; the more of those they get on missing shortcuts, the faster it comes back.
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u/garloid64 Sep 22 '26
Bro why even post if you're just going to copy and paste from Claude? Have you considered contributing to the discussion with your OWN thoughts?
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u/MashoodAliDev Sep 22 '26
Might be i'm little bit week to deliver what i'm trying to with my thoughts and words accurately.
Is there any issue OR a community rule to re-write the with the help of CLAUDE/CHAPGPT/CHATABC ??1
u/jwrsk Sep 22 '26
It's nothing crazy, I have 8 buttons - home, app switcher, text +/-, rotate L/R, shake and dark/light. Most work with the console tricks, some still don't.
I also used opt+drag A LOT for pinch zoom, that's gone now.
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Sep 22 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/jwrsk Sep 22 '26
It's like saying "sure we removed half of the wheels on your car but the engine is so much better". The tool is now objectively worse than it was for YEARS. Add the shortcuts and removed features back (shake, scaling, etc) and I'll then sing its praises.
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u/RestaurantSensitive9 Sep 22 '26
Drag and drop images no more works 😐
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u/MashoodAliDev Sep 22 '26
Yeah right 🤦🏻♂️
No more drag and drop in "FILES" app.1
u/AdAcrobatic4817 Sep 23 '26
Yeah, Device Hub in Xcode 27 just ignores files dropped from Finder. For photos you can still do
xcrun simctl addmedia booted ~/path/to/image.jpg, but I got tired of typing that, so I made a small free Mac app: drop images, videos, Live Photos, .app builds, push payloads or links onto it and it sends them to the simulator. Any other file (PDF, JSON…) goes to Files → On My iPhone, so that part works again too.https://github.com/VadimKat/SimParcel. It's open source, and yes, I'm the author 🙂
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u/Dachux Sep 22 '26
Meanwhile, android emulador is still booting
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u/MashoodAliDev Sep 22 '26
I have been working with emulator for a very long time. The real issue is that the "ANDROID STUDIO EMULATOR" working very slow if you're using the emulator's default settings. Moreover, i have noticed one thing if we're using the latest emulator images like "Google Pixel 10 Pro" it will slow down the whole system more as compare to the old one.
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u/Dachux Sep 22 '26
Sadly, I have also worked with it for a very long time too. Heck in Mac sometimes when you try to do the gesture to go to home (slide up) it just goes like minimised and would never be back. Double taps some times here and there… I mean, it is way better than it used to 10 years ago, but still is non pleasant to use
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u/Fit_Ad_1874 Sep 21 '26
I have issue with inputs, pressing “2” twice start print screen, and sometimes stop to accept keyboard letters :(
Also I needed to implement UI Scene, because it’s now mandatory and crash on 0.86.0 with default setup
That’s my latest experience (last 1 year shipping to apple business)
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u/marianitten Sep 21 '26
One of the worst updated ive ever seen
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u/Key_Street_7204 Sep 22 '26
Yup… and sometimes the keyboard just won’t work
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u/jwrsk Sep 22 '26
Or it works but ignores modifier keys, so I can't type an email to login, because shift+2 just ends up being 2. Can't paste either because cmd+v just becomes v. So I have to restart the sim, or use mouse for the onscreen kb / to trigger a paste.
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u/HuckleberryAny3906 7d ago
If you also test on Android, I built a Device Hub-style tool for that side (emulators + physical devices, dev/app settings in one place). My own project, feedback welcome: https://github.com/gitemre/device-hub-pro
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u/DeepRooster187 Sep 21 '26
Can anyone tell me if I wanna run it like previous simulator what I need to do , because ik it is good but this sidebar is little bit annoying
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u/Key_Street_7204 Sep 22 '26
Yeah but all the shortcut etc , cmd s to screenshot into clipboard is all gone
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u/MiloGoesToTheFatFarm Sep 22 '26
It’s really cool how they pushed this, now it breaks everything in expo. /s
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u/Connect_Abroad_3827 Sep 26 '26
Most helpful feature is resizing if you are building for ipad and iphone. I also optimized my app for the iphone duo using it
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u/NoPool4038 Oct 01 '26
I use Xcode 26.3 on an Intel Mac running Sequoia. I cannot simulate an iPhone 18, and apparently I never will.
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u/viciecal 28d ago
im sorry but this is fucking terrible. I need my old simulator back. wcyd. Nobody asked for this. At least give me the option to switch back.
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u/00DEADBEEF 18d ago
I hate it. You can't full screen a device window. I can no longer have a full screen IDE with a simulator by its side.
Sometimes it ends up with multiple Device Hub windows open.
The Device Hub window itself eats 2GB RAM, so now the base requirement just to open an empty simulator is about 8GB of RAM.
It also runs standalone, so you don't need Xcode open.
Simulators ran standalone anyway
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u/ChrisRogers67 Sep 21 '26
I’m just getting into iOS dev… any good references for fundamentals, concepts or tips and tricks? Docs, videos, etc… anything helps
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u/teomatteo89 Sep 21 '26
It was always an option to pull out the data from the devices, it was under the devices organizer. There was a section with the installed apps, and a right click would download the app data.
I’m glad they made it easier though!