All About Creating a Project With Xcode

Jan 06, 2026 Xcode

The article walks through every single step involved in creating a new project with Xcode, explains why each option exists, and what choices actually matter in real-world development.

Open Xcode and you see this:

Introduction

Xcode is Apple’s official IDE for building software across Apple platforms Apple

Apple says

Xcode offers the tools you need to develop, test, and distribute apps for Apple platforms, including predictive code completion, generative intelligence powered by the best coding models, advanced profiling and debugging tools, and simulators for Apple devices.

Important to Know

Summary

Languages: Swift, Objective-C
Other Languages: C/C++, Metal
Frameworks: SwiftUI, UIKit, AppKit, Foundation, Combine, Core Data & many more
Platforms: iOS, macOS, watchOS, tvOS, visionOS

Prerequisites

Before starting make sure you have

Mac with a recent macOS version that supports the latest Xcode.
Xcode installed from AppStore or Apple. 1 2
Apple Developer Account that you can add in Xcode for code signing
For Windows, use a remote Mac, a cloud Mac service, or dual boot into macOS, because Xcode runs only on macOS.

Starting A New Xcode Project

When you open Xcode, you’ll see the Welcome Window.

As you can see in the figure, there are 3 options to choose from:

Create New Project…
Clone Git Repository…
Open Existing Project…

Let’s look at each option and what it does

Create New Project starts a new project from scratch. Xcode just creates basic files to get you going and does everything else, such as linking, and putting values to plist files. You can run this project, and you’ll see a scene with a Globe and Hello World!

Clone Git Repository asks for a repository link. If you have a project already pushed to any git services, you’ll be able to download that and open the xcodeproj or xcworkspace file. If Xcode fails to open the project for some reason, find the project file with the extensions mentioned and open it.

Open Existing Project enables you to open any local project either downloaded from git or not. Although, recently opened projects will be listed in the right panel.

Platforms and Templates

Choosing a platform is what decides which devices your app will be deployed to, or in simple words, which devices would be able to download and run your app.

Available Platforms

iOS

creates apps for iPhone and iPad apps

macOS

creates apps for MacBooks, Mac Minis etc., running macOS

watchOS

creates apps for Apple Watch

tvOS

creates apps for Apple TV

visionOS

creates apps for Apple Vision Pro

Multuplatform

creates apps that is configured to be run on any number of platforms mentioned here

Templates are what dictate which type of codebase this is. There are several templates for each platform. Some templates or types are shared by platforms and some are platform specific.

Most Used Templates

App

A standard application template for building user-facing apps across Apple platforms.

Game

A template optimized for games using technologies like SpriteKit, SceneKit, or Metal.

App Playground

A lightweight, interactive environment for experimenting with app code and UI without a full project.

Framework

A reusable code library meant to be shared across apps or distributed to other developers.

Command Line Tool

A template for building executable programs that run in the terminal, typically used for scripts, utilities, and backend-style logic without a UI.

Important Project Configurations

Project configurations set some basic parameters. These settings are not absolute but crucial for the project to get started. You define the name of the project and languages to be used in this step along with if you need any storage, and, what type, should you choose to use it.

Even though these settings are not set in stone but the name of the project which beconds the name of the target is rather difficult to change later.

Configure Xcode project — Xcode project configuration

Let’s now get to know the fields one by one, shall we?

Product Name

The display name of your app and the name used for the main target in Xcode.

Team

The Apple Developer account used for code signing, provisioning, and App Store distribution.

Organization Identifier

A reverse-DNS identifier (usually your domain) that namespaces your app.

Bundle Identifier

A globally unique identifier for your app, derived from the organization identifier and product name.

Interface

Determines whether the UI is built using SwiftUI, Storyboards, or XIBs.

Language

The primary programming language used for the project source code.

Testing System

Configures unit tests and UI tests used to validate app behavior.

Storage

Specifies whether the project includes persistence options like Core Data.

Host in CloudKit

Enables CloudKit support for syncing app data across devices.

here is the introduction to creating projects with Xcode. We can’t wait to see what great apps you create. 🍀