Bitrig makes building a native Swift app easier than ever

There is no shortage of AI tools promising to turn a sentence into a working app. Most of them quietly hand you a web app in a native shell and hope you don't look too closely.

Bitrig is taking a different swing. You describe what you want to build, and it generates real Swift and SwiftUI that you can read, edit, and ship to the App Store. The pitch is simple, but the people making it are the reason I keep using it.

Real Swift, not a web app in disguise

The code Bitrig produces is the same Swift and SwiftUI you'd write by hand. You can open it, change it, and learn from it, and you can export the whole project whenever you want. That alone separates it from a lot of the "describe it and ship it" crowd, where the output is a black box you're not really meant to touch.

The workflow is conversational. You tell Bitrig what to change in plain English, it updates the code, and a simulator running right next to your editor reflects the change immediately. You're not guessing at what your app looks like or waiting on a separate build step. You see what your users will see as you go. And it isn't limited to one device. You can build for iPhone, iPad, Apple Watch, and Mac from the same place.

Real Swift code

Bitrig generates actual Swift and SwiftUI—the same code you'd write by hand. You can read it, edit it, and learn from it.

Conversational workflow

Tell Bitrig what to change in plain English. It updates the code and the simulator reflects it immediately.

Integrated simulator

Your app runs in a real iPhone simulator right next to your code. You see exactly what your users will see.

The part that makes me take it seriously

What excites me is who is behind this. Bitrig is built by co-creators and longtime members of Apple's SwiftUI team. CEO Kyle Macomber, along with co-founders Jacob Xiao and Matt Ricketson, all co-created and led the development of SwiftUI at Apple, with past work spanning the Swift standard library, UIKit, Xcode, and tvOS.

Design co-founder Tim Donnelly built Storehouse, an Apple Design Award winning app later acquired by Square, and worked on SwiftUI and Xcode Previews during his time at Apple.

That pedigree matters here in a way it wouldn't for a generic code generator. These are the people who designed the framework Bitrig is generating. The company frames its own mission as a continuation of what SwiftUI started, which it describes as lowering the barrier to entry "without lowering the standard for quality."

That's a high bar to set for yourself, and it's exactly the right one for a tool aimed at people who care about craft but find traditional native development intimidating.

Build on the go with Bitrig Remote

The newest piece is Bitrig Remote, a companion app for iPhone and iPad, currently on TestFlight, that connects to Bitrig running on your Mac so you can keep building away from your desk.

It leans on frontier agents powered by Claude Code and Codex, using Anthropic and OpenAI's latest models, and streams iPhone, iPad, and Watch simulators so you can interact with your app as it changes.

Frontier Agents

Powered by Claude Code and Codex, using Anthropic and OpenAI’s latest models.

Bring Your Own Subscription

Connect a Claude or ChatGPT subscription to use alongside, or instead of, your Bitrig credits.

Full Xcode Projects

Work on your existing codebase. Build, test, and run your existing schemes and targets.

Go Beyond the App

Build Widgets, Live Activities, and Controls. Integrate with Shortcuts, Siri, Spotlight.

Streaming Simulator

Stream iPhone, iPad, and Watch simulators. Interact with your app directly as it changes.

GitHub Integration

Make changes and contribute them back through the GitHub workflow your team already uses.

It's more capable than I expected from a phone. Remote works on full Xcode projects, so you can open an existing codebase, build and run your real schemes and targets, and push changes back through your team's GitHub workflow. You can go beyond a basic app too, building Widgets, Live Activities, and Controls, and wiring into Shortcuts, Siri, and Spotlight. The supported list runs deep, including Liquid Glass, the Dynamic Island, App Intents, Apple Intelligence, and iOS 26 features.

Remote connects to your Mac, so your Mac has to be powered on and online, and you'll need an iPhone or iPad on iOS 26 or later.

What it costs

Bitrig has a real free tier. You get 10 daily credits, up to 60 a month, and you can build native apps for all four Apple platforms, export your code at any time, and ship without any Bitrig branding or watermarks. Credits get consumed each time you chat with Bitrig to build or change your app, scaled to how complex the task is.

Bitrig Plus starts at $25 a month and steps up through credit tiers from 200 to 1,600 a month. Plus adds the ability to bring your own Claude or ChatGPT subscription, rollover for unused credits for one month, access to more powerful models, priority support, and distribution to TestFlight and the App Store.

One thing to plan for, distributing to TestFlight or the App Store requires a paid Apple Developer Account, which runs $99 a year and is separate from Bitrig.

The Mac app needs macOS 15 or later and Apple silicon.

Bottom line

I'm optimistic about this one. The category is crowded and noisy, but Bitrig is making a specific, harder promise than most.

Real native code, your code, built with the help of the people who built SwiftUI in the first place. If it continues to live up to that, it could be the easiest path yet from "I have an idea" to "it's on my phone." If you've always wanted to make an app but felt overwhelmed by Xcode, Bitrig is the perfect place for you.