I've been trying for months to get Gemini 3.5 Flash to work with Xcode 27 Beta (1-3) agentic coding but have failed. Xcode currently uses Gemini CLI v0.42.0 from last year, so it can't call Gemini 3.5 Flash even though all that needs to change is a few characters in the API call.
Gemini users are currently forced to choose between 3.1 Pro and 3.1 Flash Preview--both weren't the best choices two months ago, but with the release of 3.6 Flash which is better at coding that 3.1 Pro and miles cheaper, these choices are now unsuitable for any serious workload.
I live in Hong Kong, where OpenAI and Anthropic services aren't offered, so Google is the only (native) AI provider for Xcode agentic coding. The cost issue from funneling all the work into 3.1 Pro is terrible especially with some agent bugs that have yet to be ironed out.
Given Apple's close partnership with Google on AI, I'm genuinely surprised that after 4 Betas we're still using a Gemini CLI from 2025 that forces users to choose between two very unappealing models. Xcode is basically forcing Google users to switch to OpenAI/Anthropic.
Questions:
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I'd like to know if this will be fixed soon and whether Google users should expect slower updates (i.e. be forced to use older models).
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Does anyone know of any workarounds?