Disclaimer: i left C++ behind 8 years ago, so if you're using Visual Studio as a C++ IDE, I trust your opinion. I used Visual Studio as C# IDE for 7 years, and...
* Autocomplete - the XCode way to do autocomplete drives me crazy. Why XCode hides what I'm typing with it's guess? Regarding Visual Studio autocomplete: you start typing variable. The autocomplete narrows your choice. You press up arrow/down arrow, enter/tab, you're there. And the choice is always relevant, instead of "I'll put just everything I can think of" XCode autocomplete
* Quick open - which Visual Studio version you're using? In VS 2013 you can press Ctrl+, and get essentially the same functionality as XCode. Type file name, symbol name, enter, the file is open.
* Syntax/Error/Warning - Visual Studio gives you extra help if something isn't quite right. You typed "Regex" and there's red squiggly line? Place the cursor there and press Ctrl+. What's that? An option to include System.Text.RegularExpressions namespace automatically? Or you typed parameter name that doesn't exists? XCode will curse you, Visual Studio will offer (via Ctrl+.) to make the method for you, and it will infer return value and type of parameters from your code. That's great way to start writing class from scratch, and I miss it in XCode.
* Debugging - again, I can't argue about C++ debugger, but C# debugger is actually much more powerful than XCode debugger. You can inspect variable values in tooltips, there's powerful visualizers, there's an option to pin tooltips with values so they're always visible (even when the program stops, so you can see the last value while fixing the error) and last and not least - very, very powerful Immediate window, sort of REPL for C#. I hope LLDB will have something similar for Swift.
And there's much more that Visual Studio provides. Code Lenses (only in Ultimate version, but still). Code Peek - XCode sorta have something similar in Assistant Editor, but not quite. Find References. Call Hierarchy. And that's just the basic Visual Studio (now free) functionality. With Resharper it's completely different beast.
I never knew about that Ctrl+,. Thanks for pointing it out. I don't think it is as powerful as XCodes, XCode does more fuzzy matching. I think (don't have mac open to check) in XCode if I have a file called ClientsController and I type ClientC it will bring up ClientsController. In VS it seems I have to know I want the plural ClientsController..
You are spot on with your other points though re debugging and syntax fixing. VS is better than XCode in many ways, but I would say not so much that XCode should be despised as satans spawn.
* Autocomplete - the XCode way to do autocomplete drives me crazy. Why XCode hides what I'm typing with it's guess? Regarding Visual Studio autocomplete: you start typing variable. The autocomplete narrows your choice. You press up arrow/down arrow, enter/tab, you're there. And the choice is always relevant, instead of "I'll put just everything I can think of" XCode autocomplete
* Quick open - which Visual Studio version you're using? In VS 2013 you can press Ctrl+, and get essentially the same functionality as XCode. Type file name, symbol name, enter, the file is open.
* Syntax/Error/Warning - Visual Studio gives you extra help if something isn't quite right. You typed "Regex" and there's red squiggly line? Place the cursor there and press Ctrl+. What's that? An option to include System.Text.RegularExpressions namespace automatically? Or you typed parameter name that doesn't exists? XCode will curse you, Visual Studio will offer (via Ctrl+.) to make the method for you, and it will infer return value and type of parameters from your code. That's great way to start writing class from scratch, and I miss it in XCode.
* Debugging - again, I can't argue about C++ debugger, but C# debugger is actually much more powerful than XCode debugger. You can inspect variable values in tooltips, there's powerful visualizers, there's an option to pin tooltips with values so they're always visible (even when the program stops, so you can see the last value while fixing the error) and last and not least - very, very powerful Immediate window, sort of REPL for C#. I hope LLDB will have something similar for Swift.
And there's much more that Visual Studio provides. Code Lenses (only in Ultimate version, but still). Code Peek - XCode sorta have something similar in Assistant Editor, but not quite. Find References. Call Hierarchy. And that's just the basic Visual Studio (now free) functionality. With Resharper it's completely different beast.