14 DAY TRIAL // Previously only available to registered Apple developers, Xcode 4.6 is now available as a free download in the Mac App Store with SDKs for OS X 10.8 and iOS 6.1.
In tandem with the release of iOS 6.1 for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad, Apple pushed out the latest version of Xcode, the company’s developer toolset for coding iOS and Mac apps for digital distribution on its acclaimed App Stores.
Xcode 4.6 is a free download from the Mac App Store and includes SDKs (software development kits) for OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion and iOS 6.1, more accurate code completion heuristics with an optimized default data set, and new compiler warnings that help developers identify potential bugs when using ARC and weak references.
There’s more. The new Xcode has built-in support for C++11 for “user defined literals” and “unrestricted unions” features. The debugger included by default with the toolset can now inspect elements within NSArray or NSDictionary objects.
Developers relying on the “Analyze” function to code their apps will be glad to learn that the tool now performs deeper cross-function static analysis of Objective-C and C++ code.
Also worth noting is that Apple has been able to reduce the number of indexing passes due to improved dependency checking.
The usual bag of fixes and stability improvements is also incorporated in this release.
“Xcode provides everything developers need to create great applications for Mac, iPhone, and iPad,” says Apple.
“Xcode 4 has been streamlined to help you write better apps. It has unified user interface design, coding, testing, and debugging all within a single window.”
“The Xcode IDE analyzes the details of your project to identify mistakes in both syntax and logic, it can even help fix your code for you,” Apple markets the goods.