14 DAY TRIAL // Apple has released Xcode 4.2 as a free download to all developers and non-developers alike with support for OS X Lion and iOS 5, and SDKs for coding apps for either of the two platforms.
“Xcode is the complete developer toolset for creating applications for Mac, iPhone, and iPad,” reads Apple’s description on the Mac App Store. Users can also access the Apple Developer site to download the goods.
“This package installs the Xcode IDE, the Instruments analysis tool, iOS Simulator, and OS framework bundles in the form of Mac OS X SDKs and iOS SDKs,” Apple adds.
Released in tandem with the 10.7.2 update for OS X Lion customers, Xcode 4.2 is specifically targeted at Lion users. Using it on Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6) is not possible.
So what’s new in Xcode 4.2 for Lion? Well, for starters, Apple has added full support for coding Mac OS X 10.7 Lion apps.
It has the iOS SDK 5 built right inside it, and it brings the Apple LLVM compiler 3.0 with Automatic Reference Counting (ARC).
Older iOS Simulators and device debugging symbols are now downloaded on-demand in version 4.2, which also brings storyboarding support in Interface Builder to design multi-view workflows for iOS, and an OpenGL ES graphical debugger within the main Xcode debugging interface.
Finally, Xcode 4.2 also boasts LLVM compiler support for C++’0x features using the new LLVM libc++ standard library. Additional bug fixes, stability, and performance improvements are documented in the release notes (available for your viewing pleasure in PDF format here).
Xcode 4.2 is a hefty package, so make sure you have enough disk space when you start the download.