14 DAY TRIAL // Apple has seeded Xcode 4 Developer Preview 6 to those enrolled with its $99-a-year program. Available as a free download from the Mac maker’s Developer web site, Xcode 4 Preview 6 is a pre-release version of Xcode for both Mac and iOS development.
According to the technical documentation accompanying the build, this release requires Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.
The DMG file that developers download includes iOS SDK 4.2 GM seed, which targets both Mac and iOS platforms.
Apple asks programmers to review the release notes and readme before installing the software.
According to at least two separate reports, Xcode 4 Preview 6 contains new features, such as Performance Measurement and Analysis, General Enhancements, including the ability to specify whether to create schemes automatically with the“Autocreate schemes” option, as well as resolved issues, including:
- Xcode doesn’t strip newline characters from the scripts in Run Script scheme actions - Duplicating a scheme doesn’t result in a new scheme with broken target references - When the active scheme is a unit-test scheme, clicking Run in the toolbar doesn’t produce an unknown error dialog.
Newly emerged issues are also documented, with Apple reportedly noting that Performance Measurement and Analysis Multicore and Dispatch templates don’t work.
Time Profiler and System Trace won’t work either, according to the documentation posted by 9to5mac.com.
Developers must restart their computer, following the installation of Xcode 4 Preview 6, in order to use these functions again.
Apple also informs devs that if their computer contains more than one release of Xcode, the Dock time profiler will not work correctly.
Developers must add the Instruments application in the appropriate Xcode release to the Dock and restart their computer to fix this.
Those enrolled with Apple’s Developer program can visit the Mac maker’s website here and download the latest coding tools available.