14 DAY TRIAL // Apple is addressing the developer community with another beta build of the nearly finished OS X Lion, the company’s eighth Mac OS iteration, and the most promising one by far.
Those enrolled with Apple’s $99-a-year developer program are being told that “The eighth major release of the world's most advanced operating system challenges the accepted way of doing things by introducing new features that change the way you use a computer.”
Apple claims that OS X Lion Developer Preview 4 “features over 3,000 new APIs covering a range of new technologies and capabilities that you can incorporate into your apps.”
Developers are encouraged to start developing their applications as soon as possible so that Apple can feature them in the Mac App Store when Lion ships next month.
Developers running Lion Preview 3 will not be able to obtain the new version via Software Update.
Instead, Apple has them paying a visit to the Mac Dev Center to get a code with which they can ultimately redeem Lion Preview 4 from the Mac App Store.
“To obtain your copy of this new release, get a redemption code from the Mac Dev Center,” reads one of Apple’s newest posts on the News and Announcements section for Apple developers.
“Then proceed to the Mac App Store to redeem your code and download the fourth developer preview of Mac OS X Lion,” Apple outlines.
The Cupertino, California-based technology giant also confirms that developers looking to code under Lion will need to employ Xcode 4.1 Developer Preview 6, which can only be obtained from the Mac Dev Center.
An older version of Xcode that doesn’t work on Lion can be found on Apple’s Mac App Store with a 5 dollar price tag and support for Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard.